The Writer who challenged the Tech Revolution

In some ways, it was a couple of undergrad computer geeks at the University of Illinois that started it all.

Interestingly, I happened to work in the UIUC Engineering computer labs from 1989-92 when Marc Andreesen and Eric Bina were there developing what would become the first successful web browser that kicked off the wild digital economy we've been living in for the past thirty years. 

I was thinking about that small but profoundly significant moment in American history yesterday when I read a feature in the New York Times titled The Writer Who Dared Criticize Silicon Valley by tech writer David Streitfeld. The story unpacks the history of writer and tech geek Paulina Borsook whose book Cyberselfish foresaw the the dark side of the Tech Boys who basically run the economy at this point.

Even Silicon Valley dislikes Silicon Valley. More than two-thirds of residents agreed in a 2024 poll that the tech companies have partially or completely misplaced their moral compass. And that was before so many in tech embraced the Trump administration.

Some of those who believe tech lost its way are finding explanations in a book published a quarter century ago. Paulina Borsook’s “Cyberselfish” saw the seeds of disaster in the late-1990s dot-com boom, which, she argued, transformed a community that was previously sober, civic-minded and egalitarian into something toxic.

Silicon Valley, Ms. Borsook wrote, hated governments, rules and regulations. It believed if you were rich, you were smart. It thought people could be, and indeed should be, programmed just like a computer. “Techno-libertarianism,” as she labeled it, had no time for the messy realities of being human.

It may seem a bit odd or contradictory to criticize the tech revolution on a digital blog, but the problems of our tech-dominated lives are all too real. From the deleterious impact cell phones are having on young people and the education system to the shocking embrace of sports betting in real time during games via digital apps, there is a certain reckoning to be had with the developments that came out of the computer labs in the middle of the Illinois prairie around 1990.

Grateful for a Good Life - Happy Thanksgiving

It's a quiet, calm, chilly Thanksgiving morning in Fort Collins, and I'm just home from a delightful trip to San Diego. It's a simple Thanksgiving this year, just the two of us at home with family spread across the country and the world. And, yet, all is well, and I am grateful for a good life.

I've been so blessed to live a fortunate and fulfilling life, and I am trying to live with more grace and compassion these days. Recently, I posted about keeping a gratitude journal in the days running up to the Thanksgiving holiday. And it's worth checking in with that idea once in a while. For many of us, our default setting is not one of compassion, grace, and empathy. It's one of judgment, criticism, and complaints. But each day offers a new chance to recalibrate.

Happy Thanksgiving to all.

The Geography of Everything

As Eric Weiner knows all too well, time and place matter.

The talented author and public speaker spent many years on the road, chasing stories across the world as an NPR correspondent stationed in places like New Delhi, Jerusalem, and Tokyo. Having seen countless moments and incidents of struggle, conflict, and tragedy, Weiner channeled the opposite side of the human experience into his first book The Geography of Bliss, where he explored locations where the residents are known to be happier than the average person. It's not surprising that some of the most popular newspaper and magazine articles are on the subject of personal contentment, like the Danish concept of hygge, or the experience of cozy, comfy conviviality.

I first discovered Weiner's work with his third book The Geography of Genius, where he conducts "a search for the world's most creative places from Athens to Silicon Valley." Weiner asks the obvious question of why at certain times in certain places at certain moments in history there was an exponential growth of creativity and thinking. From the philosophers of ancient Greece to the coffeehouses of Vienna, genius builds upon itself and like-minded thinkers tend to gather and push each other to new intellectual heights.

Weiner's work is rich, engaging, and readable just like the numerous stories he told as a journalist bringing the world home.

Playing Like Jokic -- the new NBA

In soccer it was "Bend it like Beckam" -- in the NBA these days, it's Jam like Jokic.

Or pass like Jokic, board like Jokic, shoot like Jokic, pick and roll like Jokic.  The Serbian big man for the remodeled Denver Nuggets is the hottest thing in hardwood, and he is literally changing the game. And the Denver Post Nuggets Journal reports the smooth center has a growing legion of disciples in the league as, "the kids want to play like Jokic." That's the sign of greatness.

