Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
Google Microdata Mobile only ad Article “Cover” Progress Isn’t Natural Humans invented it—and not that long ago. Google Metadata A 1770 engraving of a steam engine crushing a wall Bettman / Getty How and why did the modern world and its unprecedented prosperity begin? Many bookshelves are full of learned tomes by historians, economists, political…
It is not an exaggeration to say that the Democratic Party is in shambles as a political force. Not only did it just lose the White House to a wildly unpopular farce of a candidate despite a virtually unified establishment behind it, and not only is it the minority party in both the Senate and…
Since the 80s, people have thought that women, as a unit, vote more liberally than men. While this is generally true, white women have a storied history of defying this trend, voting for Republican candidates against their own best interests and the interests of all women throughout the country. The 2016 presidential election results…
On Friday, the New York Times reported that President-elect Donald Trump tapped Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions to serve as attorney general in his new administration. Sessions himself put out a statement boasting that Trump was “unbelievably impressed” with his “phenomenal record” as Alabama’s attorney general and U.S. attorney. Yet the last time Sessions was up for a federal…
Federal appeals court judge Merrick Garland, right, walks out with President Obama and Vice President Biden as he is introduced as Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court during an announcement in the Rose Garden of the White House on March 16, 2016. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik) Merrick Garland’s last, long-shot chance at being confirmed as a Supreme…
The myth of the bullied white outcast loner is helping fuel a fascist resurgence Fascism is back. Nazi propaganda is appearing on college campuses and in city centers, a Mussolini-quoting paramilitary group briefly formed to “protect” Trump rallies, the KKK is reforming, and all the while, the media glibly participates in a fascist rebrand, popularizing…
Have you ever wondered what it would sound like to create an entire album of Beastie Boys remixes comprised entirely of Daft Punk samples? Probably not. But two years ago, one particularly creative Canadian producer by the name of Coins sat down in his studio to accomplish this very task. Titled Daft Science, Coins’ ambitious project strips down multiple Daft Punk…
Children in the Manzanar internment camp in California. (AP/National Park Service) There is dangerous talk these days by those who have the ear of some at the highest levels of government. Earlier this week, Carl Higbie, an outspoken Trump surrogate and co-chair of Great America PAC, gave an interview with Megyn Kelly of Fox News….
Anant Goel, Nabanita De, Qinglin Chen and Mark Craft at Princeton’s hackathon (Anant Goel) When Nabanita De scrolled through her Facebook feed recently, she felt afraid. There were so many posts with competing information and accusations about Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton that she didn’t know how to begin deciphering the fearmongering from the reality. The…
In the past week, one of the most astute post-election explainers was an essay on Cracked using examples from three movies—The Hunger Games, Star Wars, Braveheart—to help explain why the 2016 election was not about Republicans vs. Democrats, but really about The Country vs. The City. That’s the narrative that many are clinging to this…