echovar – economies, internet, language, and culture

The phrase comes more from the movies than from real life. On our television screens we see a character called “the bad guy with a gun.” The narrative makes sure we know he is unredeemable. The story tells us evil must be destroyed or it will flourish...

In english, sometimes the poem is called “Posterity” and other times “To Those Who Follow in Our Wake.” But in my edition of Brecht’s poems, it’s called “To Those Born Later.” It was written in 1939 during his exile in Denmark.
The poem is easily found on the web. It’s nothing to copy and paste it into a blog post. These days the poems of Bertolt Brecht, especially those from the late 1930s and 1940s, have a resonance so strong you can feel the vibrations emanating from the...

Here’s another “pro tip” for the media. They seem to have trouble locating an appropriate frame for the antics of President Donald John Trump. They’re used to finding political and policy strategy when they look for it. This President is purely tactical...

Just a quick note to help people, particularly the Media in the United States, to better understand what it means when language is weaponized—and especially what it means in the context of connected digital communication networks. While these techniques...