News & Updates
NYU’s Faculty Starts Worrying — in Public — About Expansion
New, for Capital: for the first time in memory, full faculty and grad students are joining the Greenwich Village community’s in objecting to NYU’s plans for growth. The school’s administrators see in "NYU 2031" the iconic urban university claiming its rightful role as one of the county’s premiere institution’s of higher learning. But to critics of the $6 billion plan, its looks much like the people charged with ensuring the school’s future are putting it on a path to debt-ridden ruin.
The Emerging Rejection of a Global Copyright Treaty
For the good folks at Salon, I tie together what’s at play in Europe, where street protests and newly-reluctant governments are changing the prospects for the long-negotiated international treaty over digital copyright and counterfeit goods known as ACTA.
Dogging Mitt Romney
Confession: I’m not much of a dog person. Certainly, I appreciate them a great deal in theory. But in person, they make me nervous. Perhaps as a result, I was slow to appreciate that the saga of Seamus — as in, the story of how Mitt Romney, in the early eighties, drove to Canada with his crated Irish Setter on the top of his car — was more than an easy way to give Romney a hard time. But there do seem to be dog owners for whom Seamus’s tale suggests that Romney is unfit to be president of the United States. For the Atlantic, I report from the Dogs Against Romney protest outside the Westminster dog show at Madison Square Garden.
(Let it not be said that I am anti-pet, though. I am, after all, co-owner of the world’s cutest cat.)
MacGyvering for the President
New from me over at the Atlantic, an exit interview with Aneesh Chopra, the first-ever Chief Technology Officer of the United States. (Photo credit: JRandomF)
President, Interrupted
It was a remarkable moment — a 29 year-old Texas woman mixing it up with President Obama in a way that closely resembled the way normal humans interact. More from me on last night’s White House Google+ "hangout" here.
Mo Money, Mo Secrets
For the Atlantic, a look at the "darkest day in the history of American super PACs," as in, the day before the first round of donor disclosure.
Hanging Out with a Lonely President
A quick look at using the Internet to lessen isolation — for teens and presidents alike.
Bringing Down PIPA
Over at Salon, a look at the Internet’s remarkably successful rallying against the Senate’s Protect IP Act.
Talking SOPA with Brian Lehrer
I’m a huge — huge! — Brian Lehrer fan, so I was thrilled to go on WNYC with him today to discuss the pushback against the Stop Online Piracy Act (aka SOPA) and the Protect IP Act (PIPA).
Also, as seen above, I stopped by the rally today outside the New York City offices of Senators Schumer and Gillibrand, an event organized by the New York Tech Meetup. It was one of the first moments that I can think of where the technology community manifested its politicization in physical form, so you might want to note it on your calendar. Counting crowds is a fool’s game, but if you said that there were a thousand people there, I wouldn’t say that you were lying.
Doing Digital for Romney
New from me over on The Atlantic: an interview with Zac Moffatt, digital director for the Romney campaign.
