In response to a question about the current state of the music industry, famed music producer Tony Visconti told an audience at the annual SXSW festival in Austin, Texas several years ago that pop music “Can’t get any worse!” Visconti claimed that record labels are simply repeating the formulas of the past, with diminishing returns. […]
Espionage, counterintelligence, and covert action are essential components in the military arsenal of every great civilization. This was especially true for the United States and the former Soviet Union during the Cold War. The need for high-quality intelligence on the enemy’s capabilities was even more critical back then. Effective counterintelligence operations have played a pivotal […]
Nicolo Paganini [1782-1840] was arguably the world’s greatest violinist. His incredible virtuosity totally revolutionized the instrument, and his amazing skills led many people to believe he had made a Faustian deal with the Devil in order to acquire his seemingly inhuman abilities. Paganini was so unbelievably good that audiences in the pre-Victorian era were convinced […]
Science Fiction (SF) cinema warrants serious critical analysis. The genre thrives on terror, and society is full of fear-induced bigotry, intolerance and endless warfare. By invoking fear, SF cinema can subvert viewers’ expectations and put sexism, racism and class warfare in stark juxtaposition. In a purely ideological context a violent, sexist narrative can become a […]
‘The City’ is an iconic and constantly recurring theme in Science Fiction (SF) cinema. Huge, sprawling mega-cities are the dominant settings for many SF films. As author John R. Gold points out in his essay Under Darkened Skies: The City in Science Fiction Film, the city of the future is often as much part of […]
Science Fiction [SF] cinema has never received the degree of analytical and theoretical attention devoted to other film genres. In her book Alien Zone, author Annette Kuhn demonstrates that SF has been difficult to define as an actual genre, simply because it encompasses so many different elements. SF films rework and transform established themes and […]
America’s corporations are sitting on close to $2 trillion in offshore bank accounts in places like the Cayman Islands and Bermuda. That’s cash that is not being used to create jobs, build factories, or improve infrastructure. In a country where upward mobility is virtually impossible, corporations have become less committed to workers well-being and more […]
In Federalist Paper #30, Alexander Hamilton argues that the new American government must possess unrestrained power to impose taxes to support all the basic functions of that government – particularly the power to raise and supply an army or militia. He mentions building fleets and paying debts, but most of his examples deal with the […]
Voltaire: “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.” John Stuart Mill: “I did not mean that Conservatives are generally stupid; I meant, that stupid persons are generally conservative.” H.L. Mencken: “Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.” The fact that a thoroughly corrupt and incompetent cretin […]
H.L. Mencken wrote, “The notion that a radical is one who hates his country is naïve and usually idiotic. He is, more likely, one who likes his country more than the rest of us and is thus more disturbed than the rest of us when he sees it debauched. He is not a bad citizen […]
Jason Darensburg's Blog-o-rama 