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Hacking the World
My profile of anthropologist Gabriella Coleman in The Chronicle of Higher Education opens with a scene from the New York City memorial service for Aaron Swartz in January: The forces that seem to have hastened Swartz’s death were very much haunting the room. In the audience was a mischievous, greasy-haired hacker known as “weev,” who…
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The Pope Is Not the Church
I like the new pope—more than I expected, at least. But even so let’s remember: The pope is not the church. It’s going to be very tempting to forget this fact over the next few days. The pundits, Catholic and otherwise, have been rapt in the suspense of awaiting the arrival of Pope Francis. We…
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When You Need Your Notebook to Lie Flat
Most of my writer friends are used to me extolling the virtues of Midori MD notebooks, these fabulous little buggers from Japan: tough signature-bound pages, bendability for comfy back-pocket storage (unlike your average Moleskine), and the ability to lie flat, on any page, at a moment’s notice. The toughness was especially useful when I took…
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What the _ Did Occupy Do? Where the _ Is Occupy?
For my report that appears in this week’s issue of The Nation, I had the chance to call Occupy movement organizers around the country and check in. The thing I heard, more than anything, was something like this: “I now know who I’m going to organize with for the rest of my life.” But this organizing…
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Will Templeton Money Crown Philosophy Queen Again?
Along with this most illustrative of illustrations, The Chronicle of Higher Education’s Chronicle Review this week includes a feature story of mine, “The Templeton Effect.” It’s something of a sequel to an article I did a couple of years ago in The Nation about the John Templeton Foundation—a sizable and eccentric funder whose interests include shaping the academic…
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On Strike Against Myself
I tried to go on strike for May Day, following the Occupy movement’s calls for a general strike, and it was harder than I thought. My decision was made official—that is, public—by Malcolm Harris’ inclusion of me in his piece, “How Does a Writer Strike?” The trouble is, of course, that I’m self-employed, and my…
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Paint the Other Cheek
When The Nation assigned me to do a story about questions of violence and nonviolence at Occupy Wall Street early last month, I had no idea how much the subject would explode. Occupy Oakland’s “Move-In Day” on January 28 and a subsequent article by Chris Hedges (as well as some heated discussions on my articles at Waging…
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Some Great Cause, God’s New Messiah
Early this past summer, I came across a certain quotation opening an essay by Mary Elizabeth King—now a columnist for Waging Nonviolence and a friend. This was right about the time I first got the idea in my head that I needed to learn how to tell the stories of how great resistance movements are…
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On Occupy Wall Street’s Radical Roots
As it moves into a new year, and an election year no less, the Occupy movement will likely be claimed by more and more hopefuls in the mainstream trying to benefit from it, and to sanitize it in the process. I guess that’s why I’ve found myself writing a lot lately about the movement’s radical…