While reading of our current American Chaos in the morning’s paper (yes, actual newsprint), I was reminded of a phrase and a quotation that seem apt considerations for our national dilemma. The first is the Latin phrase “cui bono”, which means “to whose profit?” or “to whose benefit?” It is most often used today as…
The following is from an NPR Frontline notice I received as a subscriber. I know I’ve got a lot of posts recently hammering Facebook, but it seems that finally a lot of people are waking up to the platform’s dangers. There are good things about FB, undeniably. But nothing is ALL good. Facebook’s dark side…
This article in Mother Jones is an important summary of recent issues confronting Facebook, and how they’ve manipulated their response to the public and their users. I first saw this mentioned in a tweet by James Fallows. It’ll set your hair on fire. We can thank the British Guardian and the New York Times, for…
I recently came across this website (Freedom From Facebook) and looked into its mission and organizers. I think it’s a worthy organization to pay attention to if you’re concerned at all about your data on the Internet. Don’t take your privacy for granted. It’s YOUR data Facebook is monetizing, and we need to be informed…
Here are some excerpts from a November 9 article in the New York Times about the mid-term election turnout. Texas is on the move. “By percent of people eligible to vote, it was the highest turnout of any midterm election [nationally] since at least 1970 and the first time midterm turnout topped 100 million.…
This article by Paul Krugman highlights once again, the disparity in voting weight between rural and urban Americans in an age when most of the population is rapidly shifting to urban settings. There have been countless articles about this, but this one provokes a great deal of insightful comments. I often find the comments section…
Here’s an article by Michael Tomasky that makes an argument that I whole-heartedly embrace. It’s about how, of the two major American political parties, the Republicans’ messaging in the last 30 or 40 years has steam-rolled the Democrats, who seem to be utterly incapable of refuting it or offering something better. The main reason the…
I’m occasionally struck by the media’s juxtaposition of stories with startlingly different headlines. You wonder why editorial chose to put such jarring stories side by side. I came across this one last week: the cruelty of poverty and war . . . and the unabashed abundance of a wealthy nation. The day before yesterday the…
Texas still has the largest percentage of uninsured residents in the nation, according to a recent U.S. Census report. Texas’ rate is at 17.3 percent — nearly twice the national rate. BACK
“Neither Democrats nor Republicans will like it. But it would be humane, it would adhere to the rule of law, and it would work.” Sonia Nazario is the author of Enrique’s Journey, is a graduate of Williams College and holds a master’s degree in Latin American Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. She received an…