Society
After the Flood
In the presence of death and in the aftermath of great storms, we apprehend how vainly we cling to the illusion of certainty and permanence. (read more)
america
Society
Alexandra Ackerman: Interview
Alexandra Ackerman: an LA transplant with a cache of romance novel covers, film, television and stage performances under her belt. When it comes to Hollywood substance is usually traded for beauty, but Alexandra is the exception to the rule. (read more)
Sound
Loitered Lens: Two Gallants
Two Gallants, who hail from sunny San Francisco but take their name from a short story in Dubliners by James Joyce, lack the laid-back attitude of the former but have an abundance of the intensity (read more)
Society
Brown Sugar and Mustard-Glazed Bone-in Ham
Well the holidays are indeed coming and as y’all know, a homemade baked ham is a southern holiday staple. (read more)
Society
Into the Appalachians [Tour Diary]
‘A single lane road etched through this land that’s not the north, or south, that’s forgotten by the east but far from the west. If you pointed a rifle at the vast nothing that encompasses the bottom of the mid-Atlantic, we would be the pinhole in the crosshairs.’ Tour Diary, Silent Old Mountains (read more)
News
Crunching Genital Injury Stats
Women saw a five-fold increase in genital injuries between 2002 and 2008, and show no signs of slowing. (read more)
Society
The cookie crumbles beneath the foot of the dancer (Sam Pink)
‘I didn’t write in high school. I barely talk about writing to most people in real life because no one cares and I kind of agree, I like not talking about it. ‘ Scott Laudati interviews author Sam Pink (read more)
Society
Empire’s Halloween Part 2
The US Empire is dead meat. We should lose the imagery of a noble and lofty bald eagle: rotting road kill should be proclaimed our official national animal, vampires and werewolves offer a more apt analogy (read more)
News
Sandy: Satellite View
A satellite view of Hurricane Sandy’s landfall on the US coast (read more)
Society
Col. Jon’s Cherokee Corn Pone
It’s another favourite snack in these parts and something that I like to have the little woman cook up for me whilst I hang up the goat on Hallowe’en. Up until now this has been a very closely guarded Burrow’s family recipe but I feel y’all deserve it. (read more)
Society
Grieving for Greed. Welteschmerz Pt. 1
If the end of the commercialist capitalist empire gets you down, the right thing to do is to grieve for it. Then move on. (read more)
Society
Big Boys Gone Bananas* [Film]
Back in 2009 director Frederik Gertten was scheduled to premiere his latest film at the LA Film Festival. Called simply Bananas, it dealt with alleged abuses suffered by Nicaraguan workers who worked for the Dole Food Company, an international corporation and the world’s biggest producer of fruit.
The rest of the film deals with Fred’s doggedly phlegmatic attempt to clear his name, while gathering an unlikely bunch of supporters including a charmingly scruffy nerd/blogger, a burger chain and the entire Swedish Parliament. (read more)
News
Welfare Greed
A Danish researcher has compared two of the most different welfare systems in the western world. Despite the differences, the research shows surprising similarities in the way in which people in the USA and Denmark perceive the deservingness of welfare recipients. (read more)
News
Hot as Hell, But Where’s the Hottest?
“This investigation demonstrates that, because of continued improvements in meteorology and climatology, researchers can now reanalyze past weather records in much more detail and with greater precision than ever before,” Cerveny explained. “The end result is an even better set of data for analysis of important global and regional questions involving climate change.” (read more)
Society
Hubbardites Vs Crowleyites Pt 3
If the current management of the Church of Scientology were not so keen to airbrush all aspects of its founder’s life and work we would have a much clearer idea of his motives for infiltrating himself so deeply into the world of the occult. After all why shouldn’t a man, who was on the verge of creating, ‘‘both the means and the tech to save mankind’’ seek to discover the depth and heights to which the human condition aspires? And where better to find these extremities than in the intense psychodrama of ritual magic? (read more)
Society
Hubbardites vs Crowleyites pt 2
Jack and Ron moved into territory well beyond any official OTO rituals documented at that time. Elementals were invoked then banished, Aethyrs were called, complicated texts were recited from memory, there were windstorms, knocking sounds in the night, ritual masturbations and towards the end a buzzing, metallic voice crying out ‘‘let me go free’’.
