Reflections on Media and Politics
No other wealthy country produces medical debt at industrial scale. People get sick everywhere; only in the United States does illness routinely convert into a collections account, a court judgment, or a garnished paycheck. That difference…
MHB Admin · July 15, 2026
Two people are arrested on the same charge, in the same county, on the same night. A judge sets the same bail for both. One writes a check and sleeps in her own bed until trial. T…
MHB Admin · July 13, 2026
The non-compete clause was invented for a specific, narrow problem: an executive walks out the door with the customer list, the pricing model, and the product roadmap, and sets up…
MHB Admin · July 11, 2026
A generation ago, being watched at work meant a manager who could see your desk. Today it can mean software that counts your keystrokes, cameras that track your movements, scanner…
MHB Admin · July 10, 2026
The public image of criminal justice is the trial: the courtroom, the jury of twelve, the evidence tested by argument, the verdict delivered after deliberation. It is the image en…
MHB Admin · July 7, 2026
For most of the internet's commercial history, digital products were built for an imaginary "average user" — a statistical composite who did not actually exist. Every visitor saw…
MHB Admin · June 29, 2026
The Freedom of Information Act, signed in 1966, was built on a radical and democratic premise: that government records belong, by default, to the public, and that officials should…
MHB Admin · June 19, 2026
The promise of modern commerce is that the gap between wanting something and holding it should approach zero. Tap a screen in the evening, and the package is at the door by mornin…
MHB Admin · June 16, 2026
In 2022, Warner Bros. Discovery did something that, a generation earlier, would have been almost unthinkable. It took a finished film — Batgirl , completed, scored, ready to relea…
MHB Admin · June 12, 2026
There is a genre of court case with names that read like absurdist theater: United States v. $124,700 in U.S. Currency . State v. One 1990 Toyota . The defendant in these cases is…
MHB Admin · June 8, 2026
The phrase "forever chemicals" is doing a great deal of quiet work. It sounds almost whimsical, the kind of marketing line a company might once have been proud of. In fact it desc…
MHB Admin · June 5, 2026
A generation ago, being watched at work meant a manager who could see your desk. Today it can mean software that counts your keystrokes, cameras that track your movements, scanner…
MHB Admin · July 10, 2026
For most of the internet's commercial history, digital products were built for an imaginary "average user" — a statistical composite who did not actually exist. Every visitor saw…
MHB Admin · June 29, 2026
In 2022, Warner Bros. Discovery did something that, a generation earlier, would have been almost unthinkable. It took a finished film — Batgirl , completed, scored, ready to relea…
MHB Admin · June 12, 2026
The Freedom of Information Act, signed in 1966, was built on a radical and democratic premise: that government records belong, by default, to the public, and that officials should…
MHB Admin · June 19, 2026
Ask someone why they play a game of chance and they will usually mention winning. Ask them, weeks later, what they actually remember, and you will hear something else entirely — t…
MHB Admin · June 5, 2026
The disappearance of a newspaper is one of the few civic catastrophes that erases its own coverage. When a factory closes, reporters write about the layoffs. When a hospital shuts…
MHB Admin · June 4, 2026
No other wealthy country produces medical debt at industrial scale. People get sick everywhere; only in the United States does illness routinely convert into a collections account…
MHB Admin · July 15, 2026
The phrase "forever chemicals" is doing a great deal of quiet work. It sounds almost whimsical, the kind of marketing line a company might once have been proud of. In fact it desc…
MHB Admin · June 5, 2026
The non-compete clause was invented for a specific, narrow problem: an executive walks out the door with the customer list, the pricing model, and the product roadmap, and sets up…
MHB Admin · July 11, 2026
The promise of modern commerce is that the gap between wanting something and holding it should approach zero. Tap a screen in the evening, and the package is at the door by mornin…
MHB Admin · June 16, 2026