spaceship no future

sleep

My monoculture can beat up your monoculture

Here in the U.S., when we’re not marveling over F-16 fighter footage, squinting at grainy green-tinted flashes of light over the Kabul skyline, or counting anthrax victims, more and more of us are spending our time in our parlors and our drawing rooms pondering the superiority of our culture. (I’m rather fond of Western post-Enlightenment culture myself, at least bits of it; I especially like video games, cartoons, gangster movies, and Chinese food.) So all the pundits are holding forth on the culture clash between “modernity” and “Islam,” and…

cobra libre · October 11, 2001 · read

It’s Fabric Time Again!

Many close friends and intimate relations have complained about my ancient Pac-Man pillow (pictured at your right… you can read about it in my memoirs, The Pillow Book of Sei Shonagon Fortunate Hazel, coming this Christmas, send $20 via paypal to me to pre-order). Perhaps now is the time to find a new pillowcase. “But Hazel,” you’re saying, “The pillowcases at the shops are always so ugly and boring and pointless!” And Jacob says “Pillowcases? Society, what a drag!” I know, I know. But Kate has directed me to…

fhazel · February 24, 2001 · read

We all lost.

Okay, so Bush didn’t win yet, as we previously reported, but the writing’s on the wall, and now we just have to wait helplessly, thumbs twiddling,* while the American version of democracy sorts itself out. Whatever happens, no one is going to be happy. Now is as good a time as ever to consider how events might have played themselves out if the U.S. electoral system were not quite so flawed. Take a look at these articles that discuss various alternative voting systems: The first article, at discover.com, is…

cobra libre · November 20, 2000 · read