The Unmanageable University
...Despite the fact that a couple generations ago, public education in California was free, the logic of austerity has made it seem politically impossible. Claiming that the “business” of higher...
Reign in Drool
...piece. This consists of the need to find or continue at once a response which is free within the limits set by the rules. Before we can play, we must...
Sunday Reading
...Study of pre-Islamic Arabian Inscriptions On mouneh, Lebanese pickles and preserves Kerim Friedman: Secret 'Free Trade' Negotiations Will Gut Regulations, Further Enrich Multinationals and Big Financial Firms CHARTS: The Hidden...
Graphic Interface
...the easiest example, but everybody’s doing it. I’m sure there are folks at Merrill Lynch gamifying their stock portfolios. SG: It’s so insidious, obviously, because of the childlike wonder being...
Lumps of Labor
...them (either in terms of material compensation or unquantifiable psychological benefits) is basically irrelevant. The greater concern is making sure that the Economy — another magnificent abstraction — has enough...
Charles Manson Was a Republican
Long incorrectly associated in the public mind with the political left, Manson wasn’t merely conservative; he might as well have been a Fed
The Bitter Women of Japanese Noir
...and censored to the point where characters and their motives appear shallow. As a result there is a clunkiness that in most cases I’m not quite sure who to criticize...
Helen Gurley Brown, 1922-2012
...something one should respect; when it comes to self-presentation, shouldn’t authenticity trump strain, ease trump effort? Sometimes, sure. But I’m certain I’m not the only woman who would find it...
Value-seeking surveillance and The Hunger Games
...that everyone is simply supposed to know about. (Mad Men also springs to mind after the past weekend, when my Twitter feed was full of people complaining about Mad Men...
The World According to Modern Monetary Theory
...token tax at the end of each month. To avoid imprisonment or death, they will have to make sure they work enough to have tokens at the end of the...
Top or Bottom: How do we desire?
What do queer memes of a top shortage reveal about the racialized orders of desire and new directions for gay critique?
Eine kleine Paranoia
Crisis exposes the limits of paranoia as a defense mechanism
No Money in Movies
...old’s work often premieres. “Don’t let five companies decide what everybody’s going to watch, alright? Be free,” Ferrara said in his typically rambling, free-associative fashion, in a courtyard that looks...
James Wagner's "highest aspiration"
...simply compromising in order to compromise, prioritizing the continuance of the Union over everything else. “3/5ths” didn’t mean anything, and no one pretended it did. The only important thing was...
All Cozy Now
...woman mentioned hearing that the explosions were simply the combustion of gas mains under Boylston Street. I thought of Lowell's now-haunting lines in “For the Union Dead,” a poem about...
Nice to Meat You
...archetype of creepiness. I’ve been researching the topic for years, primarily by asking people what they think of creepiness. Every definition I attempted was rejected as inadequate, and every creepy...