Dry Hyphen Olympics

That’s the title of a piece for Thought Catalog I wrote up. It starts off personal, then explores the “free range kid” vs. “helicopter kid” – as in the kids of helicopter parents – idea:

As mostly an 80s kid, not a 90s kid, I was an authentic free range kid. I was a paperboy, I explored garbage-strewn suburban creeks, and I pretended to be James Bond in unsupervised, half-built public parks way before Daniel Craig’s stint as 007 came along. I think it was the series’ View to a Kill that set me off, what with its rad Duran Duran soundtrack and all. Not that music was my thing in those early pre-teen days, apart from whatever the ‘rents were listening to (and you can bet it wasn’t “Rent”).

That’s the title of a piece for Thought Catalog I’m only now posting here, nearly 3 months after it went up. It’s about the shrinking economic outlook for Millenials who aspire to be middle class. Opening salvo:

According to a new survey by the vaunted Pew Research Center, Americans have ratcheted downward their expectation of the good life to the point where merely having a job — more precise-like, a “secure job” — is enough to warrant the dignified moniker of “middle class.” The branches of that good life the job tree once supported, like a home and two cars, have been hacked away, prompting folks polled to cling to the trunk itself.

You can read it here. I get name-dropped, which is nice. I tried to get Critical Review name-dropped by extension, but the author and/or editor of the piece didn’t go for it.

The headline represents the aspirations of Politix more so than it does reality, because our readers, or at least full-time commenters, appear to be overwhelmingly conservative. This is no doubt due to the red state rural and suburban user base that make up Topix, from which most of our users are drawn.

The site’s writers are a mixed bag, however. Let frequent site user “Bobolinsky” break down the political tilt of the site’s four contributors as he sees it:

@RAWalker– It happens… It’s Michael Mayday’s day off. He’s the conservative/libertarian… Dain is the center-left staff writer and Mary is the Far Left Senior Editor. David’s the new boss and he’s center-left as well.

I won’t quibble with my description as “center-left” despite my having written for John Derbyshire’s outlet, but I suppose I could give off that vibe in the subtle ways that non-partisan, more journalist(ic) writing allows. I’ve definitely moved further left on economics, and for admittedly subjective reasons having to do with the reality of intermittent, low-paying work in an everyone’s-their-own-boss-isn’t-that-great freelance economy. I’ve indulged so deeply in that whole POV that I’m even a fan of the muckrakers at The Exiled, a possibly bad habit picked up from my time at the now defunct In Mala Fide. (For an entertaining foray into media courtesy of the guys at The Exiled, check out this back n’ forth between the site’s anti-libertarian Connor Kilpatrick and FreedomWorks’ Austin Petersen. It views like a tiff between a polished propagandist and a guy just callzin’ likes he sees it. Is that pure mood affiliation on my part? Probably.)

Anyway, as for the other parts of one’s political identity – the “cultural” stuff – well, that doesn’t come up much on a site devoted to Politics with an “x.” It’s all jobs, jobs, jobs, gas prices and the horse race. But here’s something.

I’m all over Twitter lately, using it much more now due to a gig with the somewhat notorious Topix. It’s a news discussion site with a very laissez-faire  attitude toward commenters, for good or ill. (I say good.)

We’ve launched a new site called Politix that’s currently primed for mobile users, but a desktop site is soon to roll out. Highest profile press coverage here and  here.

So now I’m writing trendy (or rather, trending) news pieces – lots of Trayvon Martin and Ann Romney vs. Hillary Rosen type stuff – but also the occasional “weekend style” Freakonomics-esque curiosity. If you’re so inclined, here are some representative posts of mine: 1, 2, 3 and 4.

“An Ev Psych Standard Gets a Twist“
“Heuristics in Action, Sexual Orientation Edition“

Can be read here.

I really have no credentials to back up a movie review. I barely have the credentials to write on politics, but I write nonetheless.