The Sternberg Effect
Culture
Loose Thoughts On Voices of a Generation
David Crosby and Graham Nash appeared and performed in Zuccotti Park this afternoon to a couple hundred people. Without amplification – both for instruments and vocals – it was difficult to hear them, but they were audible enough to hear their melodious harmonies (even though they were missing the third of their triumvirate). As they were playing songs of protest, it was hard not to imagine it was 1968 where groups of longhairs would sit cross-legged, smoking a joint and passionately discussing the evils of war, of government, of society; how they were the new generation, the generation that would change the world for the better. Continue reading
Loose Thoughts on Sport Work Stoppages
Should the NBA forfeit its season, my generation will have witnessed 2 of the 4 major US sports to lose a season due to labor disputes. The NHL lost the 2004-2005 season. Unfortunately for fans, this is a recurring trend over the last 30 years. Since 1982, all 4 major US sports have sustained work-stoppages. Baseball: 1981, 1994-1995; Football: 1982, 1987, 2011; Hockey: 1994-1995; 2004-2005; Basketball: 1998-1999, 2011-2012. Continue reading
On Voluntary and Involuntary Fasting
On Yom Kippur, Jews around the world fast for 25 hours. On any given day, hundreds of millions around the world go with out food.
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Occupy Wall Street’s Effect On A Halal Cart
Dan Patterson and I speak with Abdul Mubarek, a Halal cart owner who has been in Zuccotti Park for the past six years. He spoke with us about his thoughts of the protests and how it has affected his business.
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On Steve Jobs
I wrote this about 15 minutes after learning of the death of Steve Jobs on my Tumblr blog: Going to step away from my iMac and onto my iPad as I wait for my iPhone to ring. Possibly the biggest outside influence in my life, in all of our lives – he changed the way … Continue reading
Occupy Wall Street: What A Difference A Week Makes
Yesterday evening, I strolled down Broadway from Houston to Zuccotti Park, about a half hour walk, anticipating what the Occupy Wall Street protests would look like a week after I last visited.
I passed the inelegant federal buildings on Broadway and Reade, and saw ahead of me, a couple blocks away on the sidewalk in front of City Hall, a group of protesters and picketers marching side by side. I maneuvered around them and noticed there were several police officers and quite a few paddy wagons with more cops sitting inside them. It began to rain.
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Occupy Wall Street
Upon exiting the 2/3 at Wall Street, I was expecting to be swept up in a crowd of people marching down that corporate alleyway, playing music and chanting, “We shall overcome.” Or, at the very least, see some of New York’s Finest pepper-spraying protesters while men in $5,000 suits stood back and watched. Instead, I saw the typical throng of tourists gawking at the Fed, taking pictures of the George Washington Statue and lining up to pose with the New York Stock Exchange in the background. I also saw steel barricades, which obviously meant protest.
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Florence
We landed in Florence in the early afternoon, after a relatively painless six-plus-hour flight across the Atlantic, with a layover in Amsterdam. Upon reaching our hotel, Hotel Rosso 23, nestled in the Piazza Santa Maria Novella, we debated for a whole three-minutes if we should walk around the city or take a nap and hope we didn’t sleep through the day. We walked. Of course…
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There’s No Such Thing as A Free Lunch: Thoughts on Voluntary and Involuntary Minorities
Josh’s Note: Guest blogging today is my good friend, E. Anyanwu, who writes about differences in black culture using John Ogbu’s concepts of involuntary and voluntary minorities…
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You Say It’s Your Birthday…or, at least Facebook does
I woke up this morning much in the way I wake up every morning: languidly stuttering out of bed. Normally, though, I make a bee-line towards the coffee maker, make some joe and then glide over to the computer (if we call the television, “the idiot box,” what can we call the computer?) to begin … Continue reading
Italia!
Tomorrow I leave for Italy. We fly into Florence and I’m very excited to see the birthplace of the Renaissance. After a couple of days in the city, we head out to some small towns in Tuscany for a few days. We then will head south to Rome, where I’ve already bought my tickets for … Continue reading
Critical Analysis of “Page One: Inside the New York Times”
It’s been a very long time since I wrote a critical content analysis of a film, so I decided to write one about “Page One.” A note: This is unedited and very, very long, and is not meant to be a “like it or not” review, but instead, to use a theoretical lens to discuss this particular documentary. This critique looks at “Page One” through an expository mode of representation lens, which is meant to highlight a) how to read documentary film, b) how this film uses a the expository mode of representation to push its agenda and from that, c) can documentary film be objective? Continue reading
Thoughts on Immigration
One of the great things about America is that just about everyone, at some point in their familial line, has an amazing and compelling immigration story. We often forget this, as we spit venom towards those who cross our borders, a tactic that has been replayed again and again over the generations.
We’re a nation of nomads, of frontiersmen and women, of expansionists.
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On Being Stood Up and Generational Differences
I had two meetings scheduled today; one with a mid-to-late 30s guy and another with an early-to-mid 20s guy. Both are in the media space, each working for hugely influential companies.
The older guy sent me an email this morning saying something came up – let’s postpone. We communicated and rescheduled. These things happen. The second guy never came to the restaurant we were supposed to meet at. Yep, I was stood up.
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Thanksgiving Tradition
Every Thanksgiving in NYC (since I’ve only lived in this area, not sure if Alice’s gets played around the nation – do they play the song where you live?) at 12:00pm, radio stations play Arlo Guthrie’s classic, Alice’s Restaurant. No matter what I’m doing, I make sure to sit on my parent’s old, yet incredibly … Continue reading
The Sternberg Effect 