Sometimes facts that we’ve known for a long while can become remixed to have new meaning – an “aha” moment, such as it is, and I had one earlier today while watching the film “The Corporation”*.  The history of corporate personhood in the US finds its roots in an 1886 Supreme Court ruling, in a caseRead moreRead more

I had plans to write an epic post about the Google bus situation and the social divides and false meritocracy of the tech economy (titled “Class: Warfare, Bus Fare, & What is Fair?”) – but then Rebecca Solnit beat me to it.  Her essay reaches beyond the typical technocratic solutioneering on the topic that hasRead moreRead more

Haven’t you heard?  Classical music is dead.  Again.  Another time.   I just put on “Pictures at an Exhibition” (on vinyl, no less) – “Symphony for a New World” was still spinning, restless and soundless on the turntable from which Dvorak had emanated just minutes earlier.  I may still be living on a couch butRead moreRead more

..our biases are mostly unconscious, and they can run surprisingly deep. Consider race. For a 2004 study called “Are Emily and Greg More Employable Than Lakisha and Jamal?,” the economists Sendhil Mullainathan and Marianne Bertrand put white-sounding names (Emily Walsh, Greg Baker) or black-sounding names (Lakisha Washington, Jamal Jones) on similar fictitious résumés, which theyRead moreRead more

There is a reason I have been quiet lately. In phrases and allusions I have hinted at other explanations – work and travel and the busy-ness of a day job and pursuit of a creative dream and the demands of brokeness – but there is a truth lurking behind all of these, one harder toRead moreRead more

I’ve been negligent in my linking duties around here lately.  Chalk it up to a summer of adventure.   And now, some of the backlog:   – Democracy is not a steady-state condition.   – The Boston Marathon bomber, Trayvon Martin, image, physicality, criminality: what does it mean to “look like a monster”, anyway?  Read moreRead more

The culture of our world, right now, is crafted by little boys who only recall being stood up on their first date, and nothing they got after. They don’t remember the sand they kicked in other people’s eyes, only their own injuries. Our art is cynical and bad-ass and made by people who will notRead moreRead more

So it turns out the best part about writing about race on the Internet is the slow trickle of racist email never goes away!  While I am happy to ignore the comments and the tweets, I feel obligated to respond to those who send emails.  After all, they took so much time and effort toRead moreRead more

A textual collage exploring inspiration, technology, and identity.   On Wednesday night I finally saw “Fruitvale Station” (not out in Australia, at least not yet).  A phenomenal film; an imperfect one, yes, but then perfection is a meaningless concept outside of abstract mathematics anyway.  Some reviewers have come in armored with preconceptions, that this isRead moreRead more

I wrote a short essay about race and ethnicity in the George Zimmerman trial.  It was published on Salon.  If you have not read it yet, I encourage you to do so, both because the rest of this post will not make much sense without it, and because, if you’ll pardon my bragging, it’s prettyRead moreRead more