Cereal as a Metaphor for Capitalism
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A business course on cutthroat capitalism disguised as a slacker comedy: Thatâs the kindest way to describe Michael Lehmannâs âFlakes.â
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How campaign donors can defy the odds of a classic economic theory.
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Lance Knobel: "I'd install FlickrFan in every middle school and high school social studies class. I guarantee it would provoke endless discussion and ensure engagement in the issues of the day." I totally agree. It would be great to see it at checkout lines in supermarkets and on kiosks in BART stations too.
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This stirring, idealistic documentary about the grass-roots cooperative movement in Argentina raises basic questions about economics, government and human nature.
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The problem isn't just silos and walled gardens &#151; our names for choiceless dependency on one company's goods and services. The problem is the defaulted belief system that gives us silos and walled gardens in the first place.  In that system suppliers believe that the best customers and users are captive ones. Customers and users believe that a free market naturally restricts choices to silos. It's a value sytem in which VCs like to ask &quot;What's your lock-in?&quot;. Even in 2007, long after the Net has become established as an everyday necessity, we still take for granted the assumption that living in a &quot;free market&quot; is to choose among jail cells. May the best prison win. read more
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Western knockoffs and Islamic bling: Debunking some popular stereotypes of life in Iran.
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"In Defense of Food" (The Penguin Press, 256 pages, $21.95), by Michael Pollan: Food isn't what it once was. Actually, much of what we eat today may not be food at all. That is the main lesson drawn from Michael Pollan's new book, "In Defense of Food," a meticulously researched, self-described "Eater's Manifesto."
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The ever-growing number of information-hungry gastronomes in this country, which the writer David Kamp rather cunningly named âThe United States of Arugulaâ in a 2006 book, is evident in the detailed descriptions of dishes on restaurant menus, in the popularity of food-oriented shows on television. But itâs also reflected in the proliferation of books like Mr. [...].
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âStep Up 2 the Streetsâ posits a universe where racial and class differences are minor obstacles to fun and pretends its clichÃ©s arenât clichÃ©s.
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ÂThe lingering, perceived essence of anotherÂ sounds like the subject of a Proustian rumination. In fact, it is a line from an academic paper last April in The Journal of Marketing, by Jennifer J. Argo, Darren W. Dahl, and Andrea C. Morales. The authors examined a phenomenon that drives store managers crazy: consumers love to touch products in stores, but they hate buying things others have touched.
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I was looking at what my friend Stephen Lewis wrote in HakPakSak a few days ago &#151; specifically newspapersâ roles as public trusts and cornerstones of our informational infrastructure &#151; i.e. sources of solid information and independent commentary essential to informed citizenry, democratic government, effective public policy, and well-functioning economies. What this brought up for me is the notion that human beings are themselves infrastructural;  especially when they are constuctive contributors to the structure we call civilization.
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Comment is free: George Monbiot: A hospital in Coventry lays bare the deceit of neoliberal logic: staff cuts, ward closures and millions to the financiers.
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Those trying to keep the bathroom scale steady this holiday season may find an effective ally at the breakfast table: high-fiber cereal.
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A few years ago, in my early twenties, I was set to graduate from university. At the time, I lived with my parents and had an easy job as the network administrator of a local fishing company. A few months before convocation, my parents divorced, my boss fired me (incidentally, for this article), and I had stopped school because I thought my life of free room and board was over. I spammed my address book crying for work. An acquaintance called me to do some contract work for a startup board game company. What followed was a lesson in something that I would have never learned in university: reality.
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There is a part of gamer psychology that is rarely discussed, but incredibly important: We are thrilled by wanton destruction. We need it like a form of food. Commentary by Clive Thompson.
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Games with a political and social agenda have provided a novel take on world events.
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A non-magical approach to building wealth.