Rocco Bellanova (Amsterdam) and Gloria Gonzalez Fuster (VUB): No (Big) Data, No Fiction? Thinking Surveillance with/against Netflix. Do we really need a first lady? Let’s get rid of the position once and for all. Matthew Cooper: “From expensing yachts to chasing The Onion: I watched the newsweekly die from the inside”. Why rural America controls the debates over guns and immigration. Engineering is full of authoritarians who, predictably, take all the wrong lessons from pop culture. Did “bots” force Al Franken to resign? The accuracy of stories blaming bots for duping Democrats into pressuring the former Minnesota senator to resign is being called into question. No alternative: Gavin Mueller on how culture jamming was culture-jammed. All good magazines go to heaven.
Carolyn B. Ramsey (Colorado): Firearms in the Family. Adam Gopnik on four truths about the Florida school shooting. Grief can make us wise: Grief makes sense of loss and opens us to rebuilding all that is meaningful in life — society would benefit if public grief were acknowledged more.