Nikola Jokic’s original disciple has outgrown the infant label.

Alperen Sengun is a fully formed All-Star by now, a synthesis of skill, strength and smarts at the center of the only NBA offense better than Denver’s.

“Baby Jokic” is his own person now, Actual Jokic declared this week.

“He’s talented. I think people are connecting (me) with him, but we are different types of player,” Jokic said. “He’s an amazing player. You can see some similarities, but I don’t want people to see him and tell me he’s something like me. I think that he’s a good enough player to have his own story.”

Sunday in San Diego

Having lived in Colorado for nearly a quarter-century, I have always heard that the Mile High City rivals San Diego for number of sunny days each year, nearly 300. That news always amazes non-Coloradans, and it's one of the Rocky Mountain State's best kept secrets -- you can golf in short sleeves in February in Denver if the sun is out and it's 50 degrees or better. 

That said, Sunny San Diego is no mere moniker, and having never visited the southwestern city, we decided to spend a few days exploring with little agenda. And that made for a quite enjoyable Sunday. Staying in the Gaslamp Quarter -- a lively area of bars, restaurants, shops, and galleries near Petco Park, home of the Padres -- we were reminded of Lo-Do in Denver, home of the Rockies. After coffee and a tasty breakfast at a bodega-style spot called Cloud 9 Deli, we spent the late morning and early afternoon exploring a wonderful attraction, Balboa Park. 

We took a trip around the world inside the park at the international cottages, learning about the cultures and enjoying some tasty treats by Italy, Denmark, Germany, and Israel. This mini-Epcot is a real treat, and I'd highly recommend it. The cottages are volunteer-run and only open from 12-4 on the weekends. We finished our evening off drinking and dining around Little Italy. Check out M Winehouse, a charming little bar in a small casual setting, and then grab some incredible slices at the Slice House by Tony Gemignani

The Cool Side of Math

This weekend the cool, competitive side of math was on display at the hallowed math grounds of Princeton University. I'm talking about PUMaC, the Princeton University Math Competition. For those readers who know this blog to be written by an English teacher, education analyst, culture writer and pop culture fan, it might be odd to find this post about competitive math. But I am also the father of a mathlete who is a Princeton alum who was on the New Jersey campus yesterday to help college kids geek out on competitive math.

That got the librarian in me thinking about books which have enabled me to connect with math and the wild word of competitive problem solving that has captivated my son for most of his life from the time he was a national competitor in MathCounts. 

One of the first books that helped me re-engage with the subject that wasn't my favorite in middle school when the worlds of numbers and letters first collided in this thing called algebra has the appealing title How Not to Be Wrong: the Power of Mathematical Thinking. It's a fascinating study of real world applications from writer Jordan Ellenberg. 

John Green -- a Man for Our Times

Who doesn't love the author John Green? And really, what's not to love. 

From an incredible string of YA books, that aren't really so YA that they aren't beloved as much or more by adults - especially English teachers -, to a fascinating online digital profile that began as a back-and-forth intellectual bantering called Vlog Brothers (or NerdFighters) with his equally cool brother and author Hank Green and their incredibly informative series Crash Course, to his fascinating narrative nonfiction that's been topping the best sellers lists with the column-esque The Anthropocene Reviewed and the new study and commentary Everything Is Tuberculosis, to his very public and frank discussions of his crushing battle with anxiety and depression, John Green is an individual who is in many ways all things to all people and a true gift to and reflection of the "interesting times" in which we are living.

He recently sat down with the New York Times to ... well to talk about how the world looks while being John Green.

In a time largely defined by social disconnection and hopelessness, John Green’s work, across multiple formats and platforms, has been a beacon of humane connection and hope. His beloved young-adult novels, including the mega-best-selling “The Fault in Our Stars,” have shown his gift for both capturing and speaking the emotional language of teenagers. On YouTube, Green and his younger brother and best friend, Hank, post earnest and charmingly wonky videos under the Vlogbrothers banner for a devoted audience of millions. They explore all sorts of weighty subjects: mental health, religion, the meaning of life, you name it. If it’s something that has kept you up at night, the Greens have probably talked about it. (They also have a podcast, “Dear Hank & John,” in which they do much the same thing.)

