My Facebook Problem

...ked to the press last year revealed Facebook’s ability to monitor, in real time, the mood of teens and serve them ad content based on “when young people feel “stressed”, “defeated”, “overwhelmed”, “anxious”, “nervous”, “stupid”, “silly”, “useless” and a “failure”.” To blame social media itself is not entirely fair and would be what academics call “technological determinism,” the idea that technology drives ideology rather than the other way around...

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2014, a Year in Comments: Plant Thievery, Loquats, Breakfast Cerial and the Apocalypse

...proportional to the amount of time it took to write. Kelly and I will sometimes spend hours agonizing over a blog post that gets just a few comments. Other times, a post dashed off in ten minutes will touch off a spirited discussion. This is not to say that a post that gets comments is any better or more popular than one that does not. Some posts, I suppose, are just more worthy of commenting. And we’re aware that many people read and never comme...

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Everything Must Go Part II: Books

...y and anxiety producing book pile had developed in the living room. It was time for a book cleansing. But let me first state our rule about buying books. My gym is mere steps from the Los Angeles Central Library from which I can easily access over 6.2 million books, movies, CDs and downloadable media. I don’t buy books that I can check out at the library unless I need it as a reference book or if the library doesn’t have it. Even with this rule we...

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Everything Must Go Part 4: How to Fold Your Clothes

...always one of my least favorite household chores. I’d let it go for a long time, and live by shamefully rooting through my tangled clothing each day, searching for a certain camisole like a truffle pig rooting through oak leaves. However, unless you have a vast plentitude of drawer space you will need to thin down your wardrobe before doing this, because you can’t cram the drawers full anymore. I’ve discovered that this technique applies to pantie...

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Local Politician Tom LaBonge Wants LA Covered in Astroturf and the City to Pay For It

...ncluded that they did not want to subside artificial turf. Why waste staff time?] Let me predict the results, should Tom’s AstroTurf vision become law. In a few years we’ll see acres of ripped, smog and dog feces stained plastic turf that will eventually end up in our overflowing landfills. The present rebate program is an opportunity to create landscapes that support birds, bees, butterflies and other wildlife at the same time as they reduce wate...

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