show me
i’ll believe all the pretty talk about diversity and inclusion when a pilot episode ends with The Cover Girl’s Show Me. either our history matters o...
Category: power
politics, history, force
more money in trolling
I made this video for Instagram just over two years ago. It should probably be hosted here as well. Transcript: “what happens when there’s more mone...
Queens English
From my February 7, 2021 newsletter. Reprinted in full with a few grammatical corrections. “You don’t sound Cuban.” “Where’s your ...
free the USA, repeal the HSA
A video for Instagram: The New Republic has a fine recap. File under: “Little Green Men“
Junk
I grew up when America was first discussing “junk food”: ready-to-eat foods that were filling, and tasty, but neither nutritious nor healthy. I feel like we’ve ...
latines
Latines is a gender neutral term that is pronounced as it’s written, in both English and Spanish. The “e” can also be used to make other nouns gender neut...
Monolingualism is an aberration
Julie Tetel Andresen in The Allusionist: Monolingualism is an aberration – most people have been multilingual… The human body and brain is quite well adap...
First families
I slept fitfully and repeatedly dreamed of the migrant family, as enshrined by Christianity. La familia sagrada. The holy family versus Herod, the king. The fam...
Catholic Celibacy and Cuban Communism
In the early 1960s, two very different regimes attempted to remake humanity: Still, the revolution was most astonishing not for its radical redistribution of we...
quasi-public spaces
From my Facebook account, July 23, 2015: [note: I saw a man, apparently homeless, using a Starbucks cup to justify his occupying space in an outdoor seating are...
War Games, Fail-Safe, Dr. Strangelove
In 1998, there were two movies about a natural catastrophe: Armageddon & Deep Impact. In 2006, there were two movies about magicians living outside the real...
Underground
Magicians show you things you don’t know you’re seeing. Prosecutors tell you things you don’t realize you’re hearing. Movies use a similar ploy: they make you f...
the normal
I just scanned the most recent issue of “14 y medio”, a banned / clandestine news digest from Cuba. You won’t be surprised that the stories are about struggle. ...
a big lie
most car commercials are really public road commercials
Actual Science Fiction
A hundred years from now half the cops will have psych degrees and we’ll look back on today like a horror show. (the movie “Bright” is not actually ...
Facebook is made out of…
very good critics point out that Facebook is engineered to be addictive. but they seldom recognize that the pleasure being meted out is OTHER PEOPLE. for exampl...
Invasions
One of the charms of Star Wars was the contrast of robots and serfs, space ships and lords. High technology and feudalism. If you follow US politics (don’t, it’...
Wheels of fortune
Smart people become irrational around technology. We want absolutes, purity and simple answers; whether it’s being anti-GMO or bullish on AI, the impulse ...
Pleasure and power
Casamigos, Doritos marketing collateral, 2018 A consistent theme in the marketing of Mexico’s grastronomic culture is the erasure of Mexicans. When Mexica...
Motherhood and the workplace
The movie Arrival (2016) and the movie Alien (1979) are contrasting takes on motherhood and women in the workplace. In Arrival, a successful professional woman ...