Category Archives: Scathing Social Commentary

Benjamin H. Bratton on TED talks: Let me tell you a story. I was at a presentation that a friend, an Astrophysicist, gave to a potential donor. I thought the presentation was lucid and compelling (and I’m a Professor of … Continue reading →

. . . you sit in the car long after you’ve arrived at your destination, listening because you can’t turn off the radio. The astounding and tragic story of Fritz Haber, who had a hand in both feeding and murdering … Continue reading →

Over at Collectors Weekly, Hunter Oatman-Stanford offers a tonic for those craven types who continually extol the virtues of “traditional marriage” without having the foggiest idea of what they’re actually referring to. Though the murky concept known as “love” has … Continue reading →

Charles Pierce was at LAX when the shooting occurred and had this to say about the coverage: There already is some talk about this event being a “random” one. But it is not. These things are becoming as regular as … Continue reading →

James Webb of That Mitchell and Webb Look and Peep Show wrote a great response to that Russell Brand interview that was all the rage on Facebook for about 17 seconds last week. What were the chances, in the course … Continue reading →

Charles Pierce has written the perfect summary of How Came We to Our Current Unfortunate Situation: We have elected an ungovernable collection of snake-handlers, Bible-bangers, ignorami, bagmen and outright frauds, a collection so ungovernable that it insists the nation be … Continue reading →

Check out this interview from Fox News in which Lauren Green interviews author and historian Reza Aslan about his new book, Zealot. Given that Aslan is a Muslim and the book is about the historical life of Jesus, you can … Continue reading →

Here is Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi on the cover controversy: I can understand why this might upset some people. But the jarringly non-threatening image of Tsarnaev is exactly the point of the whole story. If any of those who are … Continue reading →

The phrase ‘must read’ gets thrown around so easily these days, but Neil Steinberg’s column (Anti-gay bias loses its legal whip) in the Chicago Sun-Times fits the bill by any definition. From his vantage point as a heterosexual Jew, Steinberg … Continue reading →