Philadelphia’s Rosetta have achieved a lot in their ten years as a band. In addition to three self-released LPs full of lush, intricate, and very noisy post-rock and metal, they’ve toured extensively, especially to spots their contemporaries have yet to visit. More»
Humans of Tehran
Photographer Brandon Stanton’s Humans of New York project, which has spawned “Humans of” pages in many other locales – Dublin, Mumbai, Jerusalem and the Fiji Islands to name a few – began in 2010. Stanton had just left a career in the Chicago financial industry to move to New York, where he began walking around the city, taking street portraits. More»
America’s Impotent Left
Incomes Flat in Recovery, but Not for the 1%. The New York Times headline understated the case. According to economist Emmanuel Saez, during the first year of the economic “recovery,” the top 1% of America’s population saw its income rise by over 11%, while the rest of the US saw its income decline slightly. More»
Age and Occupation
At first glance, the flyer might have struck the jaded flâneur as parody. Instead of the crusty punks and hippies that usually festoon images of protest in Berlin, a bunch of white-hairs hold a large banner with the classic squatter’s slogan “This house is occupied.” More»
A Year of Occupy
Last week, the Humanities Center at Pittsburgh’s Carnegie Mellon University held a roundtable event on the origins of Occupy Wall Street. Commemorating the first anniversary of the uprising, the gathering could not have been more necessary, or appropriate. More»
You’re Under Surveillance
Richard Clarke is concerned that Stuxnet, presumed to have been an Israeli-American initiative aimed at Iran’s nuclear program, is being studied by China to use against the U.S. “It got loose because there was a mistake,” he told Smithsonian Magazine. Clarke was angry, calling Stuxnet, “The best cyberweapon the United States has ever developed,” which it “gave the world for free.” More»
De-“Randing” America
It’s easy to ignore Ayn Rand. The extremity of her views makes it easy to write her followers off as fringe characters in the already-far Right. However, ignoring Rand and her Objectivist philosophy has in fact facilitated her movement from the fringes toward the mainstream. Now, thirty years after her death, it’s dangerous to ignore her. More»
It Isn’t Easy Being Read
When word began to circulate that Fox Business Network host Eric Bolling had criticized The Muppets for promoting anti-capitalist values, many people were incredulous. Social media sites were soon awash with the type of satire popularized by The Daily Show. But this dismissive response obscured the fact that he was being mocked for doing what many progressives have advocated for decades: taking popular culture seriously. More»
Beyond Adbusters
Despite his comparative anonymity, it may actually turn out to be James Alex, the blogger/artist who kicked off the recent pepper-spray cop meme, who becomes the more important model for the future of Occupy Wall Street than Kalle Lasn, the now-famous head of Adbusters. Let me explain why, through my own encounter with each of them. More»
Meet Burnt Cross
Burnt Cross are a pretty new band in the punk scheme of things. But you wouldn’t know this from hearing them. In fact, the four year-old duo’s songs often evoke the “instant classic” quality you immediately recognize in songs like Crass’s Banned From the Roxy, Conflict’s mid-eighties rants, and the perennial “some-band-you-know-from-the-
Red Rose
Given the number of intellectual heavyweights who have been featured on Charlie Rose over the years, maybe Slavoj Žižek’s October 26th appearance shouldn’t have been a surprise. Yet the timing of his visit made it feel urgent, somehow, as if we were witnessing the repudiation of business as usual. More»
Occupying the Cathode Ray
Occupy Wall Street has demonstrated that the late Gil-Scot Heron’s 1970 assertion, “the revolution will not be televised,” has been rendered a cliché. Indeed, this revolution is highly televised, and not just live 24/7 on Global Revolution. More»
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