I wandered again to my home in the mountainWhere in youth’s early dawn I was happy and freeI looked for my friends but I never could find themI found they were all rank strangers to […]
Labor / Media / Politics / Society
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So You’re 250. Here’s the Condition Your Condition Is In
In his 1922 book Public Opinion, Walter Lippmann asserted that we live in “pseudo-environments”—subjective, simplified interpretations of the complex, dynamic and superabundant world around us. He claimed that the decisions and actions necessary to our survival […]
Class / Society
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Perfect Day for a Tirade
This morning, for the first time ever, I berated someone in public. And I couldn’t have picked a better morning to do it. The sun was out in a cloudless sky and the temperature was […]
Class / Culture / Politics / Society
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The New Kid
Sunday night before brushing his teeth, my kid said, “There’s a new kid at school.” He was looking at me in a way that suggested I should understand the significance of that. And I thought […]
Academia / Art / Culture / Literature / Politics
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Style and the Status Quo
Raymond Chandler said that “The most durable thing in writing is style.” He used the word durable because he was concerned with what makes writing last. But when you look at writing that has lasted, there’s no consistency of […]
Consumerism / Culture / Labor / Media / Technology
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The Big Disappointment or Why AI Is an Oxymoron
The lights and outlets in certain rooms would blink on and off. Being an old house in which the previous owner and a few before him had died, I assumed that the place was haunted. […]
Culture / Drugs / Labor
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The Neurodivergent House Painter
When my wife hired a guy to pressure wash the front of our house, she warned me that he was “probably on the spectrum.” She also said that he was a magician. I instantly thought […]
Academia / Class / Culture / Literature
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What Is Taste? A Study in a Boy of Ten
Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of taste (taste is a function of class) may be true when taste is determined by classist institutions like The New Yorker. But Bourdieu’s reduction of taste to keeper of the social pecking order falls […]
Consumerism / Media / Technology
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Beyond Useful: The Dreaded Windows Upgrade
For years I feared the upgrade from Windows 10 to 11, or should I say, I feared having to fix what the upgrade would break. From past upgrades I knew that my settings, third-party apps […]
Class / Culture / Media
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Journey to the Center of the Manosphere
A good friend invited me to a local Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the interim UFC Lightweight Championship. He explained that it was going to be a big night. The contestants were Paddy Pimblett and […]