Politics
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China’s Media Crackdown
Earlier this week Google pulled out of China. The Chinese government is now seeking to “control how Chinese media portray Google’s decision.” The Washington Post has “reprinted the government’s instructions” to domestic news sites. “The instructions were obtained and translated…
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“Why was such criminal behavior tolerated?”
“This month, Pope Benedict XVI wrote a pastoral letter of apology — of sorts — to Ireland to atone for decades of sexual abuse of minors by priests whom those children were supposed to trust. To many people in my…
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Investigations into Politics and Punk: The Photography of Mark Murrmann
I’ve just started walking with photographer Mark Murrmann down Polk Street in San Francisco, and already he’s busted out his camera and started snapping shots of a street construction project. For Murrmann, no scene is too mundane to make memorable.
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Is Google Just the Beginning?
“A new survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in China says that a growing number of U.S. companies feel unwelcome in China—thirty-eight per cent, up from twenty-three per cent in 2008—the highest level of dissatisfaction recorded in the four…
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Google Pulls Out of China
“Earlier today we stopped censoring our search services—Google Search, Google News, and Google Images—on Google.cn. Users visiting Google.cn are now being redirected to Google.com.hk, where we are offering uncensored search in simplified Chinese, specifically designed for users in mainland China…
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On Graduate School in the Humanities
“(W)e must think of graduate school as more like choosing to go to New York to become a painter or deciding to travel to Hollywood to become an actor. Those arts-based careers have always married hope and desperation into a…
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“sharpening our tongues for a chance at real life”
“If “all the world’s a stage,” then the internet is where we rehearse our lines, sharpening our tongues for a chance at real life.” — Jimmy Chen over at GIANT takes a look at a chat roulette meeting between a…
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Time For A Vote
“I think a lot of those people (protesting against the bill) today demonstrated this is not about health care. It’s about trying to extend a basic fundamental right to people who are less powerful.” — House Majority Whip James Clyburn,…
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DoD vs. WikiLeaks
WikiLeaks, “the Internet service that offers whistleblowers an opportunity to publish documents that expose corruption and wrongdoing by state and private actors,” has drawn the ire of many corporations in the past, not to mention “North Korea, China, Zimbabwe, and…
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Totalitarian Kitsch
“It is the official art of authoritarian governments, aimed at extending state control through propaganda. Totalitarian kitsch exists to glorify the state, foster a personality cult surrounding the dictator and celebrate ceaseless and irrevocable social and economic progress through images…
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Google.cn Update
So Google still hasn’t pulled out of China. But today the company unblocked previously censored sites: “Web sites dealing with subjects such as the Tiananmen Square democracy protests, Tibet and regional independence movements could all be accessed through Google’s Chinese…