Politics
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Pimp This Bum
As Amazon, eBay, and the 2008 Presidential election demonstrated, the Internet is a great revenue stream. Well, two guys out of Houston (Sean and Kevin Dolan) decided to harness its power for the benefit of the homeless – at least…
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Let Them Eat Clicks
I have a piece in Friday’s Slate about Amazon.com’s seemingly nonexistent corporate philanthropy — and more importantly, whether that should matter. But I hid the real barb in the tail of the piece:
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What’s Good for General Motors Was…
…maybe not so great for you. I’m in this week’s New Scientist with a piece on the Cornell-Liberty Mutual Survival Car, and the tremendous resistance safety reforms faced from Detroit in the 1950s and 1960s:
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Eliza Doolittle in the White House
In her essay “Speaking in Tongues” in The New York Review of Books, February 26, 2009, Zadie Smith examines Barack Obama’s doubleness, not just his biracial genetic history but how he inhabits multiple voices. She reviews his first book Dreams…
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Destructo Swarmbots On the Verge
First there were cyborg rats. Then came electroneural Shark and Awe. All part of DARPA’s ongoing effort to weaponize the animal kingdom, which is all part of DARPA’s ongoing effort to weaponize everything, including the weather. But for now, let’s…
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Yelling ‘Bout Yelp
The San Francisco-based website Yelp allows users to post reviews of businesses. The idea’s simple enough: trust consumers to tell you the truth about the kind of service you’ll get at this or that restaurant, or the kind of waits…
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The Rumpus Long Interview with Bill Ayers
The Unrepentant Terrorist? Founder of the Weather Underground, and favorite whipping boy of the failed McCain campaign, Bill Ayers talks to The Rumpus about the ’60s, the present, and his fans in the Chicago Police Department.
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Private Sector Detention
Last week Pennsylvania judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. plead guilty to illegally prosecuting minors, in order to get kickbacks from privately-run juvenile detention centers. Children were sentenced to three months incarceration for making fun of their teachers on MySpace. The judge had…
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In Afghanistan with The Walrus
Aren’t pleasant surprises great? Especially when they are a bright spot in the otherwise dark horizon print publishing? Somehow, I had missed entirely that there was a magazine called The Walrus. Moreover, it is a solid, quality, long form magazine.…
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WWJD (What Will Jack (Bauer) Do)?
WWJD (What Will Jack (Bauer) Do)? During the presidential campaign, many people worried that a president Obama wouldn’t be able to create new jobs. But I don’t think anyone ever envisioned that in one of his first acts in office…
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Terrifying Nixon-Era Children’s Books
Ever since shoving Bush into his helicopter with an expletive and fantasizing about letting go of Cheney’s wheelchair at the top of a long, steep hill, I find I have a tender place in my heart for the plight of…
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The New York Times Tackles Lesbian Separatism
Keeping the fires of fledgling feminism stoked is the responsibility of the Alapine lesbian community in the region of the Appalachians in northeastern Alabama. “Community” has become a loose term in this day and age, reflecting more a mentality during…