Lawrence von Zahn

Want Money out of Politics? First Get It out of the Media: What the ‘Trump Phenomenon’ Tells Us About Capital

I’ve been spending a lot of my time recently writing or talking media bias of one form or another. One instance of this is the #DemocracySpring protest against money in politics since last week, which the mainstream media doesn’t seem to want to cover, despite the record-breaking number of arrests (which you would think is newsworthy). Yes, you do find an article here and there — but why isn’t a…

New York Daily News is Full of Shit: Response to the Interview with Bernie Sanders and the Media’s Coverage of It

Can someone please explain to me, in slow, simple terms that can be understood by a child (because I don’t expect you to be able muster more depth than that), how this interview was a disaster? If you actually read the transcript, it’s perhaps one of the strongest endorsements of his competency so far. Leave it to the mainstream media to cherry-pick it so much that we’re in fact left with more…

The Pirate Hunters I.i.2.2

2.2

The door I found myself behind revealed a small chamber as radically different from the great hall as one could imagine. While the great hall was dark and ornamental, with torches and candles and mosaics and engravings, this chamber was bright and bare, having nought but harsh concrete walls and hyphanescent lamps inserted in the ceiling. I took a few moments to catch my breath, then…

2.1

an

Much of what we understand of animal neuropsychology comes from the genimal. Not only could we finally shut off the pain centers of the brain — without which, by the way, our experiments would have been torture — but we figured out how to switch on their language. It was like turning up the volume on a biological podcast that, for thousands of years, had been on mute. In many…

The Pirate Hunters I.i.1.3

1.3

Afraid, cold, shaking, my hands unable to grasp the cup in front of me. That was my bodily reaction when I finally understood the meaning of life and the utter futility it entailed. We are not, as philosophers have once said, beings that create our meaning in our actions and words. The meaning of life is the constant struggle to control our own bodies and minds. Why else would religion be…

The Pirate Hunters I.i.1.2

1.2

I am awoken by human voices and the movement of people. The crewmembers are in the room, talking to each other as they change their clothes. I don’t understand the language. Maybe Berber. Some of them are laughing. One of them notices me and comes over to me. “Would you like some food?” He doesn’t wait for an answer before turning around to the others and saying something to them. He helps me…