Check out the July 13 edition of Rolling Stone, where Al Gore concludes that the real energy issue is not whether we will "run out" of fossil fuels. Rather, the question is whether we will burn so much of the existing supply to make the entire planet uninhabitable before rethinking our…
Earlier today, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Bush's proposed military trials for Gitmo detainees was illegal under both U.S. law and international Geneva conventions. I don't think this comes as a surprise to many observers, given Bush's flagrant and repeated disregard for both U.S. and international law. What is…
I’ve previously written that dollars are fungible (See “The Curse of Fungible Dollars”). In that article I pointed out that dollars are completely interchangeable. I noted that there is actually only one kind of dollar and that dollars don’t come pre-labeled as “Christmas ornament dollars,” “pedicure dollars,” “Xbox dollars” or “charitable cause dollars.” I further suggested that we work hard to brainwash ourselves that non-fungible dollars exist and that we are free to spend any dollar we haven’t chosen to label a “charity dollar” on anything at all, conscience free. To see the absurdity of that mindset, try to imagine a charity refusing your donation because the money you offered came out of your “vacation” fund.
Many Americans would consider my fungible dollars article to be a curse because it has the effect of moralizing every dollar we spend. That every dollar is potentially a dollar we could (and possibly should) spend to help desperate human beings thus becomes a toxic thought that we prevent ourselves from considering. It causes too much cognitive dissonance. . If you doubt the toxicity of such a thought, imagine speaking freely of the fungibility of dollars at a Las Vegas casino or at any other entertainment mecca where those “entertainment” dollars flow freely. The mere mention that all dollars are fungible will trigger the rapid and painful collapse of elaborate mental worlds constructed by everyone within hearing range.
With the same dollars we spend to buy tickets to concerts or sports events, …
Bill O’Reilly hates the blogosphere. He hates many things, of course, among them Pepsi, rapper Ludacris, a wide array of conventional media outlets, and even some of his own guests. But today I focus on an entire media outlet that O’Reilly labels as biased, lacking in evidence, and in large part sensationalized: political blogs.
Of course, O’Reilly doesn’t oppose online journalism on his own. Even more mainstream news anchors (if you can call Mr. O’Reilly a news anchor) tend to scoff and roll their eyes at the notion of “the blogosphere” or the opinions expressed over the internet. O’Reilly has led the most outspoken movement against internet editorialism, though. In June of 2003, Bill had this to say about bloggers:
“Nearly everyday, there’s something written on the Internet about me that’s flat out untrue…the reason these net people get away with all kinds of stuff is that they work for no one. They put stuff up with no restraints. This, of course, is dangerous…”
By July of 2005, the “blogosphere” had become a common slang term for the mainstream news media, and became the focus of one episode of O’Reilly’s Factor program:
“Personal attacks lodged through the internet! How are so-called “Web logs” being used as ideological weapons? And who’s behind the smear campaigns? We’ll have a No Spin look at a dangerous new weapon in the culture wars!”
But as “dangerous” as these “weapons in the culture wars” may seem to some, online outlets such as …
Another Fourth of July is upon us and my thoughts turn to patriotism. In the past I've waxed and waned in my attitude toward this so-called civic virtue. It seems to me there are two kinds. The first, and most legitimate, is the sentiment of attachment to place and people…