“To keep up even a worthwhile tradition means vitiating the idea behind it which must necessarily be in a constant state of evolution: it is mad to try to express new feelings in a “mummified” form.” – Alfred Jarry – Legal expert and blogger Terry Hart and I had the chance to meet in DC this week, and we were ...
It isn’t just perception. Partisan politics in the U.S. really is worse than ever, if we’re to take the word of those who’ve been on the inside for the last 40 or so years. I was listening to an audio version of Tom Brokaw’s book The Time of Our Lives recently, and hearing him describe today’s dysfunctional intransigence in Washington, ...
On the subject of more not always being all it’s cracked up to be, I think it took about thirty seconds after President Obama won the election for the first pundits to remark, “Six billion dollars, and we’re right back where we started.” I can’t say I’m even a little surprised. By now, the case of Citizens United v. FEC ...
That SOPA had little to no measurable effect on the election results in Congress is not surprsing. While the online protest against the bill was an unprecedented moment for the Internet industry and social media, I believe the reality is that the average voter actually didn’t give a damn about SOPA or even know what it was. Of course, I ...
One of my main topics of interest with regard to the Internet is the notion of what my friend, the writer Jeff Turrentine, calls “epistemic closure.” Let’s face it: when it comes to information, it’s all too easy to find evidence out there for just about any bias or belief we can name; and I am far from the only ...
