Essays Archive - Page 102 of 131

Thomas Paine’s Radicalism, and Ours

Rights of Man for the 21st century

February 4, 2020 • by Frances A. Chiu

But in truth, many of his principles and propositions can be traced back still further, to the ideas of founding father Thomas Paine in Rights of Man (1791-1792). Although Paine made no mention of either public health care or tuition-free universities during a period when medicine was still in its infancy and ...

New York City

Love and Death on the Streets of New York

Why West Side Story is back

February 3, 2020 • by Julia Foulkes

But that may be about to change. A radically new production of West Side Story will open on Broadway next month. And a new West Side Story movie, directed by Steven Spielberg and using locations in Harlem and Paterson, NJ, is to come to the screen later this year. Urban ...

Love and Death on the Streets of New York

New York City

The Daunting Math of Solving New York’s Housing Crisis

January 31, 2020 • by Alex Schwartz

Since 1987, New York has invested more than $17.5 billion (adjusted for inflation) of its own capital resources on constructing and preserving more than 450,000 housing units. No other city has drawn on its own tax base to anywhere near this extent to help finance affordable housing, and no other ...

The Daunting Math of Solving New York’s Housing Crisis

Politics

How Disinformation Became a Winning Strategy

Fomenting political fury is something that concerns us all

January 30, 2020 • by Adam Ramsay

The recent UK election was a quarrel about the character of politics. On the one hand, the Labour Party argued that it can be used for good, ‘for the many’. They promised to transform lives and communities, to take action on climate change and poverty. The Conservative Party, conversely, claimed ...

How Disinformation Became a Winning Strategy

Politics

We Still Need the ERA

How Activists Can Learn From History to Win It This Time

January 29, 2020 • by Katherine Turk

To many older feminists, the ERA remains the unfinished business of the 1970s. Today’s gender justice activists should expect to battle the same coalition of corporations and social conservatives that defeated their predecessors in 1982. But to win this time, they must learn from their own history. The ERA is not ...

Politics

Another Media Regime is Possible

From the liberal public sphere to the information commons

January 29, 2020 • by Dan Hind

‘Media regimes’ can be described as distinct historical combinations of technology, regulation and professional norms that have come to seem natural but are the result of an intensely political and fiercely contested process. (1) Until recently, English-language media regimes were characterized by a mixture of regulated broadcasters and privately owned ...

Politics

Can the Internet Be Governed By Its Users?

A response to Dan Hind

January 29, 2020 • by Micah L. Sifry

Consider Wikipedia, the global encyclopedia that is open to anyone to edit, which is the only nonprofit website that ranks in the top ten most visited in the world -- let alone the top 100. It is all the things that Hind wants: a public platform, transparent in its operations ...

Can the Internet Be Governed By Its Users?

Memory

This Atom Bomb in Me

An atomic childhood in Appalachia

January 28, 2020 • by Lindsey A. Freeman

The following is an excerpt, published by permission. My grandfather was an atomic courier…My atomic immersion began when I visited my grandparents as a child and encountered the vibrant matter of Oak Ridge. As an adult, I write about the place to try to untangle its mysteries -- feeling a magnetic ...

North America

Impeachment as National Renewal

Can non-democratic institutions be repurposed for democracy?

January 28, 2020 • by Ian Zuckerman and Daniel Kato

All of these authors recognize that these comparisons have limitations. The 1868 impeachment of Johnson failed to remove him from office -- just as, in all likelihood, Trump will remain president after his impeachment. But the deeper problem is that these celebrations of the political potential of impeachment elide its ...

Past Present

Little Women

Past Present Podcast, Episode 213

January 28, 2020 • by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, Nicole Hemmer and Neil J. Young

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: Greta Gerwig’s Little Women has received enthusiastic critical praise. Natalia referred to this New York Times article about the nearly all-white cast, and Niki recommended this New Yorker article about Laura Dern’s portrayal of Marmee. Natalia also cited this American Conservative article about the absence of faith in the latest adaptation. In our regular ...

North America

John Bolton Speaks

Avoiding new evidence of Trump’s crimes, the President’s lawyers continue to hammer the Bidens

January 28, 2020 • by Heather Cox Richardson

Republicans have insisted that there is no direct evidence that Trump himself ordered the hold, and that, therefore, there is no evidence that the president had abused his power, as the first article of impeachment charges. The leaks from Bolton’s book, cheekily named The Room Where It Happened (this is ...

Economy

David Brooks & Economic Inequality

Consulting the “Great Books”

January 23, 2020 • by David Lay Williams

Yet in his column published in the New York Times on January 16, entitled “The Bernie Sanders Fallacy,” echoing similar pieces in the past, I had hoped that he would have consulted them for wisdom again. In it he argues that despite the rapid growth of economic inequality in the United States, ...

Essays

Thomas Paine’s Radicalism, and Ours

Rights of Man for the 21st century

Love and Death on the Streets of New York

Why West Side Story is back

The Daunting Math of Solving New York’s Housing Crisis

How Disinformation Became a Winning Strategy

Fomenting political fury is something that concerns us all

We Still Need the ERA

How Activists Can Learn From History to Win It This Time

Another Media Regime is Possible

From the liberal public sphere to the information commons

Can the Internet Be Governed By Its Users?

A response to Dan Hind

This Atom Bomb in Me

An atomic childhood in Appalachia

Impeachment as National Renewal

Can non-democratic institutions be repurposed for democracy?

Little Women

Past Present Podcast, Episode 213

John Bolton Speaks

Avoiding new evidence of Trump’s crimes, the President’s lawyers continue to hammer the Bidens

David Brooks & Economic Inequality

Consulting the “Great Books”

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