1960s sex (and drugs) advice columnist "Dr. Hip" . . .

...seemed to pave the way for "Savage Love" column by Dan Savage in today's alternative weeklies.

Obama Administration vs. Journalists and Their (Unofficial) Sources

New report documents the history of an administration that had promised transparency.

From student blogs

Halloween costumes that are alternatives to Disney princesses (H/t Allie).

Alex L achieves the impossible -- catching McChesney and yours truly with our mouths shut.

Manger Sanger -- flawed heroine

Sanger is proof that media heroes are sometimes flawed. This article from Women's E-News discusses her flirtation with eugenics-oriented arguments in support of birth control in the early 1920s.

Dinner with Amy Goodman

In the early 1900s, the socialist Appeal to Reason newspaper offered yachts, fruit farms and motorcycles as premiums to bring in revenue and subscriptions. Democracy Now! offers Dinner and a Show with Amy Goodman.

After meeting Amy at a dinner party, Regis and his sidekick acknowledge that their Regis and Kelly TV show is about "nothing."

Who is today's Upton Sinclair? Steve Colbert

Stephen Colbert accepted the challenge of experiencing difficult working conditions. Here he is doing farm labor.

Students today carry on Ida B. Wells' legacy

In last dozen years, Northwestern University journalism students and their professor have been instrumental in proving the innocence of many prisoners in Illinois, several of whom had been sentenced to death. Their investigative journalism ultimately sparked the abolition of the death penalty in Illinois

Lynching prompted the classic Billie Holiday song,"Strange Fruit," which she recorded independently in 1939 -- getting around the objections of Columbia, her record label: "Black bodies swinging in the Southern breeze, strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees." It ultimately became her biggest selling record. Time magazine denounced the song as a "piece of musical propaganda." The song's lyrics were inspired by this photograph of a 1930 lynching in Indiana.

Re Legacy:How many newspaper editors who ignored or apologized for racist lynchings have schools named after them? Ida B. Wells High School is in San Francisco (just across the park from the famous "painted ladies" Victorian houses.)