#LukeCageMatters

Marvel’s Luke Cage on Netflix is not your typical comics-to-screen project. It contains heavier amounts of profanity (including the first Marvel use of the “n word”). It takes place in Harlem. It gets heavily political, rather than merely nodding to current events. And it feels very real.

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The Victorian Legacy of Harry Potter

It began with a boy with a lightning bolt on his forehead on a train. And just as the idea came to Rowling, a Dickensian novel could have started out like this: a little orphan boy with a mark on his face being laid at the door of some snobbish middle class brick-heads.
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The Avett Brothers’ True Sadness in Roanoke—concert (and album) Review 11-19-16

Now what? The Avetts have gone everything now, but they did so slowly. Chart their last three albums, and you can tell they have merged from a heavy rock-centered bluegrass band into a more electric, pop-centered, all-American band. But they didn’t sell out after one or two original albums. They re-centered themselves naturally after half a dozen of the work they first came to be known for. They haven’t lost touch with their roots.
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The Myth of a Pro-Life Donald Trump

With the election of Donald Trump, many conservative Christians are celebrating their vision of an America where abortions will occur less, and the possibility that one day soon abortion will be completely outlawed. In fact, the promise of stopping abortion was for many on-the-fence Christians the tipping point that led them to ultimately support Donald Trump and cast their vote for him. We’ll tolerate everything nasty and despicable about this horrible man, the idea goes, if we can use him to stop abortion.

Firstly, Donald Trump only recently “converted” to the anti-abortion cause, so America should be skeptical about both his commitment to the cause and his method of pursuing it. Did he become pro-life in order to gain votes? Does he know the best strategy? Will his speeches touch the hearts of pro-choice Americans to reconsider their views? Will he communicate well with the Supreme Court? These are important questions. Most of Trump’s statements on abortion since his anti-abortion “conversion” have been clumsy, illogical, myopic, narcissistic, and antagonistic toward women. The President Elect has spoken to pro-life voters promising them a turning of the tables.
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