As you have probably already heard Nelson Mandela has passed away at the age of 95. I am not going to try and give you a full biography of his amazing life and career, I will leave that to the proper biographers. Instead, I will just give you a few thoughts from a person who is an ordinary, sometimes activist who is blessed enough to be surrounded by good people who want to make the world a better place. Continue reading
Commentary
491 posts
Since the NSA’s extensive domestic and international monitoring was revealed by Edward Snowden via The Guardian’s Glenn Greenwald in June 2013, much ink (or many pixels, as the case may be) has been spilled discussing whether or not the NSA has gone too far, whether the programs are unconstitutional, and a variety of other issues.
One view that I have not yet seen is that of someone on the front lines of information security, who deals with many of the threats that the NSA has been monitoring on a fairly regular basis.
Someone like me. Continue reading
The nation’s capitol was brought to a standstill mildly inconvenienced Friday as thousands dozens maybe eighteen or so four truckers descended on Washington as part of the Truckers Ride for the Constitution, a truck-based protest designed to “shut down America” and “restore constitutional government.” Organizers denied the event was just a stunt to promote James Franco’s reboot of Smokey and the Bandit, and claimed 10,000 truckers would show up. USA Today puts the number that actually showed up as approximately three. Some photos show as many as four trucks. Fox News and Politico put the number as high as thirty. Some of the truckers may be extra-dimensional travelers from Earth 61-A, where Separatist cyborg-general Barack 0-9AMA overthrew beloved President Will Romney in a bloody coup. These extra-dimensional travelers may be unaware that in this dimension, human Barack Obama soundly defeated cyborg Willard Romney, giving the manbot a humiliating electoral loss that was well within Constitutional parameters. What the truckers from either dimension planned to actually do is unclear, though there was some speculation that they would engage in the obscure quasi-Constitutional practice known as “truckerpeachment” in an effort to remove Barack Obama from office. Continue reading
Back in July, I wrote about the descent into fascism in Greece (and Hungary). It seems like some recent events have finally awoken the Greek political class to the risk they face from fascism, and increasingly from the possibility of a fascist coup by the security services.
Millennials have announced they’re sorry that, you know, they’ve ruined the world with their fixie gear bikes, cupcakes, Chipotle, and love of Sriracha sauce. Continue reading
The world of gay porn will never be accused of being socially forward. It is a field of entertainment that caters to men’s sexual desires/fantasies, and isn’t generally concerned with social issues. After all, one watches pornography in order to experience sexual stimulus, not to engage in social critique. However, like every other cultural production, pornography is shaped by social forces and contributes to particular kinds of discourses, like race and racism. What makes all this interesting (at least to me) is when a porn “model” (that’s the word they’re using these days) decides to comment on racial diversity, the lack thereof, and “types.” What follows is usually a Sharknado-level crapstorm. Continue reading
An article from the New York Daily News’ S.E. Cupp, titled “The rise of Republican millennials”, came across my desk recently. I’ve always operated under the assumption that my generation was overwhelmingly liberal, and that conservative millennials were few and far between. While this may be true today in terms of party orientation, Ms. Cupp approached the question from a different angle: is the millennial generation actually conservative, in terms of personality rather than politics?
As a millennial, I decided to weigh in on Ms. Cupp’s hypothesis, and see if she’s right.
Spoiler Alert! She’s not. Continue reading
NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly has taken to the media to defend his, and his police department’s, record. Let’s examine his arguments to see if they stand up to even basic scrutiny. I’ll be working off the op-ed that Kelly wrote, and which was published in the Wall Street Journal on July 23, 2013. Continue reading
“What’s wrong with the wives?” is a question I would happily go the rest of my life never hearing again from anyone’s mouth (or fingers) when yet another husband, prominent or not, is caught having an affair.
“Why is she staying with him?”
“Why is she supporting him in public?”
“She is such an amazing woman, but doesn’t she have any pride?”
When you ask these questions you’re doing three pretty terrible things. Continue reading
While wandering around on the internet yesterday, I came across an article by Suzanne Venker on FoxNews, via Gin and Tacos. The title of the article was “Men – The New Second Class Citizens”.
Mother of God. This calls for an FJM, to ensure that this stupidity is exposed and deconstructed before it spreads. Continue reading