by Akim Reinhardt
I remember a strain of paranoia that ran through American popular culture during the 1980s: The Japanese are going to overtake us. Many feared that the same nation that we’d bombed into oblivion during World War II, and then helped to rebuild, was about to steam right by us.
First came their better, cheaper cars. Initially dismissed as “rice rockets,” their superiority to American-made cars eventually could not be denied; they were cheaper, more durable, and got better mileage. That proved a real blow to an American psyche that had been trained to see Detroit’s Big Three automakers as the bedrock of U.S. industrial might, and the cars they produced as the sexy, muscular symbols of Americans’ independence and dreams of the open road.
Then came all the cool, futuristic Japanese gadgets that everyone wanted: the walkman, compact discs, the VHS, home video game consoles, and even the first laptop computer. Americans began to worry that the Japanese were more disciplined and dedicated to world economic and technological domination, and that Americans themselves had become layabout fat cats who could no longer compete with zaibatsu corporate ninjas. American cultural expressions of these fears were plentiful. One of the most forthright was the 1989 Michael Douglas film Black Rain.
It’s all rather laughable now. Most older Americans have to jog their memories to recall this panic about Japanese dominance. Most of the under-40 crowd don’t even know it was a thing. The year after Black Rain played in American theaters, the Japanese economy began deflating and still hasn’t rebounded. Shortly thereafter, the U.S. economy was remade by its own tech revolution, increased energy production, and various free trade agreements.
Now they say China is going to overtake the United States. Only this time they might be right. Read more »
I was 12 years old when I walked down a street in my Bronx neighborhood and saw the poster in the window of Cappie’s. Cappie’s was a certain kind of corner store common in 20th century New York. It sold newspapers and magazines, candy and soda, lotto tickets, cigarettes, and various tchotchkes aimed at kids and teens. Cheap toys, baseball cards, posters, etc. Most of their posters were pinups of the era’s sex pots such as this or that Charlie’s Angels in various states of near nudity. But this poster featured a cartoon mouse, a clear copyright infringement on Walt Disney’s famed vermin. The caption read: Hey, Iran! The mouse held an American flag in one hand. The other flipped the bird.
A thought has been nagging at me lately. Are most shitty people not very bright?
Art is dangerous. It’s time people remembered that and recognized the fullness of it. For if art is to remain important or even relevant in the current moment, then it’s long past time artists stopped flashing dull claws and pretending they had what it takes to slice through ignorance. We need them swallow their feel-good clichés and to begin sharpening their blades. We need dangerous art, and we cannot afford much more art that its creators believe is dangerous when it is not.
Last spring, American documentary film maker Ken Burns gave a commencement address at Brandeis University in Boston. Burns is a talented speaker, adept at spinning uplifting yarns, and 
Are you savvy?
Some people use religion to get their life together. Good for them. I’m all for it. Although I myself am an atheist, I don’t think it much matters how someone gets their life together so long as they do.
Historians have spilled much ink analyzing and interpreting all of the U.S. presidential elections, dating back to George Washington’s first go in 1788. But a handful of contests get more attention than others. Some elections, besides being important for all the usual reasons, also provide insights into their eras’ zeitgeist, and proved to be tremendously influential far beyond the four years they were intended to frame.
There are only four U.S. states where white people are 
The turn of the 21st century saw a burst of atheistic declarations and critiques in the United States and Great Britain, led by a small group of celebrity atheists including Philosopher Daniel Dennett, Biologist Richard Dawkins, and journalist Christopher Hitchens. I have always found this New Atheism, as the movement is often called, to be a mixed bag. It was long overdue, and many good (if obvious) points were made. However, there was also a fair bit of navel-gazing and even stupidity. And among some of the celebrity leaders, I believe, there was also a profound misunderstanding of religion, how it functions, and even its basic purposes.
Two spaces after a period, not one. If a topic sentence leading to a paragraph can get a whole new line and an indentation, then other new sentences can get an extra space. Don’t smush sentences together like puppies in a cardboard box at a WalMart parking lot. Let them breathe. Show them some affection. Teach them to shit outside.
The barbarians have won.
A little over a year ago I published 
What do we know about vampires?
I teach at a large, public university in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States. For about a decade now, the upper administration has had a habit of sending “comforting” emails whenever there’s a major school shooting. Of course there are far too many school shootings in America to send a note for each one, so I suppose the administration tries to keep it “relevant,” for lack of a better word. These heartfelt missives arrive in my Inbox once or twice a year, typically after some lunatic shoots up a college campus. So far as I can tell, they go to everyone. To every faculty member, staff member, and student on campus. To 25,000 people or more.
I am sitting on the couch of our discontent. The Robot Overlords™ are circling. Shall we fight them, as would a sassy little girl and her aging, unshaven action star caretaker in the Hollywood rendition of our feel good dystopian future? Shall we clamp our hands over our ears, shut our eyes, and yell “Nah! Nah! Nah! Nah! Nah!”? Shall we bow down and let the late stage digital revolution wash over us, quietly and obediently resigning ourselves to all that comes next, whether or not includes us?