Last I was checking FB, even in the feed’s “Most Recent” view, there were subtle forms of manipulation —some things get grouped together, made less prominent, certain Pages campaigns are promoted, etc.— all of which screws around with your sense of chronology.

I hate to be a stick in the mud, but describing Winston Scarlett as only having notoriety for being in the “30 Under 30 Envy” list isn’t quite right. He was also a fairly longtime activist in the NYC area from the 2000's —he belonged to a student group that, I know for a fact, had another sexual abuser in its midst…

I really want to hate that guy yelling into the mic (“Let’s just get into it.” “YEAH, LET’S JUST GET INTO IT!”)

Now that I think of it, Pope Benedict definitely is someone who’s never been in my kitchen...

If any of the arguments involved Yiddish curses, my condolences.

Re-reading my own work, I understand where I erred by making the burial society sound like an exclusively Jewish institution; of course it wasn’t. My point, though, is that burial/mourning rituals are very important in Judaism, as a way of preserving the way of life, and so Jewish burial societies played a much more…

What is definitely a big Jewish religious and cultural thing is making sure you get buried properly.

Here’s the problem, though: there’s always been a wasted marketing opportunity for the Saturday between the crucifixion/Good Friday and the resurrection/Easter Sunday. The three days ought be a trilogy, but instead it’s just an awful beginning of torture porn and a triumphant ending that conquers death, with none of…

As an experiment, I’d like to see what difference there may have been between the Ratzinger-era @pontifex and the Bergoglio-era. Controlling, of course, for things like the level of idiocy that has arisen in the past few years due to Twitter becoming the shallow end of the *chans.

I’ve worked on a few Facebook ads over a couple years ago, where I’ve needed to target very specific demographics.

There’s something weird about how both Graham and Nikki Haley became the hardliners painting themselves into the corner. What do they and/or South Carolina have on the line?

I haven’t made time to read Going Clear. One thing I am really curious about: does it go into the contemporary, post-Hubbard CoS?

I don’t think they can protest their complete innocence. G.W. had an unassailable majority for several years; they could easily have worked to publicly shitcan the worst of the xenophobes like Sensenbrenner (who was active during his administration). But he didn’t. On some level, that’s really the rap on G.W. Bush: he…

Yeah, good luck with that. Below is one of many photo ID pictures used by the man who formed al-Qaeda in Iraq (the org now known as ISIS).

Big city machine politics is like that.

Having been born with one of those last names that people never get right (or even feel obliged to learn how to pronounce properly), I have fun every once in a while, thinking about the alternate universe in which Obama took the easy road and became “Barry Dunham.” He would have been entirely within protocol taking…

Jeb as a name just grates. Because the whole thing is a ploy to appeal to the bumpkin demographic that thinks “Jebediah” is a real name (note: it isn’t). But it’s really the initials of the most WASP name possible, John Ellis Bush. Ellis! Ellis people!

According to the laws of thermodynamics, whatever rhythm was lost in that gif is not destroyed but simply enters another gif...

The slogan for the Lane Bryant Cacique campaign is “We’re No Angels.” At least in NYC (where the display ads are all over the place, thanks to the ownership being based here), it’s pretty clearly counter-marketing to Victoria’s Secret.

As far as I’ve seen, there is more evidence that ad sales departments drive hard bargains and are generally manipulative than there is evidence that ad sales departments are prudish or dumb. So IMHO, the case sounds to me more that this is a case of market segmentation and ad people playing games.