In 2012, a man named Peter Turchin predicted that by 2020 the US would reach “peak instability” marked by violent unrest and major social upheaval. Turchin is one of those “cycle guys.” That means he looks for patterns in history to help predict the future. He’s an ecologist, evolutionary biologist, and mathematician at the University […]
It’s been almost 5 months since Hurricane Sandy devastated several towns and knocked out power to more than 8 million people across the east coast. The storm resulted in 72 deaths and thousands of destroyed homes and businesses. At $75 billion, it was the 2nd costliest hurricane in US history. The lives of those directly […]
This is part 2 of 2. For part 1, click here. If the primary theme of the new Batman movies could be boiled down to one word, it would be fascism. Clearly, all superhero movies have fascist elements in them. They feature superhuman beings who through force of will and personal strength are capable of beating back otherwise […]
Rather than writing a diatribe about Martin Luther King Jr.’s importance today, I’ve decided to simply let him speak for himself, something rarely done in the mainstream press, despite their otherwise endless adulation. That’s the way it is with heroes. Societies rarely ever abandon them completely, but they ignore the inconvenient messages they deliver. There […]
Good art, real art that is, always reflects some greater reality about the times we live in. False art or corporate art seeks rather to distract from reality in an effort to get us to buy and consume more and more, never questioning how fragile the whole system is. We think the next Batman movie […]
We’ve known for some time now that the financial services industry has been “livid” with Democrats who’ve tacitly supported the Occupy Wall Street protesters. Politico reported last month: Banking executives personally called the offices of DCCC Chairman Steve Israel (D-N.Y.) and DCCC Finance Chairman Joe Crowley (D-N.Y.) last week demanding answers, three financial services […]
