Slob Nation: Why Do So Many People Today Dress Like Hobos in Public?

I've complained on here before about the way people--Americans in particular--dress today, but the topic is worth revisiting. The massive decline in dressing nicely and appropriately in our country has gotten so bad that Bill Maher addressed our world of "slob culture" on Real Time in October 2013 (when Crocs were introduced in the late 90s, Maher quipped that people won't be happy until they can go shopping in a diaper) and I've read numerous blog posts attesting to how our European counterparts dress compared to us (hint: we've really let ourselves go.)

The Grandmother Who Fought Porn: Mary Avara

Photo copyright Baltimore Sun via DigitalFortress for the Baltimore Sun

If you went to see a movie in a Maryland theater between 1960 and 1981, then anything you watched--even if it was a Disney film--was approved by Mary Avara and her movie censor board. For 21 years, Avara served as the head of The Maryland State Board of Censors. A feisty Catholic Italian grandmother who invoked the ire of filmmakers and movie critics, she gained celebrity status in the 1970s because of her fierce stance on pornographic pictures, making several appearances on TV talk shows hosted by Merv Griffin, Dick Cavett and Mike Douglas, as well as The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson. 

Mickey Rooney's Racist Role

Mickey Rooney passed away earlier this week at the age of 93, and he's being remembered for many beloved roles; as a horse lover, two that come to mind instantly for me are the jaded jockey Mi Taylor in National Velvet, and the aging horse trainer Henry Dailey in The Black Stallion. But another role--which was omitted in many online retrospectives of Rooney's career--is memorable because of its awfulness, and that was when he portrayed a Japanese man in the film adaptation of Breakfast at Tiffany's.