Reflections on Media and Politics
Author
Few criminal-justice statistics are quoted as often, or as loosely, as recidivism rates. One figure says more than 80% of people released from state prisons are arrested again wit…
MHB Admin · October 12, 2026
On the first Friday of most months, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) releases a single number that shapes political debate, financial markets and Federal Reserve decisions:…
MHB Admin · October 8, 2026
Over the past few years, microplastics have been reported in almost every part of the human body that researchers have examined: blood, lungs, placentas, testes, arterial plaque a…
MHB Admin · October 8, 2026
Air-quality apps, weather forecasts and news reports now routinely give a number for fine particulate matter, usually written as PM2.5. A city might report an annual average of 9…
MHB Admin · October 8, 2026
In May 2023, Disney told investors it would remove dozens of titles from its Disney+ and Hulu streaming services, including shows the company had commissioned itself. Among them w…
MHB Admin · October 8, 2026
The American criminal trial is one of the most familiar institutions in the world. It fills courtroom dramas, true-crime podcasts and civics lessons. It is also, statistically, cl…
MHB Admin · October 8, 2026
Collective memory is the shared pool of events, stories, and images that a society holds in common — and it is far from a neutral or complete record of the past. Societies remembe…
MHB Admin · August 25, 2026
The Streisand effect is the phenomenon in which an attempt to hide, remove, or censor a piece of information ends up drawing far more attention to it than it would ever have recei…
MHB Admin · August 20, 2026
There is a strange assumption buried in modern ownership: that buying something entitles you to use it, but not necessarily to fix it. Break the screen on your phone, and repairin…
MHB Admin · August 13, 2026
There is an entire industry built around you that you have never knowingly interacted with, whose products are dossiers about your life, and whose customers are anyone willing to…
MHB Admin · August 5, 2026
Most people assume that in a country built on the presumption of innocence, the government cannot take your property unless you have been convicted of a crime. Most people are wro…
MHB Admin · July 28, 2026
On television, forensic science is infallible. A technician glances at a hair under a microscope, matches it to a suspect, and the case is closed. The jury nods; the audience is s…
MHB Admin · July 22, 2026
On any given night, most of the people sleeping in America's local jails have not been convicted of anything. According to the Prison Policy Initiative's most recent national acco…
MHB Admin · July 17, 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
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