By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. — For millions of people around the world, Facebook is simply another toy on the internet. Many people simply log in now and then and scan what’s on the home page news feed on their smart phones, maybe hit like on a post or video, and don’t engage on…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – CATOCTIN MOUNTAIN, Md. — The first day of autumn, 2021, started out with a pounding rain knocking the acorns out of the trees, landing on the media camper van roof with a loud pop, along with cooler temperatures that caused me to dig the portable heater out…
Spoiler Alert By Glynn Wilson – What would we do without television entertainment and literature in the age of COVID? While I’m not a huge fan of Hollywood monster movies, it was hard to resist John Logan’s Penny Dreadful, a Showtime series now on Netflix depicting the dark side of Victorian England in the 19th…
Editor’s Note: This news comes with no personal regrets, since I didn’t know either of the deceased. But I knew Jack Neely some when writing for Metro Pulse myself, one of the most interesting alternative weeklies in the country in print and online in the late 20th century. It’s a sad day when anyone dies,…
Editor’s Note: This is the third in a three part series on the death of the American Dream and the one last chance we have to save it. Part I: Death of an Empire – Did Trump’s Reality Show Presidency Finally Kill the American Dream? Part II: The Early Days of the Internet – What…
Editor’s Note: This is the second in a three part series on the death of the American Dream and the one last chance we have to save it. Part I: Death of an Empire – Did Trump’s Reality Show Presidency Finally Kill the American Dream? Part III: Government Regulations and Objective Journalism Redefined “We are…
By Glynn Wilson – The Federal Trade Commission and attorneys general in 48 of 50 states launched a major legal broadside across the bow of social media giant Facebook on Wednesday, escalating the battles in Washington and across the country against the largest technology companies in a way that “could remake the social media industry,”…
Editor’s Note: Can you even imagine a world without the arts? No writing, no music, no movies, only factory work and no play? “Without the arts life would not be worth living.” You can quote me on that. Perhaps the saddest thing in the world today, now that we are all dealing with the novel…
By Glynn Wilson – Surfing around on Netflix for something to watch during the holidays, it came to my attention that the film Kill the Messenger was available. At the outset let me say that the Gary Webb story is one I’ve purposely avoided getting involved with for many years, even though I followed it…
On the Media – Â By Glynn Wilson -Â There is a groundswell of public sentiment on social media that perhaps the White House press corps should run a boycott on Trump. Before we go any further, let me make it clear up front that this is never going to happen, for economic reasons if…
Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I’ve tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice – Robert Frost The…
By Glynn Wilson – WASHINGTON, D.C. – Try to imagine the reaction inside the Hoover building at 935 Pennsylvania Avenue as arguably the most corrupt and incompetent president in American history openly committed treason on foreign soil in Helsinki, Finland on Monday. If anyone other than Attorney General Jeff Sessions of Alabama was in charge…
By Glynn Wilson – APPOMATTOX, Virg. — We didn’t make it here in time for Memorial Day, but National Park Service rangers and volunteers say nearly 500 people showed up for the playing of “Taps” and holiday weekend programs. I don’t know for sure, but considering that Confederate sympathizers seem to generate more engagement these…
The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – So as I was watching the Jonathan Tropper film Kodachrome last night on Netflix, putting me in an unusually nostalgic mood about an obsolete type of photography film, when my email notification bleep went off and I saw that the writer Tom Wolfe died at the age…
By Glynn Wilson – Let’s review. There is much hand-wringing in the news of late about how Facebook lost control of all the data it collects on users, how that data was used by Cambridge Analytica to potentially swing the 2016 presidential election away from Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump, and how Facebook and Google…
So far the reaction has been ho hum from the press and media, when it should have been a legal declaration of war in retaliation. By Glynn Wilson – After spending the past decade sucking much of the world into its universe like a black hole swallowing up surrounding stars, and convincing 2 billion people…
An tech investor explains why the social media platform and the search engine business models are such a threat to democracy with suggestions on how to fix the problems. By Roger McNamee – In early 2006, I got a call from Chris Kelly, then the chief privacy officer at Facebook, asking if I would be…
By Glynn Wilson – MOBILE, Ala. — Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg showed up on the Gulf Coast Sunday just in time for Mardi Gras and had people speculating that he may have a political future in mind. Dutifully, all three local television news stations covered the visit like any other celebrity sighting. But due to a…
Oh, and Alabama’s Jeff Sessions is about to be U.S. Attorney General – The Big Picture – By Glynn Wilson – Let me start this morning by repeating the two key words guaranteed to make the Facebook home page news feed and the FB trending news feed: This column is about fake news and golden…
The mainstream, corporate news media sacrificed democracy for ratings. By Thom Hartmann – AlterNet – The media are engaged in an orgy of navel-gazing about the Trump presidency, but they’re totally, utterly, absolutely, no-way-in-hell willing to gaze at their own navel. Did Russian hackers revealing that Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Donna Brazile had put their…
