“War is the enemy of the poor”

Tavis Smiley has written a book Death of a King about the last year of Martin Luther King’s life where he discusses what I have been arguing for a long time, that King, in the five years after his “I have a dream” speech in 1963 and especially in the last year of life had a much darker view of America, highlighting America’s abuse of power abroad (and condemning the Vietnam war) and its class war at home against the poor, and its endemic racism. His message became much more powerful and because of that he became vilified and marginalized by whites at that time and is ignored now.
[Read more…]

Shaming people to vote

So I voted today, as I always do. However angry I get at the rigged system that is currently in place, I have this unshakeable feeling that I need to go out and vote. But I do understand why some might feel that they cannot in good conscience vote using the lesser-of-two-evils doctrine and I oppose efforts to shame principled non-voters into feeling that they are somehow shirking their civic duty. This is why I never wear the ‘I Voted Today’ sticker that they give me.
[Read more…]

The strengths and dangers of hyperlocal social media

I had never heard of the app Yik Yak. It is a Twitter-like app that uses GPS location sensors to allow people to post their views (“yaks”) anonymously within a highly limited geographical area of 1.5 miles, thus making it a hyper-local social network. This enables people to comment anonymously on matters of purely local interest. You can read how it works here. The app is particularly popular on college campuses where people can share their opinions on what’s going on in and outside of class.
[Read more…]

John Malkovich being other people

John Malkovich is one of the most interesting actors around, willing to take on a wide range of characters, thus ensuring that he is impossible to typecast. In yet another weird departure from the norm, he appears in a series of iconic photographs where his carefully posed image replaces that of the main character in it. Photographer Sandro Miller explains that this project was his way of paying homage to the great photographers who inspired him.
[Read more…]

The sheer joy of reuniting with your dog

Nina Pham, the nurse who contracted Ebola after treating Thomas Eric Duncan in Dallas, was cured of the disease and released from her quarantine. It looks like one of the reasons that US patients seem to be recovering at such high rates is that they receive immediate and extensive treatment, such as IVs and anti-viral drugs, to maintain whatever bodily fluids they lose due to the disease, enabling them to survive long enough to create their own antibodies to the virus.
[Read more…]