Never Mind the Torture Report; The Situation is as Bad as Ever
Today the Senate Intelligence Committee is set to release a report on the CIA’s use of torture in the years after 9-11, but the contents of the report are practically irrelevant since the decision not...
View ArticleWhat is the Meaning of Life?
How is that for an ambitious question? So what is the meaning of life? Well, if you ask most people from a complex, industrial society, you will get a lot of unsure answers. Occasionally, you will get...
View ArticleSuper-Tech Makes Democracy Impossible
Google CEO Eric Schmidt and Director of Google Ideas Jared Cohen recently wrote in their book The New Digital Age that “What Lockheed Martin was to the 20th century, technology and cybersecurity...
View ArticleWe’re Not in Kansas Anymore, This is Dark-America
In 20th century science fiction, there is one particular story format that is often employed and is usually a fan favorite — the alternate or parallel universe, where the characters are the same but...
View ArticleSome Thoughts About Housing, Consumerism and Porn Stars
In America, people believe that a house is who you are, while a car is who you want other people to think you are. If you have no house and you have no car, by extension you are nothing, and you want...
View ArticleHow Do You Deal With a Dying Culture?
Superheroes are the modern versions of classical mythology. They offer answers to philosophical questions about morality, what it means to be human, our responsibilities to each other, and more. Most...
View ArticleFour Arguments for the Elimination of Television, Jerry Mander (Book, 1978)
Humanist and environmental activist Jerry Mander is nearing 80-years-old, but you wouldn’t know it to hear him. In recent years he has spoken on the dangerous, unsustainable and “obsolete” system of...
View ArticleA Tale of Two Cities & Its Lessons (Novel, 1859)
I recently finished reading the Charles Dickens’s classic, A Tale of Two Cities, a story of sacrifice and revenge before and during revolutionary France. Dickens was partially inspired to write the...
View ArticleThe Collapse of American Optimism and the Rise of Apocalyptica
Ask any American older than 30 what the country was like when they were growing up and with few exceptions, the answer will be uniformly positive, and certainly more positive than its perceived to be...
View ArticleFive Months After Hurricane Sandy
It’s been almost 5 months since Hurricane Sandy devastated several towns and knocked out power to more than 8 million people across the east coast. The storm resulted in 72 deaths and thousands of...
View ArticleSuperbowl Bullshit
It doesn’t take much to see the Superbowl as a parallel for our society. It is the ultimate display of consumerism, violence, nationalism and faux-Americana. Every year it gets a little worse. Equally...
View ArticleHope Has Changed – It Died, By Monty Pelerin
This article is a reprint, posted here with permission and for posterity. It’s by an anonymous author using the name Monty Pelerin. It is originally available at EconomicNoise.com. Hope is dying in the...
View ArticleRising Nationalism Pushes Nations to War
In early 1095 AD, Byzantine emperor Alexios I Komnenos sent a letter to Pope Urban II warning that the Turks were about to overrun Constantinople. Hoping to reunite the Church, which had been in schism...
View ArticleThe Dependence on Food Stamps is a Ticking Time Bomb
Discussing the nation’s dependence on Food Stamps is likely to put many people into a defensive mode. Some feel resentful of those accepting government food subsidy. People on Food Stamps are sensitive...
View ArticleHistory Rhymes: An Analysis of Nazi Germany
Mark Twain said, “History never repeats, but it often rhymes.” Indeed, the similarities between collapsing societies can be quite stunning. Rome comes to mind. It eventually rotted away through gross...
View ArticleThe King of Ruffle Bar and the Insanity of Bureaucracy
In anthropologist Edward Hall’s 1976 book Beyond Culture, he describes a story of a wild dog that lived on the small, otherwise uninhabited island of Ruffle Bar, which is just off the coast of...
View ArticleA Few Thoughts on Ryan & the Catholic Church
Normally, I prefer not to comment on the traditional political discourse, mostly because these days, politicians are all the same. The two parties ultimately serve the same “Washington Consensus,” that...
View ArticlePrepare for Stark and Total Privatization at Penn State and Beyond
This is a repost from Greg Plefka, reprinted with permission from the blog VulgarTrader.com where he is a contributor and editor. Here, he discusses the link between the pedophilia scandal at Penn...
View ArticleChristopher Nolan’s Batman as Social Criticism (Part 2)
This is part 2 of 2. For part 1, click here. If the primary theme of the new Batman movies could be boiled down to one word, it would be fascism. Clearly, all superhero movies have fascist elements in...
View ArticleJustice In America is a Farce
Finally, our long national nightmare is over. The government brought charges, submitted its case to the people, and the people decided. Baseball player Roger Clemens has been acquitted of perjury for...
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