shouting loudly

[The real point of this blog post is just to encourage you to read George Packer's article (ungated version here.  But c'mon, subscribe to the New Yorker already).  It's the best thing you'll read this month.] I read a lot of technology criticism.  I write a bit of it as well.  George Packer’s article in this week’s New Yorker, [...]

Over on PolicyMic, Julia Rhodes writes, ‘Game Of Thrones’ and ‘Mad Men’ Make Women Characters Out to Be Mothers, Whores, and Little Else. I’m not a frequent Mad Men watcher, but I’m really into Game of Thrones. I’ve been thinking about the gender relations throughout — where Martin and the TV show make commendable moves, [...]

Wow. I didn’t have any respect for Tucker Carlson to begin with.  But I assumed he was above this, at least. On November 1, days before Senator Robert Mendendez (D-NJ) faced reelection, the DailyCaller led with a story of two prostitutes in the Dominican Republic who claimed they’d slept with him.  They produced video testimony [...]

You might remember Tucker Carlson as the bow-tie’ed cohost of Crossfire.  That show ended after Jon Stewart’s appearance, when he asked Carlson to “stop hurting America” with the two-bit hackery he was passing off as “journalism” on CNN. After leaving Crossfire, Carlson decided to start a website for serious conservative journalism.  It has not gone [...]

Free Beacon is the worst.  Take a minute to read Jonathan Chait’s latest column at New York Magazine, “Hitler Alive and Well, Owning Liberal Magazine.”  While  relaunching The New Republic, Chris Hughes removed 12 contributing editors from the masthead.  Five of them were jewish.  None of them had written anything at TNR in years.  Free Beacon decided [...]

Jaron Lanier is at it again.  Two weeks ago, at Personal Democracy Forum, Lanier unveiled the central thesis of his next book: computer networks are causing the demise of the American middle class, threatening Democracy as we know it.  New information technology has exacerbated the distribution of wealth.  The Internet has undermined a set of [...]

The news broke yesterday that NBC will be canceling 30 Rock, Parks and Rec, and Community. (…On the bright side, I suppose I’ll be more productive next year when there’s nothing interesting to watch on television.) As a media consumer, I was shocked.  Everyone who watches Community knew the show was in ratings trouble.  But [...]

The Wall Street Journal published an OpEd last Friday by Peter Berkowitz, titled “How California’s Colleges Indoctrinate Students.”  Berkowitz argues that higher ed has been “politicized” by “activist professors and compliant university administrators,” leading to the hollowing out of education and erosion of civic cohesion.  He bases these claims on a provocatively-titled new report by [...]

Conservative media activist Andrew Breitbart died suddenly last night.  Given the amount of time I’ve spent talking about him on this blog and in the classroom, I felt I should post something about it. Conservative media sites are heralding him as a fallen hero today.  Progressive sites are being polite and circumspect, as is appropriate. [...]

David Brock and Ari Rabin-Havt (of Media Matters) have a new book out, titled The Fox Effect: How Roger Ailes Turned A Network Into a Propaganda Machine.  It is engagingly written and well-researched, offering a booklength compilation of the research drumbeat Media Matters has produced over the past eight years. According to the authors, the Fox [...]