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Category Archives: Cleaning Out the Augean Stables
Mucking Out Mead
Via Mohamad Bazzi of New York University, I learned last week about several articles published in the last few years by Lawrence Mead, also of NYU. I had a vague awareness of Mead as a kind of post-Moynihan “pathology of … Continue reading
Posted in Academia, Cleaning Out the Augean Stables, Politics
4 Comments
All Grasshoppers, No Ants
It would be convenient to think that Gawker Media‘s flaming car-wreck failure at the end of last week was the kind of mistake of individual judgment that can be fixed by a few resignations, a few pledges to do better, … Continue reading
Rebooting
Folks who follow this blog, or my social media presence generally, have probably noted that I’ve not had much to say lately. Part of that is feeling overly busy, but it’s more the consequence of a growing sense of perplexity … Continue reading
Gamergate. Shit, We’re Still Only in Gamergate.
A couple of nights ago, I got up to go to the bathroom. Still only partially awake, I flushed and stumbled back to bed, only to hear the gushing sounds of the toilet overflowing. I seriously considered just letting it … Continue reading
Heroic Measures (The Modest Proposal Remix Edition)
Bill Keller has spent the last two years in a dull and very public exasperated talking-to with the rest of the world for not being enough like Bill Keller. Since the New York Times helpfully selected him among all the … Continue reading
Posted in Cleaning Out the Augean Stables
2 Comments
Recombinant Friedman
My rephrasing of Thomas Friedman’s column today: “One of the best ways to learn about the changing labor market, if you can’t find a taxi driver to have a conversation with on your way to the airport, is to find … Continue reading
Posted in Cleaning Out the Augean Stables
11 Comments
On Diamond (Not Again!)
I don’t really mean to get drawn into recurrent arguments about Jared Diamond’s work, because my actual feelings about the actual books are rather mixed and indifferent. Guns, Germs and Steel reads well, it’s a useful teaching book for fueling … Continue reading
The State of the Art III: Facebook (and 500px and Flickr) as a Window Into Social Media
III. The Business Model as Belief and Reality Why is Facebook such a repeatedly bad actor in its relationship to its users, constantly testing and probing for ways to quietly or secretly breach the privacy constraints that most of its … Continue reading
The Shameless Style
When people feel no shame, watch out. Any cultural or political system that depends on participants living up to minimal commitments for quality, integrity, or diligence where there are no consequences besides embarassment for outright discarding those commitments can thrive … Continue reading
Saying It Again
From the department of pointless but compulsory exercises: every single time Rick Santorum or anyone with similar views says the following two things: a) What, you want gay marriage? What’s next, legitimating polygamy? and b) The only form of legal, … Continue reading
Posted in Cleaning Out the Augean Stables, Politics
1 Comment