"Displaying to the World the Depth of Your Grief in Tangible, Material Means"

"Which is to say that the question about madness that swirls around Sarah Winchester is always in part a question of changing tastes. The work of mourning is not a constant, but changes from generation to generation. Victorian ostentation gives way to embalming and a lifelike appearance for open caskets, to cremation and scattering of ashes, to green burials. Sarah Winchester, who in this film enters the twentieth century still clad in last century's widow's weeds, seems to ask that most pressing question: If this behavior wasn't mad 30 years ago and you've simply kept up at it, has it become mad now?"

Colin Dickey at the New Republic reviews the new movie Winchester.

"In 2008, It Was Wall Street Bankers. In 2017, Tech Workers Are the World's Villain"

"We're not egging on startups that willingly flaunt regulations. We're wary of artificial intelligence and its potential to eliminate jobs. We're dubious of tech leaders' promises to make their products safe for their kids to use. We are all sick of the jokes that no longer feel funny: lines about the lack of women in tech, about obscenely rich 20-somethings, about awkward coders with bad people skills, about 'hustling' and growth at any cost. It all feels inappropriate." 

Erin Griffith at Wired describes those living in the "Silicon Valley bubble."

"To Attack Someone Because of Their Political Beliefs Is to Embrace the Logic of Authoritarianism"

"The simple truth is that reaction feeds on disorder. And when there are legitimate means to stop Trump, you're just as likely to cause a backlash in favor of his effort by forsaking them to attack his supporters. (At the risk of tripping Godwin's law, German Communist violence against ultra-right targets in the 1932 elections didn't stop Hitler and his enablers as much as it emboldened and enabled them.) If anything, Trump wants violent attacks on his supporters. Don't give them to him."

Jamelle Bouie in Slate criticizes anti-Trump violence.

"A System of Higher Education that Is So Broken for So Many"

"That’s bad news for the Bay Area and California, bad news for the nation, and especially bad news for the working class. With nine out of the top ten skilled job openings in the next decade in California alone expected to require a post-secondary credential of some sort, the failure of the community colleges in a region otherwise characterized by booming growth will levy a major blow not only to the economy, but also to the very notion of upward mobility in this country."

In the Washington Monthly, Haley Sweetland Edwards claims that the San Francisco Bay Areas has "America's Worst Community Colleges."

This Year's Model

"You don't have to ask where you've heard this before, because you hear it all the time. Every new technology is hyped as a world-changer and life-changer—just last year, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan was urging that every schoolchild have a laptop, because in the near future, textbooks would be a thing of the past. As I observed at the time, this was education as seen through the eyes of Apple Inc., not through the eyes of genuine educators."

Michael Hiltzik in the Los Angeles Times reacts to San Jose State University's suspension of Massive Open Online Courses.

Bedroom Community by the Bay

"Yahoo's buses prowl through the Mission District and a number of other city neighborhoods, pulling over every 10 blocks or so to ingest clusters of workers waiting on the sidewalk, before turning onto Highway 101 and motoring to Sunnyvale. Like Google's buses, the Yahoo buses run on biodiesel, giving environmentally conscious employees another reason to feel good about their commute, besides comfortable seats, the cup holders and the Wi-Fi."

Mike Swift in the San Jose Mercury News chronicles the rise of Silicon Valley workers commuting from San Francisco. (Including the Late Adopter's housemate at the end of the line in the accompanying photo.)