More recently, John Green turned his attention to global health, with this year’s nonfiction best seller “Everything Is Tuberculosis.” In addition to using TB as a prism through which to examine various forms of medically related injustice — such as the disproportionate toll the disease takes on poor countries — the book also makes an argument for the equality of all lives at a time when the Trump administration is enacting drastic cuts to global health initiatives.

Despite all his good work, Green himself has struggled over the years with feelings of alienation from, among other things, his fiction writing, his vast fan base and his sense of purpose. Those are battles that the 48-year-old knows are never fully won, but he’s keen to keep on fighting.

New Novel on the life of Henry David Thoreau

The reimagining of historical events and the lives of significant people in history is a time-honored tradition in contemporary literature. While narrative nonfiction can be quite engaging in the retelling of familiar stories, the historical fiction genre has produced some great entertainment across digital and print media. And the artistic license involved can be great fun.

Recent examples that have captured my interest include the AppleTV series Dickinson, the Hulu reimagining of the reign of Catherine the Great, the story of a bookstore's rise to prominence with the publication of one of literature's most significant works in The Paris Bookseller, and a fascinating parallel narrative about Shakespeare in Hamnet. And now we can add my favorite American punk rocker Henry Thoreau to the mix.

Longtime friend of the Thoreau Society and prolific writer Andrew Furman, a professor of literature at Florida Atlantic University, has just published a novel about Concord's most famous son who would go on to become one of America's most important writers and philosophers in his short forty-four-year life. Furman's novel The World That We Are imagines and retells the story of a special moment in Thoreau's life that came about when a young woman moved to town and captivated both Henry and his brother John, and he juxtaposes that story with a contemporary one about "David Hertzog, a Thoreau scholar in present-day Maine, [who] embarks on a reflective journey in the autumn of his life upon the unexpected return of his estranged daughter."

In 1837, a young Henry David Thoreau sets out to lead an extraordinary life in Concord, Massachusetts, combating formidable obstacles. He struggles to find work as a teacher, to discover his voice as a writer, and to realize true friendship and romantic love, battling all the while against the “family disease” that threatens his health. When a captivating young woman arrives in town, she ignites a tumultuous love triangle with Thoreau’s brother, forcing matters to a crisis. Meanwhile, David Hertzog, a Thoreau scholar in present-day Maine, embarks on a reflective journey in the autumn of his life upon the unexpected return of his estranged daughter. Her reappearance in town forces him to grapple with their painful shared history and seek a new path forward. Alternating between these two timelines, The World That We Are delves into enduring themes of love, family, the quest for meaningful work, and the search for a true home in the spinning cosmos.

Pop Culture is new(s) at WashPost

I've always been a pop culture geek. Any pop culture article is a must read, and I regularly check with sites like PopMatters, Paste, and the arts, culture, and entertainment pages for all the papers I read. Thus, it's not surprising that I've pursued work as a freelance music, arts, and culture writer. And, of course, it's not news to anyone that my regular blog posts and short form pieces often focus on popular culture.

So, as a regular reader and subscriber of the Washington Post, I am intrigued by the new offering of a pop culture newsletter. The new feature from Style reporter Shane O'Neil claims: Our new newsletter takes pop culture seriously - The Washington Post. While there are many culture writers I read regularly, I am not familiar with O'Neil's work, so I am interested to see what sort of angles and insights he offers on popular culture. In the launch piece, he writes:

I love telling people about the stories I’m writing: Gay guys marrying straight women, $230 socks for your iPhone, entire careers based on saying “6-7” into an iPhone camera.

And I love the response I get: “Seriously?”

It’s a fair question. These are not the heaviest stories we publish at The Washington Post. One might even say they’re not the most prestigious. I’m not holding my breath for the Pulitzer to add a “Best Labubu explainer” or “Snarkiest take on Kim Kardashian’s Margiela look” category any time soon.

But even the most frivolous stories reveal something about how we live today. They show us new models for how people love each other; how even the greatest minds of tech and design can miss the mark; how younger generations are asserting their independence from their parents by confusing them; why Grindr sponsored a fashion collection made entirely from the wool of gay sheep (forthcoming!).

