The feverish over-reaction to the weekend revelation in Rolling Stone that two-time Oscar-winning actor Sean Penn had interviewed a recently recaptured Mexican drug lord points up some of the biggest toxic dynamics in our media culture.

I just finished watching the new HBO documentary, Heroin: Cape Cod. It is a raw, up close and personal account of the heroin epidemic currently gripping our nation, as told by those who know addiction best -- active users.

Having grown up in Manhattan, and gotten lost in many a monumental edition of the Sunday Times, I understand and sympathize with the fact that, well, it's not always easy to see smaller cities for the humble but pleasant places that they (sometimes) are.

Overall, I sense that the concept of joking about trans persons is coming to end as the jokes themselves are more nuanced and much less hostile. As people get to know more of us, we'll no longer be one of the easier targets, and the jokes will fade away.

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Where are the David Bowies in our modern society? Where are the people in positions of power who look beyond themselves and say, "I want to hear from those who don't look/act/think like me"?

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Newspapers have a product that people want and need while social media platforms -- Facebook being a prime example -- have a tremendously large audience hungry for that product. Isn't this the basis for a mutually beneficial partnership?

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Twitter users in Mexico accused authorities of using the much-publicized chase, not to mention the bizarre Sean Penn interview, to distract the media from social and economic ills plaguing their country.

Twitter's proposed character increase is underway with up to 10,000 embedded characters that can be indexed--unlike the current trend of attaching screenshots or other images that are useless for cataloguing our precious dialogues.

Does Gerson really believe that the Republican Party in which Trump has risen to be the frontrunner embodies "respect for institutions"? What world is he living in?

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I encourage the Chinese leadership to consider whether the imbalance between maintaining domestic stability and stifling free speech and limiting free access to information will eventually impair Chinese citizens, as well as China's true national potential.

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Not that any of the pro-gun, anti-Obama rhetoric was unexpected. But what provoked the greatest amount of attention on both sides of the political spectrum was the discussion at the end of the event when the president derisively dismissed the idea of gun confiscation as a "conspiracy theory" that had no basis in reality or truth.

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The latest Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens, is a golden goose. Everything in its path has turned to gold, including Twitter parody accounts. Emo Kylo Ren, @KyloR3n, is officially now its own blockbuster.

Sarah O'Malley

If some one read or saw Wild and got inspired to outfit themselves and take to a trail that is a good thing. That is one more person exploring the benefits of an enhanced relationship with the natural world. Does it really matter what inspired them to do it?

You know as I do if you don't have a plan you will end up here, there and everywhere and the next thing you know the time has gone by with nothing more than reading a lot of post headlines and articles with no real social connecting.

The murder by Islamic militants of eight cartoonists and journalists, followed by the terror attacks in Paris in November in which a freelance rock critic was one of the 130 victims, led to France being listed by CPJ as the second-most deadly country for journalists, behind only Syria.

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The press seems too nervous to call out the dangerous and disgusting behavior. People who cover politics know that what's unfolding at the Trump rallies is unheard of. They know it's extraordinary. They know it's potentially very dangerous.