The End of Anonymity?
Internet use becomes pathological when it is dissociated from in-person life. It becomes healthy when it is integrated with in-person living. ~ John Suler in The Psychology of Cyberspace When I first started this blog in December of ’03, I didn’t want to...Taste and Class
Over the years I’ve read a lot of brilliant blog posts, essays, and academic papers by miss danah boyd (lower-case branded, just like our very own cad). But none had me nodding along so enthusiastically as her latest. Its title and its focus: ‘Viewing...27
The day, if you think about it, is the basic measurement of life, the milepost on the highway. We say “How’s your day going” or “How was your day.” Only if we’re spending a ridiculous amount of time with someone do we say,...
How to Make the Perfect Sandwich
Every day someone would walk behind the counter of the neighborhood coffee shop where I worked. Behind the counter and into the kitchen. I would look up, exasperated, with a serrated knife in my hand. But not this time. This time it was Mike, “Big Mike.”...Been Smoking Too Long
Booger and I are driving south. We are going to visit our grandmother and our mother. At the same time. That don’t happen too much. March first cherry blossoms are everywhere on both sides of the highway, a gradient of white to pink exploding beneath central...
Who You Calling Soft?
The truth is that most people would much rather read about her personal life than recent protests in Zimbabwe. That’s not a criticism, it’s just reality. And after all, what difference does it make whether we spend our lunch hour reading about celebrity affairs or protests in some foreign land if all we do with that information is repeat it with raised eyebrows at dinner parties?
Hector Enrique Calderon Contreras
“Estación Chacao” says the pre-recorded voice. The brakes screech to a halt, the doors sigh open, and I depart. Those former lovers with whom I had been lying in bed are again strangers. They will mug me in the street and they will help me when I ask for...
On Freedom and Familiarity
Not long ago, UTNE Reader had a fantastic issue dedicated solely to the oppression of choice. “Too much choice” was an argument against Bush’s social security reform. (Giving Americans a choice in how they invest their social security would cause...
Venezuela: On Subterranean Transportation
Subways, I love them. The door to the carriage opens, it closes, and your two or five or 15 minutes of silent intimacy with people you’ve never met begins. Like unacquainted sardines. Like a colony of seals piled upon each other in stoic orgy. We’re rich,...Latest Photos
