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Author: John Dinges

Columns

Expats After the Coup
April 04, 2017
It was to be a revolution with unfettered freedoms, and, as Allende liked to say, lots of “empanadas y vino tinto.”

High Nunes
April 04, 2017
Official oversight commissions tend to perform all of the trappings of democratic accountability while rarely resulting in lasting reform.

Shell Shock
April 03, 2017
Ghost in the Shell disassembles everything interesting about the series and rearranges the parts in the dumbest, most disorienting configuration.

The Superhero Surge
April 03, 2017
The Iron Fist is not fighting some fictional ancient order, but hammering through the contradictions of capitalism.

Meet the New Drone, Same as the Old Drone
March 31, 2017
The horror of Trump’s foreign policy won’t be as immediately obvious to Americans as his domestic failures. And yet any successful resistance to his administration will necessarily have to address it alongside all the other more proximate grievances. The only viable defense ...

Spring Cleaning with Hemingway
March 30, 2017
More and more I’ve become fascinated with collectors and collections . . . and the shadowy, idiosyncratic zones between collecting and clutter, even hoarding, where the fondness for objects becomes (so often) unruly.

Donald Trump Is Trying to Destroy the Planet
March 30, 2017
The way to the push the administration is from the bottom up. In other words, to build a bulwark of political will in cities and states, a bulwark of resistance so that regardless of what the federal government does, states are invested in building a clean energy future. That is ...

Salt Lake Snake Oil
March 30, 2017
Bloomberg View columnist Megan McArdle, though, is certain that she’s stalked the true home of American ingenuity, perseverance, and upward mobility in the present-day Mormon frontier. In a stem-winding, deeply impressionable survey of Salt Lake City’s church-administered ...

The Great Data Sale
March 30, 2017
You can tell Representative Mike Capuano represents Boston, my hometown, because he talks like someone who carries around with him a deep and abiding hatred of Comcast. “I have a simple question,” my congressman began, in Wednesday’s floor debate in the House over digital ...

Take the Knife out of Your Back
March 29, 2017
It goes against the Hallmark/Riot Grrrl/Twitter sisterhood utopian vision, but the truth is most friendships don’t last. And that’s fine. Never make room for people who treat you poorly; everyone has weak moments, but if someone truly hurts you and doesn’t actually give a ...