Culture

If you're on Facebook, you've probably seen some of the breathless, clickbaity political headlines. Republicans Ban First Amendment in Congress or California Democrats Legalize Child Prostitution.

I've only had a racist remark directed at me once, and it was very mild as far as racism goes. I was in college and my roommate wanted to show me what he had learned in his art class about skin tone. He held his arm next to mine and said, "Look, my arm has a healthy pink tone, but yours has an ugly brown tone."

Dilbert cartoonist Scott Adams has become a target. In his blog Adams laments, "Late last week my Twitter feed was invaded by an army of Clinton trolls (it’s a real thing) leaving sarcastic insults and not much else on my feed."

If you pay attention to sports (or to social media), you've probably heard about San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick's decision not to stand when the national anthem is played before football games this year. In a locker-room interview, Kaepernick discussed some of the reasons for his protest.

The robots are coming to take your job! Between self-service kiosks at fast-food restaurants and driverless Uber cars in Pittsburgh, more jobs are being automated out of the economy.

Trevor Noah discusses police shootings.

Steve Hayes disagrees with my last post. In his blog Khanya, he argues staunchly that "all lives matter" is not a racist phrase. He has heard the arguments for it, and remains unconvinced. But his reasoning is different from that of the typical "all lives matter" supporter. He looks at a handful of recent articles, and finds them wanting.

Of all the criticisms of the "black lives matter" movement, the most enduring is that the group should not focus on black lives but instead say, "all lives matter." On the surface it sounds like a more inclusive phrase, so why has this suggestion been met with resistance?

One Redditor offered a clear analogy explaining why "black lives matter" is the more accurate phrase.

Scott Adams is a funny guy. His Dilbert comic strip has been skewering the irrationalities of the workplace for more than two decades. But lately Adams has taken time away from his busy schedule of drawing pictures to explain—apparently in all seriousness—why he, as a certified hypnotist, believes Donald Trump will be the next President of the United States.

A new study (pdf) released by Princeton University researchers Anne Case and Angus Deaton shows a steady long-term increase in the mortality rate of non-Hispanic white Americans aged 45-54. This runs counter to the trend we see among other industrialized nations and even among U.S. Hispanics.