Stream of Reading (Prepare to be Forwarded) – An Archive of What I'm Reading
One point that, I hope, runs through a lot of my work is the use and abuse of dead moral questions. In that, I mean the tendency for political types to bring a lot of rhetorical and mental weight to bear on questions that are not politically live, in any meaningful sense. This focus is…
‘Far from being ‘sacred’, as some have claimed, freedom of speech is always contingent.’ Photograph: Joel Saget/AFP In times of crisis, those who would like us to keep just one idea in our heads at any one time are quick to the megaphones. By framing events in Manichean terms – dark versus light; good versus…
“Doc stroked his chin and gazed off into space for a while. ‘You know how some people say they have a ‘gut feeling’? Well, Shasta Fay, what I have is dick feelings, and my dick feeling sez—’”— Thomas Pynchon, Inherent Vice (2009) “It is said that analyzing pleasure, or beauty, destroys it. That is the…
Tax reformers’ hope springs eternal, but don’t bet on a big tax deal in 2015 or 2016. Don’t bet on a medium-sized one either. The parties are too far apart to enact a sweeping reform of the U.S. tax code that includes the personal-income tax. Most Republicans want fewer tax breaks, lower rates and especially…
Today, in the wake of the Paris’ tragedy, some journalists, here and there, also on Gawker, try to understand what this very “different” newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, actually is. And yes, I say “is” because the newspaper itself is not dead and will be published normally next Wednesday and the weeks after that, despite the slaughter…
Aram Zucker-Scharff Doing some personal metrics tracking lately using a semi-secret process soon to be blogged about and have uncovered this fun fact: Since January 5th I’ve read >140 articles on the internet. As of this week, I think I’ll be able to track word counts. Sadly, I can confirm that the internet is still…
Most of The New York Times’ most popular items last year weren’t news stories by Benjamin Mullin Published Jan. 12, 2015 1:48 pm Updated Jan. 12, 2015 2:02 pm The New York Times Last year’s most popular item in The New York Times was this interactive, an image gallery of sorts that showed the photographic…
Neil Young’s “high resolution” PonoPlayer goes on sale for $400 today. You shouldn’t buy it. The recalcitrant rocker isn’t wrong for wanting to reclaim audio quality in the digital age, but in the service of that goal he’s peddling junk science, and supporting expensive gear and music files you don’t need. For the last few…
Over the past week, millions of people who had never heard of French magazine Charlie Hebdo have come into contact with its controversial covers and cartoons. And many have come away with questions about those cartoons, including a nagging sense that their depictions of Islam and people of color have been insensitive, or even racist….
by Julia Homer (About the author: Julia Homer was the editor of CFO Magazine for its 1985 launch and served at CFO Publishing until January 2012 when she left as executive vice president. While CFO was part of The Economist Group from 1989 to 2009, Homer helped launch CFO Europe, CFO Asia and CFO China,…