Be Athenians, not Visigoths

"Man Cave" vs "the Study"

That's a meme I am quite fond of and struck by. And it's probably a testament to our times, not in a good way. It's no surprise that people, especially men, are reading less than they have in the past fifty years or so. Beyond that, people are mostly mired in a sea of superficial content which they are constantly scrolling through with the attention span of a gnat. 

And I don't mean to be snotty and pretentiously above all that. I am certainly guilty, too.

However, I was recently thinking about a line from David Foster Wallace's profoundly simple commencement speech, "This is Water." As DFW describes the mundane banality of adult life when we are wrapped up in the frustrating tedium of sitting in traffic on the way home from work, he opines that our ego leads us to dwell on the negative. While our natural default setting is to be annoyed at all the other people who are in our way, we do have a choice in how we think about any situation we are in. More importantly we have options in what we choose to think about.

And, that wonderful little epiphany -- easier to acknowledge than to practice -- got me thinking more deeply about how we choose to spend our time and what we choose to think about. It reminded me of another commencement speech, albeit one that was never actually given. It comes from a favorite writer and thinker of mine, Neil Postman. I've used this piece on occasion with my writing students, and it's a valuable piece of advice for how we choose to live. Basically, Postman tells the story of two notable groups of people in the history of western civilization, the Athenians and the Visigoths. And Postman's advice is to choose to be an Athenian, not a Visigoth. 

Athenians and Visigoths: Neil Postman’s Graduation Speech - First Things 

The first group lived about 2,500 years ago in the place which we now call Greece, in a city they called Athens. We do not know as much about their origins as we would like. But we do know a great deal about their accomplishments. They were, for example, the first people to develop a complete alphabet, and therefore they became the first truly literate population on earth. They invented the idea of political democracy, which they practiced with a vigor that puts us to shame. They invented what we call philosophy. And they also invented what we call logic and rhetoric. They came very close to inventing what we call science, and one of them—Democritus by name—conceived of the atomic theory of matter 2,300 years before it occurred to any modern scientist. They composed and sang epic poems of unsurpassed beauty and insight. And they wrote and performed plays that, almost three millennia later, still have the power to make audiences laugh and weep. They even invented what, today, we call the Olympics, and among their values none stood higher than that in all things one should strive for excellence. They believed in reason. They believed in beauty. They believed in moderation. And they invented the word and the idea which we know today as ecology.

I'd like to think I spend more time practicing the Athenian pursuit of knowledge and wisdom. And, granted, this is to acknowledge that ancient Athens wasn't some utopia of goodness, peace, and wisdom. But we like to live and think by dichotomies for a reason, and in a comparison of better and worse ways to live, the Athenian-Visigoth split is a pretty decent divergence of paths. 

I certainly hope I am choosing to be a better person most of the time. And, keeping in mind DFW's advice, I hope I can remember more often than not to choose an attitude of grace and compassion, of empathy and understanding, of caring and kindness, as opposed to living with judgment and suspicion and contempt. 

As Longfellow once wrote, "Act that each tomorrow finds us further than today." Here's to getting better, one choice at a time.

Is Substack the New Local Paper?

The Substack newsletter as the new source for local news is an intriguing idea. 

The local paper has always been sacrosanct in my view, and I truly worry about the fading prominence of the local news source. There was a time when residents of a community were well informed of local issues -- from high school sports to city council affairs to public service projects to engaging features of local interest -- and the local paper was the thread that held people together. Having grown up with publications like The Alton Telegraph, Advantage News, and The Riverfront Times, I valued the local view.

Living in Colorado now -- for twenty-plus years in southeast Denver -- I valued not only the Denver Post but also the numerous local weeklies, many a part of Colorado Community Media. Papers like The Villager, Aurora Sentinel, Centennial Citizen, and more were a regular part of my reading regimen. And, of course, I always check in with Westword, Denver's alt-weekly for music, arts, and culture news (note: I freelance for Westword). And, of course, as a regular visitor to the High Country in the summer, my days in Summit County were never complete without picking up a copy of the Summit Daily.

