Politics
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Wikileaks Roundup
In my TED roundup on Saturday, I linked to a conversation with Julian Assange of Wikileaks, an organization which has, according to Assange, released more classified documents in the last few years than the world’s media organizations combined. Their latest…
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How To Give a F$@#
Some days everything goes wrong. Like today, when I called the NYTBR the NYTRB on Twitter, or when I linked to the wrong thing on the book blog roundup, or when I almost ran over a San Francisco marathon runner…
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Racism in the City: Bloomberg for Pot Smoking Preppies
In an article printed in The New York Times earlier this week, journalist Jim Dwyer explores just how much mayor Michael Bloomberg admires his mirrored image and the sound of his own voice. What’s his hidden agenda? Well it seems…
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Evangelical, Pastor, Gay, Out… What Now?
Sometimes around dusk (I was probably six or seven years old), I would look out my bedroom window and see the sky turning orange and purple, and the setting sun turning red like blood, and I was sure the end…
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At Least The Republicans are Being Honest
…about being dishonest. This article should have been titled “Republicans Freely Admit They Have No Ideas,” since it basically is an on-the-record admission by GOP strategists that their mid-term strategy, which is the culmination of two years of GOP opposition…
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“Why We Created the Atomic Bomb.”
“Had I known that the fear was not justified, I would not have participated in opening this Pandora’s box […] For my distrust of governments was not limited to Germany. Einstein’s thoughts, later in life, about this letter, which he…
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Top Secret
“The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how…
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Here’s Some Essays I Like
A couple weeks ago, I linked to a bunch of very short stories — stories that were superbly written but that only took a few moments to read. People seemed to like that, so today, I’m doing the same thing…
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Saving Libraries Without A Shirt
“I’m handsome.” “Let’s eat peanut butter.” “Stop throwing pigeons.” “All of these simple statements and requests would never be possible to communicate if it wasn’t for the words stored in books that are available for free, en masse, at libraries.”…
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“An Elegy to Oscar Grant”
“I wanted to write an intelligent & coherent critique of the #OscarGrant verdict but I couldn’t. The logic wasn’t in my heart; just the poem.” “The poem I just posted on my blog is made entirely of links to other…
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Mullets Illegal in Iran
According to the Iranian Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance, mullets are now illegal. And that’s not it: pony tails, spiky hair, and long hair in general—on men at least—have been deemed “decadent western hairstyles.” But as much as many…
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“The Slavoj Zizek Show”
“Take my friend Peter, for example, fucking Sloterdijk. I like him a lot, but he’ll obviously have to be sent to the gulag. He’ll be in a slightly better position there. Perhaps he could work as a cook.” In Der…