What’s the Secret of Boba Fett’s Staying Power?
The bounty hunter has lately infused The Clone Wars with some much-needed threat, now that its main evils, such as General Grievous, have been unmasked as mostly comic relief.
CLI-FI
Free Culture Now. Mass Culture Tomorrow.
I wrote about the Students for Free Culture’s conference Free Culture X, taking place on Saturday and Sunday in D.C., recently for Wired.com. But for those still unclear on why […]
Technocracy Blowback: Five Case Studies
“Why blame technology? It generally does what it is coded to do. It’s the human sentient understanding of how to take cruel advantage of human weakness that’s the problem.”
Global Warming’s Catastrophic Polarities
Climate change deniers argue that the frozen storms battering America have nothing to do with the arrival of hell on Earth. But destabilizing intensity on either end of the weather spectrum is our new normal, and we better get used to it.
R.I.P. Howard Zinn, Historian of the People
[Viggo Mortensen, Perceval Press] Thank you, Howard. It is an honour to have read you, heard you, learned from you, known you at least a little. You will always be […]
Adam Curtis: Meet the New Yemen, Same As the Old Yemen
Our current obsession with Yemen is anything but current, brainiac documentarian Adam Curtis argued in his BBC blog “The Medium and the Message.” In fact, it’s older than Osama. “What […]
Pat Robertson. Poet. Humorist. Terrorist.
[Scott Thill, Morphizm] “Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French. You know, […]
John Oliver: Enjoy the Abyss, America!
[Scott Thill, Morphizm] After losing the visionary Stephen Colbert, The Daily Show has been leaning heavily on scathing comedians like Jason Jones, Samantha Bee, John Hodgman and this UK import, […]
Alan Moore Is Ready For Post-Civilization
“I have largely, completely given up on the comics industry,” Moore said. “I really don’t believe it is going to do anything to address the modern world.”
Can Aspartame Kill You?
Well, let’s start wrapping up the stragglers from my year’s worth of content, shall we? Starting with this investigation of the sugar substitute aspartame, which can either kill you outright […]
Attack of the Foreclosed Homeowners!
Hey, have you heard the one about the underwater homeowners who unsuccessfully tried to modify their home loans, but got even by tying two loan servicers to chairs and beating […]
Viggo Mortensen’s Apocalyptic Road
“Further devastation of the air, land and sea is obviously a very real possibility.”
10 Culture Turkeys That Put 2009 to Sleep
Happy Thanksgiving, Americans! You’ve got a lot to be thankful for. This is not that.
The Prisoner: An All-Star Appreciation
Its revolutionary mix of geopolitics, sci-fi and psychedelia has influenced not just television, but also music, comics, film and more.
Devo Returns, This Time With Rugs!
“De-evolution seems even more a part of our daily reality than ever. There is more misinformation, humans have overrun the planet, and it is not nuclear bombs we must fear, but the human mind. Or lack of it.”
Can We Call It a Depression Now?
I conceived this article before the Dow passed 10,000, and wrote it afterward. It went up on AlterNet right before the Dow fell from 10,000 and now I’m posting it […]
Margaret Atwood, Apocalyptic Optimist
When people first started writing this stuff, they didn’t call it science fiction.
Econopocalypse Derailed By Antimatter
I always love to interview the conceptual artist Jonathon Keats. His art consists in crafting up out-there propositions that make you think and laugh in equal measure. His latest is […]
Obama’s Bad Influence
[Naomi Klein, The Nation] Of all the explanations for Barack Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize, the one that rang truest came from French President Nicolas Sarkozy. “It sets the seal on […]
Step Aside McDonald’s, Subway’s Surging
Subway has managed to carve out a lucrative niche in a perfect storm of fast food and economic recession.
Difference Engine Reboots, Recomputes
“A friend suggested the William Gibson and Bruce Sterling book title for our band name, and we immediately took to it, since it encompassed our sound, which is a blend of human and machine.”
Superman + Batman = Public Enemies
Superman/Batman: Public Enemies packs more heroes, action and political satire into a couple hours of entertainment than either icon’s animated series did in the course of several seasons.
Cli-Fi: The Age Of Stupid Gets Smart
By the time The Age of Stupid‘s flashbacks are over and the viewer is stuck in a ravaged 2055, the urge to do something immediate is palpable and powerful.
Obama, Du Bois, Hitler: Silence Gives Consent
[Amy Bass, Morphizm] History is never about the past. It wasn’t then. It isn’t now. In the midst of a lot of people who don’t seem to understand this, Barney […]
The Tel Aviv Party Stops Here
[Naomi Klein, The Nation] When I heard the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) was holding a celebratory “spotlight” on Tel Aviv, I felt ashamed of Toronto, the city where I […]