Dear (well-meaning) white people...

Dear (well-meaning) white people...

I believe in bodies.

No idea who Naomi Klein is? Doesn’t mean I don’t love seeing you in the thick of that climate rally. Never worked an hourly wage day in your life? I still appreciate the hell out of your labor rights retweets. And on and on unto pure unadulterated self-loving slacktivism.

For activism to achieve its most important goaleffecting actual changeit has to be inclusive. And as someone who came out of the womb caring about causes, I’ve always known the best way forward was together, en masse, from the people taking to the streets to the ones evolving institutions from the inside out.

But I find myself in the wake of this most recent miscarriage of justiceor sidestepping of justice, better put, as not indicting the man who precipitated Eric Garner’s homicide via illegal chokehold means crime and punishment were never even at issueat something of a loss.

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A Great Recession — and a Great Awakening?

A Great Recession — and a Great Awakening?

To explain how Millennials were really affected by the Great Recession, I need to tell you about a bank of windows on the southeast corner of 50th St. and 7th Ave. in Midtown Manhattan. I’d walk under it every day on my way to work in the Time & Life Building during the 2000s. And every day, there they’d be—a long line of twenty-something finance boys in starched Wall Street blues perched on the windowsill for their morning meeting...

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When Nerds Attack

When Nerds Attack

Just a few of my favorite moments from last weekend's Comic-Con International in San Diego—from robot soldiers and robot dragons to a Zombie Parade and whole host of awesomely costumed characters. And for the record, somewhere out there's a Borg queen, a Wolverine, and a Penguin who were so breathtaking I couldn't even get my picture-taking act together, so you can imagine. In short, geektastic does not begin to describe!

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What I Won't Do for My Husband

What I Won't Do for My Husband

I won’t change my name. I’ve spent the last three decades making the one I have mean something. And I’d like to keep it up, thanks. Which is, I hope, a major part of why he’ll love me always.

I won’t accept a ring. I will gush over my friends’ rings, of course. I will keep my views on the fraught history and general scourginess of diamonds and engagement rings to myself, mostly. But till he...

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Just Hug Those Helicopter Parents

Just Hug Those Helicopter Parents

Parents always take a lot of heat in conversations about Generation Y. They're overindulgent, over-involved maniacs who've naturally raised kids with the most over-the-top expectations, the critique usually goes, and even when it's parents themselves doing the talking, they can't resist a little self-flagellation.

Just imagine, then, how things might unfold in a crowd full of those poor souls who've...

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A (Wild, Weird, Wired) Week with the US Armed Forces

A (Wild, Weird, Wired) Week with the US Armed Forces

A few weeks ago, I was wondering if I'd survive five days with the United States military intact. Today, I'm realizing I didn't. First, the backstory. In theory, the Joint Civilian Orientation Conference is "a program sponsored by the Secretary of Defense for civilian public opinion leaders interested in growing their knowledge of the military and national defense issues." In practice, it's as simple as spending a very intense workday with each of the U.S. Armed Forces—Air Force, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, Army, and Navy. (For the record, that's the order in which we met them, not a value judgment!) And in reality, of course, it ends up being so much more.

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Comic-Con, You Are Beautiful

Comic-Con, You Are Beautiful

For anyone who's ever wondered what a day at San Diego Comic-Con might be like—and I know there must be one or two of you—here are some highlights from this year's coolest convention with Selwyn Hinds and me. (I say that with nary a hint of snark, by the way; this is our fifth SDCC!) There's also some fun video at the end, but I won't spoil the surprise.

Let the fandom begin...

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Pledge to the Virtual Flag?

Pledge to the Virtual Flag?

Picture it: A giant Washington, D.C., hotel ballroom, a couple hundred people, and that persistent buzz that precedes every conference, as organizers try to wrangle and the audience willfully ignores them. Then over the din, a recorded voice asks everyone to rise for the singing of the national anthem. We all stand, and I look around for the flag, which I can't find until I realize...

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'Being Human' (and Happy)

'Being Human' (and Happy)

There's some new video up of the cast of Syfy's Being Human being legitimately hilarious on a panel I moderated recently at the Paley Center for Media. You can watch it here for some of the highest hijinks of the night with Sam Witwer, Meaghan Rath, Sam Huntington, and Mark Stern, Syfy's president of original programming. And if you're up for a little self-indulgent reflection, watching it got me thinking, so here goes...

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Do Your Own Growing

Do Your Own Growing

If you've heard one adage, you've heard them all—or at least it's easy to feel that way in today's jaded, eye-rolling, seen-it-all climate. (And that's just the tweens.)

But every once in a while, a standby surprises you. That's what happened recently when, after speaking on Gen Y at the Kohler Distributor Conference, I listened to Vice President of Sales Frank Windsor's closing remarks. In the midst of discussing product and process innovations, he quoted something old and lovely...

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The (Anti)Social Writer

The (Anti)Social Writer

I hate social networking. It's not because I hate technology. And not even because I hate people; real social networks are, after all, as old as humankind—and I love humankind.

But I hate social networking because I'm a writer. A really crazy writer. The sort of ridiculous person who can spend 45 minutes writing a three-sentence e-mail, reading it aloud to myself until I'm absolutely sure that...

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