Skip to content

THE PHILIPPIC

MAKING SENSE OF THE SENSLESS SINCE 2004

  • About the Philippic
  • Substack Newsletter
Culture - Dystopia - Literature - Philippic - Politics

The Dystopia Files: When the Sleeper Wakes

Posted on: 02/11/201101/01/2025

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 […]

Class - Culture - Labor - Technology

Temporary Life 5: Survival of the Absent

Posted on: 12/02/200901/01/2025

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 […]

Class - Culture - Labor - Politics

Temporary Life 4: Attitude Is Servitude

Posted on: 05/14/200901/01/2025

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 […]

Class - Culture - Labor - Politics

Temporary Life 3: What You Don’t Know Can Hurt You

Posted on: 06/02/200806/02/2024

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 […]

Culture - Labor - Technology

I’m a Techy, You’re a Techy

Posted on: 06/02/200706/02/2024

About a year ago I bought a gadget that uses wireless technology to play electronic files and Internet radio through my stereo. Not a mind-bending idea. Receivers and transmitters have been around for over a […]

Culture - Labor - Politics

Temporary Life 2: Revenge of the Human Resource

Posted on: 11/01/200505/16/2024

For three years I remained a temp or, should I say, impermanent. To those for whom I worked I was as insignificant as the tasks they assigned. And when those tasks were done, I was […]

Culture - Labor - Politics

Temporary Life 1: The Lying Debutant

Posted on: 09/30/200505/16/2024

During the recession of the late ’80s and early ’90s, big businesses were suffocating in their own fat, bloated from non-performance-related capital the Reagan Administration had funneled from public coffers in the form of deregulation, […]

Theme Cube Blog by Kantipur Themes