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Matching entries from mistersquid: a digital fiction
Arab Spring Arrives Late in Israel
Source: Israelis march for lower living costsSource: 250,000 Protest Cost of Living in Israel “We know that we cannot achieve everything,” Itzik Shmuly, the chairman of the National Union of Students, acknowledged from the podium in Tel Aviv. “But...
Speaking of Flying
The powers-that-be of the United States are having a difficult time understanding the Fourth Amendment. The problems with universal, arbitrary searches are manifold, and present surveillance techniques at US airports are not specific enough for the dangers they ostensibly...
Obama Administration Considers Depriving American Citizens of Their Constitutional Rights
It is time to start shouting. Representatives and appointees of the Obama administration—particularly David Axelrod and Attorney General Erich H. Holder—are considering abridging one of the most important Supreme Court interpretations of the Fifth Amendment, the right against self-incrimination,...
Coda de Cinco
I loved celebrating Cinco de Mayo when before leaving California for the University of Virginia in Fall 1993. Because I was unaware of the historical significance of the holiday, Cinco de Mayo was a low-pressure excuse to have a...
The Sadism of American Waterboarding
“Waterboarding” is a euphemism for a form of torture older than the United States itself. What makes the term “waterboarding” particularly grotesque is its winking reference to the American pastime of surfing. I’m reminded of the moment when Colonel...
Swine Flu Vaccine Shortfall, or Why US Health Care Needs Greater Governmental Oversight
Barbara Ehrenreich explains that the shorfall of H1N1 vaccine in the United States is due to the failure of US pharmaceutical companies to meet their self-imposed production targets. This failure is the direct result of pharmaceuticals choosing to pursue...
Barack Obama Awarded 2009 Nobel Peace Prize
The Norwegian Nobel Committee has decided that the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 is to be awarded to President Barack Obama for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples. The Committee has attached special importance...
Harry Connick Jr. Hates Blackface
The contestants, all medical professionals, are none too talented and, judging by their routine, racially oblivious. The audience cheers the jerking minstrels, clapping to the beat of a racial lampooning. At 1:49 Harry Connick Jr. looks dumbfounded, and at...
Some Thoughts Regarding the Creation of Text-to-Speech Audiobooks Using Consumer-Grade Software, or One Possible Outcome for Academic Professionalism as a Result of Fully Digitzed Text
Codex Books, Audiobooks, and Assistive Devices: A Tale of Near Misses The last book I checked out of Alden Library while still a faculty at Ohio University was Clay Shirky’s 2008 Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without...
An American Dream (subprime palette)
While the Fed works overtime to ensure that shareholders of publicly traded companies don't lose their seasonal homes in Telluride, CO, and the weekend pickmeups in Martha's Vineyard, working class Americans set up shanty towns in Los Angeles, CA, home...
Relatively Unknown Statistics
After surviving my brother's suicide in 1995, I became painfully aware just how prevalent suicide is. Years ago I encountered a WHO statistic that the suicide rate outstrips the homicide rate by nearly three times.A recent NYTimes article notes a...
U.S. Interest in the Middle East: World War III
I'm doing everything I can not to become a frothing pacifist, but it's hard in the face of the unilateral sanctions against Iran which will be announced today by the present administration. I don't have time or energy to distill...
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