MAKING SENSE OF THE SENSLESS SINCE 2004
H.G. Wells originally published When the Sleeper Awakes in 1898 as a serial in The Graphic, an illustrated London newspaper. In his preface to the 1910 edition, The Sleeper Awakes, he expressed disappointment with the […]
Jack London’s political dystopia, The Iron Heel, published in 1905, is not so fantastic as it is relevant, not so prophetic as it is cogent. The question the novel leaves you with, in this age […]
Yergeny Zamyatin’s 1921 novel We is not the first dystopian novel. There was The Iron Heel (1905) by Jack London and The Sleeper Awakes (1910) by H.G Wells, Russian translations of which Zamyatin edited. It […]
When I started temping, the personal-computing revolution hadn’t yet rescued the American economy. The Internet as we know it did not exist—it was something called “The Well,” which had to be accessed by a 96-kb […]
A few years back, when Dubya was ridin’ his wooden horse hard, I was in a bar talking to a gal who at some point proclaimed, or admitted, that she was a republican. I asked […]
The drawbacks of a positive attitude are clear enough: first, you can assume one in regard to almost anything from the beneficial to the depraved, thus it is arbitrary; second, having encountered a number of […]
On September 30, 2008 the PBS NewsHour with Jim Lehrer aired an essay by Richard Rodriguez titled “Mexico’s Violent Drug War Wreaks Havoc on Innocent Lives,” in which Rodriguez characterized the relationship between foreign trafficking […]
As an editor, I’ve always advocated for less paper, more recycling and digital delivery. I’ve always turned off my air conditioning, lights and power strips before leaving the office. I’ve recycled anything that could be […]
It should have been quick and simple, establishing a telephone account for a new place of residence. As Verizon was my existing provider, I saw no reason to take the business elsewhere. So I navigated […]
Getting hired by a temp agency is relatively easy: make an appointment, appear in your second-hand monkey suit, fill out the application, take the software test, and discuss your resume with the “analyst.” Provided you […]