I was fortunate enough to call New York home for many years and it truly is no hyperbole to say that the city is someplace special. To my immense joy, on Tuesday the city elected a new mayor — one who sees the city much the same way I do, a place where anyone can… Continue reading A New Story
Tag: current events
Box People
In what feels like a pretty transparent attempt to rile up controversy, the New York Times ran an article yesterday about Democratic mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani identifying as 'African American' in an application to Columbia University (archive link). There’s a lot to unpack with this article, from the question of the motivation behind running a… Continue reading Box People
Accidentally Relevant
Having decided to add a couple of Star Wars books to my to-read list, I just finished Reign of The Empire: The Mask of Fear by Alexanxder Freedman. Following in the steps of Andor, Mask of Fear is a political thriller set in the aftermath of Revenge of The Sith: the lasers and spaceships are… Continue reading Accidentally Relevant
Slightly More Political Nazi Punching
I am having an absolute blast playing Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus. It’s got all the Nazi-fighting goodness of its predecessor (plus the added bonus of getting to fight the Ku Klux Klan too) buoyed by a stronger plot: In a world where the Nazis won World War II and have conquered the United States,… Continue reading Slightly More Political Nazi Punching
Verified Truth
Somehow, even after we all sounded the alarm bells, Twitter continues to truck on. It’s certainly diminished, with many people having left and somehow the advertising getting worse. Today had the potential to be another death knell: the website was going to do away with its verification system. The only way to get a blue… Continue reading Verified Truth
Again
It’s been a week in the United States. We started off last Saturday with another mass shooting and ended it yesterday with the release of another video of police officers murdering a Black man. This all feels so repetitive, as if every few months it’s time for our scheduled Terrible, Unpreventable Occurrence that seems to… Continue reading Again
Learn
There’s a lot going on out there. The pandemic is still very much a thing and frustration at systemic racism has finally boiled over. Earlier this week I started thinking out a blog post about it all, about my own experiences with race and learning to be better. That said, it’s difficult for me to… Continue reading Learn
Space Car
There is a car in space right now. Like an actual road-safe, driven on earth on an actual road, not-originally-intended-for-space car in space. And it was playing David Bowie until it ran out of juice. So, a while ago, Tesla/SpaceX/Boring Company founder/potential supervillain Elon Musk tweeted that the Falcon Heavy’s test payload would be his… Continue reading Space Car
Space Nazis
I'm tired, I've had a long day. And I'm reading the news, and some days reading the news leaves you unable to finish your silly rant essay about a silly mobile game where you make karps flop around. So let's talk about Star Wars. It's hard to not read the original trilogy as a product… Continue reading Space Nazis
Xenophobia, Science Fiction, and, eventually, Hope
I didn’t learn the term ‘xenophobia’ from the news, the radio, or a textbook. Didn’t come up in class or any place you’d expect. Rather, I learnt the word ‘xenophobia’ from the old Star Wars Expanded Universe books. Was in the context of various political factions being distinctly anti-alien. Now, the xenophobia usually stemmed from… Continue reading Xenophobia, Science Fiction, and, eventually, Hope
Essays, Not Rants! 