There is a peculiar kind of weather in America today. It is a season where the rain falls only on the pavement, leaving the gardens of the ordinary man to bone-dry dust, while the glass towers of corporate high-rises are washed clean every morning by the sweat of people they never see. If we look Read More …
Tag: marktwain
The Gospel of Gold and Gadgets
There is a particular brand of comedy being staged in the higher echelons of our society, and though I am told it is a drama, I simply cannot stop laughing through the tears. We find ourselves trapped in an era dominated by a “Technological Totalitarian State”, a delightfully sterile phrase for what is essentially a Read More …
The Prison Boom Nobody Talks About Enough
There’s a story hiding in plain sight in America, and it’s one we should probably be talking about a lot more. Start with some numbers. In 1972, around 330,000 people were behind bars in the United States. By 2008, that figure had ballooned to 2.3 million, an increase of over 700 percent. Even today, in Read More …
The Captains of Phantom Industry
It has been brought to my attention through the standard digital pipelines, which I understand are powered by invisible currents and the tireless labor of folks sitting in cubicles under dimly lit fluorescent lights (to save on the electric bill, Bob Cratchit) , that we are on the precipice of welcoming our very first trillionaire. Read More …
The Neon Mirage
We have traded the smoke stacks for server farms, and the assembly line for the algorithm. We feed our thoughts into glowing glass rectangles, hoping for a connection, but the only thing we receive is a beautifully engineered echo chamber delivered specifically for us through the magic of that algorithm. The tools have changed, but Read More …
The Golden Calf in the Radio Box
I was once told by a man of the cloth, one of the old-fashioned kind who still believed the Red Letters were more than just a stylistic choice by the printer, that the quickest way to lose your soul is to find a way to sell it at a profit. Now, I’ve seen many a Read More …
The New Gospel of the Gilded Calf
It has been remarked by men wiser than myself that the Good Book is like a mirror: if an ass looks in, you can’t expect an apostle to look out. These days, however, it seems a whole congregation of folks have looked into the Gospel and somehow mistaken the Beatitudes for a business prospectus. I Read More …
The Gospel According to the “Great Dealmaker”
It is a curious thing, the way a man can read a book of peace on Sunday and vote for a firestorm on Monday, all while wearing the same Sunday-best suit and a look of profound piety. I have long observed that the more a politician mentions the Almighty, the more likely he is to Read More …
The Grand Illusion of the “Foreign Tax”
It has been brought to my attention, via the shouting on social media and the groaning of the common man’s purse, that we are currently engaged in a most spectacular feat of financial magic. Our dear leaders have discovered a way to tax the “foreigner” by reaching into the pockets of the American farmer, the Read More …