Avatar’s Cinematic Compression Implodes
M. Night Shyamalan’s compression of Nickelodeon’s stunning animated series Avatar: The Last Airbender has serious boots to fill. And it needs much more time to fill them.
Terror and Terraformation
The Red Bull Racket
Red Bull is a tiny can of caffeinated hope. It’s not the first subject I would pick for an AlterNet article, but that’s why they pay my editor Jan the […]
Neil Young’s Enviropocalyptic Comic, Greendale
Neil Young’s stirring Greendale started life in 2003 as a crunchy concept album about the enviropocalypse, and quickly became an indie film. The inevitable graphic novel arrives…
The Cell Phone Racket
If you’re not angry with AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint — America’s four national wireless providers that reportedly control 90 percent of the market — then here’s some ridiculous news to raise your righteous ire.
Flash Crash: Robotrading The Market
Flash Crash proved that market makers playing both sides of securities could be capable of wiping out any corporation’s stock, perhaps any nation’s economy
Deepwater Horizon’s Epic OilGas Catastrophe
If you’ve been railing for decades against the fossil fuel sector for everything from deliberately removing safeguards that could have prevented what will likely end up being the worst U.S. oil disaster in history to its lethal emissions that could, in the extreme, end up warming planet Earth to the point that human habitation is an impossibility, well, this is all old, sad news.
Airbender Posters Whip Up Anticipation
High expectations for the film exist in a space apart from the trepidation found in some corners of the Airbender nation…
Why China Has Our Economy By the Balls
[Scott Thill, AlterNet] On May 1, China popped the cork on Expo 2010 in Shanghai, a months-long international celebration signifying the ascension of the city, and thereby its parent nation, […]
Showdown On Wall Street
[Scott Thill, AlterNet] Good thing Goldman Sachs reported its first-quarter profits on the popular pot holiday April 20. Because you had to be totally stoned to appreciate the sheer, corrupt […]
In Praise of Ralph Bakshi, Animation Pioneer
One of animation’s most influential artists, Ralph Bakshi made his mark on pop culture by refusing to sacrifice his singular vision to popular tastes and trends.
With Finance, Expected the Unexpectedly
When it comes to the finance casino, expect the unexpected. And when it comes to the financial press that is committed to covering it, expect to hear the word “unexpectedly.” […]
Goodbye, Paper Money
[Scott Thill, AlterNet] Currency has come a long way in the past few thousand years of human existence. Ancient Turkey started using hybrid silver and gold coins around 640 B.C. […]
Wikileaks Under Fire
On April 5, WikiLeaks.org plans to release at the National Press Club what it alleges is a video confirming a Pentagon cover-up of a wartime massacre of civilians and journalists […]
Ten Ways Mother Earth Will Strike Back
Welcome to our existential nightmare, from rising seas and runaway droughts and storms to the outer limits of dystopian catastrophes like the fart apocalypse.
Gold Fever and Artificial Value
[Scott Thill, AlterNet] Quick, check out this hot investment tip! For decades now, the Federal Reserve has been suppressing the true value of gold to keep its prodigious impact out […]
Goldman Sucks Greece, Swallows The Eurozone
I’ve been writing about Goldman Sucks — that is, rapacious economics star chamber Goldman Sachs — for years now. And I’m glad the rest of the world is finally paying […]
UN: Climate Crisis Attention Lacks Ambition
They would rather wait until the climate crisis has already ripped the roof off the world as they knew it, before doing anything significant about it.
Vuture Funds Savaged in Liberia
[Greg Palast, Guardian UK] Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the president of Liberia, is urging MPs to back a bill banning vulture funds from using British courts to prey on poor countries […]
Yellow Light Panopticon Crashes, Burns
With profit as the red-light camera’s primary motive, it’s hard for an already disenfranchised citizenry to find friends in those money-hungry local governments.
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, […]