What’s up Pulse pounders, My relationship with Obeezy is a complicated one. Barry came a-courtin’ like no other gentleman caller in our lifetime, and at the start we had so much promise, but after that little drone warfare stunt he pulled, among others, it was clear he wasn’t listening to our needs even though we were the ones that got him there. The break-up came on September 17th in a park in New York City. It was very public and very messy, but it’s put us on the path toward wholeness. Now, Broken-Heart Barry needs us a lot more than we need him, and so he’s gonna come crawling back tonight and sing this. The man is slick, and he is the most swag-filled president in history, but the relationship is past fixing at this point, or at least that’s what...
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I am, of course, stealing this sentiment from Buckminster Fuller, who, among other things, envisioned a harmonious global community, aware of how beautiful and delicate our home is in the vast cosmos. Global Community Through Localization Paradoxically, the only way to think of us as belonging to a global community is not through globalization but localization. We have come to view globalization as the exchange of cultural knowledge and the creation of a world community, while localization is seen as the breeding grounds of isolationism. The reality, however, is that globalization has been a tool for powerful Multinational Corporations to lobby for lower regulations and bigger tax breaks, devastating local communities. The result, more or less, is the homogenization of our cultural identities. Localization, on the other hand, places its focus on enriching local communities and creating unique self-identities....
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Today marks a major shift in the politics of Wikipedia, the site famous for being a free source of information (and occasional misinformation) for anyone in the world with an Internet connection. The key to Wikipedia’s success is that it contains articles on just about any product, company, band, TV show, or idea in existence – and describing these often requires use of names, images, storylines, trademarks, or other materials that can be problematic under copyright law, but generally are not when used in the context of simply providing information. But, in response to the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) – bills that, if passed by Congress, could cause any foreign website accused of copyright infringement to be shuttered by the U.S. Government without substantial evidence – Wikipedia has pledged to keep its English-language...
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Infographic Notes: The Personhood Amendment battles listed above are the voter-driven constitutional amendment ballot initiatives, which are only allowed in 17 states1. Any state in the nation except Delaware2 can craft an amendment in the legislation, pass it, and then send it to the people for approval – but the Personhood movement has had no real success with this tactic. Virginia and North Dakota, for example, both had failed attempts in the past year. Still, a state legislature could attempt to pass a Personhood Amendment in time to get it on the 2012 ballot and therefore circumvent the whole signature-gathering process that has stalled the Personhood movements before. This chart currently only includes bills under consideration and potential ballot initiatives, as well as new laws signed/passed/rejected in the last 2 months. I plan on updating this about once every...
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The refusal of House Republicans to go along with the Senate approval of a two-month extension on President Obama’s middle-class tax cut has spurred a media frenzy over speculated fragmentation within the Republican Party: between Senate and House, between the Tea Party-aligned and non-aligned. It has been referred to ironically as a ‘Christmas present’ from the Republican Party to the Democratic Party for the 2012 presidential race.
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WEST CHESTER, OH — Protestors upset by Republican House Speaker John Boehner’s midnight hour passing of Keystone XL Pipeline legislation performed a human oil spill at his Ohio office this morning. Nearly 40 people from around the state arrived at Speaker Boehner’s office at eleven in the morning. They were met by a congressional staffer who barred their entry on the basis that ‘they were not constituents.’ When the protestors delivered their message from the sidewalk, she remained stern and did not take notes, but promised to relay the information to the congressman. The protestors created a human oil spill after being shut out from the office. Activists dressed in black sprawled out on the pavement to visually represent the environmental costs of the planned Keystone XL pipeline. They also dumped Boehner Bills from a simulated pipeline to show...
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One of the most prominent demands to have emerged from the Occupy Wall Street movement is to have student debt forgiveness – or at least a demand that the government or the financial sector do something about the country’s massive student debt problem. Given that aggregate student loan debt has now eclipsed credit card debt in the U.S., this issue merits serious consideration. But if we re-conceptualize tuition payment and loan debt as problems of investment in human capital, the type of intangible capital such as skills or education that is fixed in the individual, we can begin to move towards some real policy-based solutions.
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In the excitement over the defeat of Issue 2 and the passage of Issue 3 there hasn’t been a lot of attention paid to some of the smaller city-and-county-level measures that were on the ballot this year – some of which were actually kind of important. I want to focus on a particularly interesting election-day result – namely the defeat of Cincinnati’s anti-streetcar local Issue 48, which will probably leave a definite mark on the way downtown Cincinnati looks for years to come. Let’s break it down and delve a little bit into why passenger rail debates tend to be so divisive. By a 52-48 margin, Cincinnati voters defeated Issue 48, which would have put a ten-year stop on the construction of the city’s proposed streetcar system. On top of this, Cincinnati voters also booted four Republican councilmembers (Chris...
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What are the two things that they always say not to talk about on a first date? Religion and politics, right? While I’d say this is really bad advice (generally speaking), it does raise a particular question: why is it that religion and politics are such contentious issues in our society? Why is it that, especially when talking politics, we tend to devolve into shit-flinging chimpanzees? I don’t actually have an answer to that question, other than to say that it doesn’t have to be that way. Many immigrants and foreigners with whom I have talked about this issue are simply in awe of the state of political discourse in this country.
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