(read more)
Society
Viza: Interview
So do they think that music can change the world? Chris told me, “I think it could. I think it allows people, it gives people an outlet. It gives people I guess the right to think freely or express themselves more freely in different ways. They can explore themselves and use different styles and sounds and I think it’s a part of what we try to do as well, just kind of bringing different cultures. (read more)
Society
Gun Control and the Second Amendment
Restricting the manufacture, thus profit motive, of firearms is a must… to keep them out of the hands of criminals, psychopaths, and idiots, and that includes the cops. (read more)
Society
Rival Sons: Interview
What we do together is pretty fun but you need a producer who’s decisive, especially with us, because we ARE ‘Rival Sons’. We are like; he’s seeing it this way, I’m seeing that way, Scott is seeing it this way, James is definitely seeing it his way.
You need a fifth guy that everybody respects to go, ‘No it’s in the key of E’ and Robin goes ‘alright’. (read more)
Society
After the Fireworks: 4th July, Higgs Boson, and notions of independence
On July 4, the people of the U.S. marked the passing of another year’s perfunctory, Independence Day festivities.
The date, also, was occasioned by the formal announcement from physicists at CERN (European Organization for Nuclear Research) that, according to the banner headline at CERN’s official website, “Higgs within reach […] Our understanding of the universe is about to change […] [Our] experiments see strong indications for the presence of a new particle, which could be the Higgs boson.” (read more)
Society
Americana International Festival 2012
While wandering around my first ever festival, Reading 1989, I came across a stall selling a selection of badges, one of which portrayed a Confederate flag. (read more)
Society
The Footlong Hotdog of the Apocalypse: Part 2
'those active in the Occupy Wall Street Movement do have jobs: Our job is to transform the present order' To dwell in the domain of the heart…is to choose to live in a dangerous terrain, (read more)
Society
The Footlong Hotdog of the Apocalypse: Part 1
´Too often people practice freedom of speech, rather than committing to the more difficult task of pursuing freedom of being’ Almost exactly ten years ago, in June of 2002, my wife and I were driving (read more)
Society
In the Name of My Father, Part 2
Not too long ago, I had a dream wherein I stood gazing over the atrium of a large complex of multi-story structures. Inadvertently, I dropped my "special" writing pen…It glinted silver as it spiraled down (read more)
Society
In the Name of My Father
My parents modest, single-level, brick home stands on property that was once part of a sprawling estate owned by the Candler family, Atlanta’s Coca-Cola patricians. Built during the post-war, 1950s building boom, the small house (read more)
Society
When in doubt, blame the Proles
'Our political class don’t have capacity to do anything else but blame increasing numbers of people, to avoid discussing a politics they didn’t realise they were charged with delivering.' We are not structurally invisible to (read more)
Society
Outside of business, it’s business as usual
Orwell Prize shortlister Lisa Ansell takes a commonsense view of financial crisis and ground-level resilience I logged on to twitter today for the first time in a bit, and I saw that Baroness Warsi has (read more)
Society
Requiem and Renewal in the Shadow of Wall Street
In the Name of My Father: Requiem and Renewal in the Shadow of Wall Street On May 1, after a day of May Day activities on the streets and avenues of Manhattan, my wife and (read more)
Society
The Big Empty: Eating Cheetos with the Hungry Ghosts of a Corporate State Pt. 2
In a nation defined by vast wealth disparity and the deprivation it causes others on the planet, by means of impoverished lives and ecological devastation, taking more than one's share contributes to the vast harm (read more)
Society
The Big Empty: Eating Cheetos with the Hungry Ghosts of a Corporate State
Due to the consolidation of wealth and privilege into fewer and fewer hands, thus requiring escalating amounts of officially mandated surveillance and brutality to maintain social order, the natural trajectory of unregulated capitalism tends towards (read more)