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Whether you blog for fun or profit, you may want to rethink your motives before your elected officials start doing your thinking for you. According to the Philadelphia City Paper, Philadelphia bloggers are being charged a $300 business license tax, regardless of whether or not their blogs are profitable.  This means even Philadelphia’s casual blogs [...]

Continue reading about Now That Bloggers Are Being Taxed, It’s Time to Ask: Is YOUR Blog a Business?

Justin on April 9th, 2010

Tiger Woods cheated on his wife. We, the morally upstanding public, are supposed to hate him. Michael Vick murdered dogs. We, the morally outraged public, are supposed to hate him. Bernie Madoff made a fortune scamming people. We, the innocent victims, are supposed to hate him. But Tiger Woods is also a dad.  Do we [...]

Continue reading about Do You Hate the Right People?

Justin on February 8th, 2010

As you may have heard, the Mid-Atlantic US (in which I currently live) got hammered by a massive snowstorm this weekend.  Weather reports had been sensationalizing the potentially apocalyptic effects of the storm for days, warning that we could see a record snowfall and complete paralysis of city functions.  And if you doubt that people [...]

Continue reading about What Are You So Afraid Of?

Lately, I’ve been arguing against the perpetual “us vs. them” method of storytelling because I think it’s ruining our ability (and desire) to understand each other.  Opposing groups have always been quick to condemn “the other,” but the degree to (and zest with) which we do it these days borders on alarming. A few days [...]

Continue reading about We’re All Trolls: 11 Ways We Can Stop Being So Damn Divisive!

Last week, I urged us all to reconsider the way in which we tell stories.  I believe oversimplification and a reliance on “us vs. the other” is destroying our ability to understand and relate to one another, which obstructs our chances of evolving culturally.  And since what we choose to care about is entirely subjective, [...]

Continue reading about Why We Need to SEE Mass Destruction in Order to Care About the Victims