One year ago today
Rep. Peter King calls for prosecution of journalists covering NSA whistleblower story: Reporters who publish stories that reference leaked classified information should be prosecuted by the state. That same day, King appeared on Fox News to demand that the state prosecute Glenn Greenwald, the journalist who broke the Edward Snowden story.
Five years ago today
British cops deliver Catch 22 to photographers: you’re not allowed to know which areas you’re not allowed to photograph: In Britain, cops have the power to search you if you take a picture of a “sensitive” area, but they won’t tell you which areas are “sensitive,” because they’re so “sensitive.”
Ten years ago today
Ian McDonald’s brilliant new novel, River of Gods: Bollywoodpunk: I just finished reading Ian McDonald’s latest novel, River of Gods, and my mind is whirling. River is the story of India’s 100th birthday, when the great nation has fractured into warring subnations on caste, religious and cultural lines. Like McDonald’s other great novels, the story is beyond epic, with an enormous cast of richly realised characters and a vivid, luminous vision of techno-Hinduism that beggars the imagination. Take, for example, Town and Country, a soap-opera acted out by AIs (or “aeais”) who lead double-lives — each AI character has another role, as the actor who plays the character, in a “meta-soap” where their squabbling, indiscretions and marriages are tabloid fodder for the soapi magazines that dote upon them.