So, I am a bit saddened that few people check in with local news anymore -- and worse, that they only get local "news" from sites like ... ugh, NextDoor. 

That's why I am intrigued by the possibility that Substack can be the new source for the local daily, or weekly, in an online, digital world. And it's kind of cool that Substack has an informative post about how to make that happen:  Getting started with local news on Substack - On Substack

The world needs local news more than ever. Local journalism informs and brings together communities, but has never been more under threat. We strongly believe in the potential of the Substack model for building a sustainable, subscription-based business model for local news writers and readers alike. Emerging publications like The Mill (Manchester), The Rover (Montreal), The Addison Times (Addison), The Charlotte Ledger, and City Hall Watcher (Toronto) are already leading the way, and we’re fostering more local news publications through our Substack Local initiative.

In this guide, we provide tips and strategies for starting and succeeding with a local news publication on Substack:

Getting started

Before launching your local news publication, it’s important to define the overall editorial and business strategy for your publication. What makes it different from the existing local news ecosystem? What is the unique value your readers will only be able to get from your publication?

Decide what job you’ll do for your readers. Clearly define for yourself and your readers your publication’s value proposition: the reason that your writing is useful and can’t be found anywhere else. You might cover a beat other reporters aren’t, focus on data and quantitative methods like City Hall Watcher, or bring perspective from an underrepresented community or location. Substack writer Casey Newton explains and provides more examples here.

Go newsletter-first, and stay lean. A great newsletter requires focus. It’s lower-cost to operate than a traditional web or print publication, and more importantly, is a format that cultivates a direct relationship to readers. The goal is to write a fantastic regularly scheduled newsletter that readers can make part of their daily or weekly news habit.

Develop deep ties with the local community. Obvious but important! Successful local news writers should have broad and deep context, knowledge, and relationships in the community they’re writing for and about – ideally, they should already be known as trustworthy, credible thinkers by the community.

Substack Success Stories

Should I start a Substack?

Well, probably not. But it's a question many bloggers, writers, artists, journalists, marketers and more are asking themselves. I've been blogging here for almost twenty years, and it's never been anything other than a site to post written work that is not more refined and targeted for publication elsewhere, notably magazines, news and culture websites, or newspapers. While I did carry ads for many years and also utilized Amazon Affiliate links, they never produced any significant income, and this blog is not a place regular readers visit daily or weekly for a column.

Granted, I was a weekly columnist for The Villager, a community weekly in southeast Denver for several years, and I regularly published one-off pieces with the Denver Post among other papers. And, yes, I've been a freelance music, arts, and culture writer for alt-weeklies like Westword and 303 Magazine. But those, too, have never been regular work as a writer and certainly not anything that could be considered a job or career. Yet, I know I had a decent reader base in the Denver area, and I often wondered whether I could carry that into something like Substack as a weekly newsletter with a decent audience base.

Alas, probably not.

However, I am intrigued by the writers who have made the leap to Substack and managed to make a go of it. One neat story came from a career columnist in Davis, California, who was abruptly let go. Bob Dunning had been a working journalist and columnist for more than fifty years when his paper laid him off. On the advice of friends and family, he started a Substack newsletter and wrote a piece about how: ‘It’s like getting a raise every single day’ - On Substack

Bob published a raw piece on his new Substack, The Wary One, explaining what it felt like to be laid off after five and a half decades of service, and the subscribers started to pour in. “My god, it was instant. A giant whoosh,” he says. “I’m so energized. I still don’t understand it.”

Within the first two months, it was clear to Bob that the move was the “golden opportunity of a lifetime.” He has more than doubled the $26-an-hour rate he had been making at the Davis Enterprise and expects to earn around $100,000 this year. “It didn’t seem like much of a risk to give Substack a try. How could I possibly have known what was just around the corner?”

On Substack, Bob continues to write a daily column about his life and local issues, imbuing it with the trademark familiarity that made him beloved among regular readers. One of his most popular columns, from 1997, looks at the joy and anguish of dropping off your youngest child at college; another details his colonoscopy.

And although his audience has expanded—on the fifth day after launch, his column was already read in 43 states and 23 countries—his relationship with his readers remains just as intimate.