Politics
-
Assassinations Work
On April 4, 1968, when I learned with the rest of the world that Martin Luther King Jr. had been assassinated, I immediately thought that the civil rights movement, which King had led, had just been set back by fifty years. I was wrong about that. It ended right then (check that last link). Almost… Continue reading
-
We’re in the epilogue now
The show is over. Biden won. Trump lost. Sure, there is more to be said, details to argue. But the main story—Biden vs. Trump, the 2020 Presidential Election, is over. So is the Trump presidency, now in the lame duck stage. We’re in the epilogue now. There are many stories within and behind the story,… Continue reading
-
On Moral Politics
I spent 17 minutes while exercising the other day, thinking out loud about what @GeorgeLakoff says in his 1996 book Moral Politics: What Conservatives Know That Liberals Don’t, (also in his expanded 2016 edition, re-subtitled How Liberals and Conservatives Think). I also tweeted about the book this morning here. In it I explain what pretty much nobody else is… Continue reading
-
Going #Faceless
Facial recognition by machines is out of control. Meaning our control. As individuals, and as a society. Thanks to ubiquitous surveillance systems, including the ones in our own phones, we can no longer assume we are anonymous in public places or private in private ones. This became especially clear a few weeks ago when Kashmir Hill (@kashhill)… Continue reading
-
The Deeper Issue
Journalism’s biggest problem (as I’ve said before) is what it’s best at: telling stories. That’s what Thomas B. Edsall (of Columbia and The New York Times) does in Trump’s Digital Advantage Is Freaking Out Democratic Strategists, published in today’s New York Times. He tells a story. Or, in the favored parlance of our time, a narrative, about what… Continue reading
-
The Great Trivializer
Last night I watched The Great Hack a second time. It’s a fine documentary, maybe even a classic. (A classic in literature, I learned on this Radio Open Source podcast, is a work that “can only be re-read.” If that’s so, then perhaps a classic movie is one that can only be re-watched.*) The movie’s… Continue reading
-
Where Journalism Fails
“What’s the story?” No question is asked more often by editors in newsrooms than that one. And for good reason: that’s what news is about: The Story. Or, in the parlance of the moment, The Narrative. (Trend. More about that below.) I was just 22 when I wrote my first stories as a journalist, reporting… Continue reading
-
Revolutions take time
The original version of this ran as a comment under Francine Hardaway‘s Medium post titled Have we progressed at all in the last fifty years? My short answer is “Yes, but not much, and not evenly.” This is my longer answer. In your case and mine, it has taken the better part of a century to… Continue reading
-
Dear DSCC: unsubscribe means unsubscribe
I have unsubscribed from the DSCC mailing list, which I never joined, multiple times. Here’s a screen shot of my last unsubscribe session, dated 21 October: That’s the third screen, after others that mute the unsubscribe option. At this point, “Take a break” is their euphemism for what I really want, which is a divorce.… Continue reading
-
Exploring the business behind digital media’s invisibility cloaks
Imagine you’re on a busy city street where everybody who disagrees with you disappears. We have that city now. It’s called media—especially the social kind. You can see how this works on Wall Street Journal‘s Blue Feed, Red Feed page. Here’s a screen shot of the feed for “Hillary Clinton” (one among eight polarized… Continue reading
-
The Giant Zero
The world of distance Fort Lee is the New Jersey town where my father grew up. It’s at the west end of the George Washington Bridge, which he also helped build. At the other end is Manhattan. Even though Fort Lee and Manhattan are only a mile apart, it has always been a toll call… Continue reading
-
We can all make TV. Now what?
Look where Meerkat and Periscope point. I mean, historically. They vector toward a future where anybody anywhere can send live video out to the glowing rectangles of the world. If you’ve looked at the output of either, several things become clear about their inevitable evolutionary path: Mobile phone/data systems will get their gears stripped, in both… Continue reading
-
Internet.org is a failed exercise in misdirection
[Note added 4 August 2016: Since I wrote this, Internet.org has expanded into a service called Free Basics. All the criticisms below apply to that as well. — Doc] Like the universe, the Internet is one thing. It is a World of Ends, comprised of everything it connects. By nature it is as neutral as gravity. It favors… Continue reading
-
Sports as a propaganda laboratory
The other day a friend shared this quote from Michael Choukas‘ Propaganda Comes of Age (Public Affairs Press, 1965): This is not the propagandist’s aim. For him the validity of an image must be measured not by the degree of its fidelity, but by the response it may evoke. If it will induce the action he wishes,… Continue reading
-
Escaping the Black Holes of Centralization
Turkey shut down Twitter today. Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan announced, “We now have a court order. We’ll eradicate Twitter. I don’t care what the international community says. Everyone will witness the power of the Turkish Republic.” (Hurriyet Daily News) He also said Turkey will “rip out the roots” of Twitter. (Washington Post) Those roots are… Continue reading
-
Short Attention Spasm Theater
This post is a hat tip toward Rusty Foster’s Today In Tabs, which I learned about from Clay Shirky during a digressive conversation about the subscription economy (the paid one, not the one Rusty and other free spirits operate in), and how lately I’m tending not to renew mine after they run out, thanks to my wife’s rational… Continue reading
-
Into the dark
The power will be out for a while. That’s what the guys in the hard hats tell me, down where they’re working, at the intersection where our dead-end street is born. Many trucks are gathered there, with bright night-work lights illuminating whatever went wrong with the day’s power pole replacement job. The notices they left… Continue reading
-
Close to home
Fort Lee has been in the news lately. Seems traffic access to the George Washington Bridge from Fort Lee was sphinctered for political purposes, at the spot marked “B” on this map here: (This was later the place where “bridgegate” took place.) The spot marked “A” is the site of my first home: 2063 Hoyt… Continue reading