This feels like an academic debate. But it isn’t. I have blood on my hands. However many times I try to wash them, the blood will not come off. Andrew Sullivan, on the explanations and mea culpas given by those like himself who supported the Iraq War. Warning: Image that accompanies the above link is pretty freaking awful. Read more
Because, obviously, if I’m going to get a medium-sized Bluetooth speaker, I’m also going to need a stapler. Q.E.D. Bonus: The stapler apparently runs on Windows. Of course, I hate having to defrag those things. Read more
Mike Daisey, in a Facebook comment thread, confronts a former CNN vice-president with the press’s blindness to its own sickness, in the wake of CNN’s much-derided coverage of the Steubenville rape trial: This is an absolutely perfect example of a story that tells all the facts in front of these reporters, and they have totally failed to tell the truth of the story. To the rejoinder, “Kindly tell me your journalism training,” Daisey responds: And here would be the bullshit... Read more
This is an experiment. I’m interested in perhaps — perhaps! — beginning a podcast project, in which I’d read selections from this blog on a semi-regular basis. For now, in order to avoid podcast “episodes” that last only four or five minutes, I’m thinking about grouping posts together that follow a certain theme. For example, I might find three or four recent pieces about technology, and record those as a single episode. Here is my first highly experimental stab at... Read more
This is a dream I had a couple of nights ago. I was entering some kind of convention hall along with an excited and somewhat hip throng of people (I, of course, was in no way hip). I didn’t enter alone, though my companions were unidentifiable to me, sort of faceless. I don’t know who they were even though I “knew” them as the time. Whomever it was directed alerted me to the presence of one person who seemed to... Read more
Jennifer Michael Hecht is one of my favorite writers, and in her review of Susan Jacoby’s new book on Robert Ingersoll, she leaves me with this haunting thought: There have been atheists and religious doubters throughout history, but the ones who remain famous after their deaths tend to have been equally famous for something else as well; otherwise, people most notable for their bravery in the face of religious conservatism have to be celebrated by a population equally brave, and... Read more
As a performing artist, here’s a thing I’ve definitely fretted over; doing art only for an audience of people who all do the same thing. Here’s Steve Almond at The New Republic writing from the Association of Writers and Writing Programs conference (AWP): But there’s a larger and more unsettling truth. . . one that AWP inadvertently drives home: As a pursuit, literature is in a phase of incestuous contraction. Yes, people still read novels and stories and essays and... Read more
I enjoy Twitter during big public events, especially those that are incredibly silly. One such kind of event would be, say, a GOP candidates’ debate. Today, we had the announcement of the new pope, which is even sillier because at least with Republican presidential candidates, only some of them think they were anointed by God. Here are some selections of my papal tweeting that I and others found most amusing. I am REALLY hoping the new pope comes out and... Read more
I don’t know what to do in the face of hospitality. It confuses me, frightens me. Prime example: On our honeymoon, the wife and I were stranded by our cruise ship because our plane had mechanical trouble, so we had to instead fly to where the boat would meet up with us. Luckily, her mother booked us into this Westin fortress-resort on St. Maarten’s. I didn’t know anything about anything, so off we went. So here we are in the... Read more
The damsel in distress cliche, enshrined in our video games. This is fantastic. I’ll definitely be watching more of Anita Sarkeesian’s videos. Read more
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