Mike Pilewski writes about life, politics and culture in the United States
This morning began with a pleasant surprise. I had just arrived at my office when a very dear colleague came in, holding a piece of cake. She started singing “Happy Birthday”. I am not normally one to turn down a piece of cake, but I do believe in telling the truth. “I’m sorry, but it’s not my birthday,” I said. … >>
My house has disappeared. It’s invisible. You can’t see it. It’s gone from view. Poof! All you see now in Google Street View is a six-story blur. I think one of my neighbors is responsible. The building we live in, and the building down the street where he works, are the only houses in the area that have been censored. … >>
If you tried to read the English-language Wikipedia last Wednesday, you couldn’t. Every page was replaced with a black screen explaining that, as part of a protest, the content of the free online encyclopedia was being hidden for 24 hours. (A banner appeared at the top of Wikipedia’s Spanish- and German-language pages, but this was hardly more distracting than the … >>
Regular readers of this column will know that I don’t like to revisit a topic — at least not right away. I like to give you something new every week. However, I can’t let this one go, because I’ve told only two thirds of the story. The cities of England (in reality) and the city of San Francisco (in fiction) … >>
Dear readers, I hope you can forgive me for abandoning two of my principles. The first is not to revisit a topic too soon after having written about it. I thought I was done with tornadoes, but they kept coming. After those in North Carolina, there was the one that destroyed the airport in St. Louis, Missouri. Then a major … >>
As we give up more and more of our privacy online, it’s inevitable that our employers will become more and more interested in our private lives. But should they be able to control what we say? This question came up a week ago, when The Washington Post suspended one of its sports columnists, Mike Wise, for something he’d written on … >>
Last week, this column mentioned the deep mistrust many Americans have of their government. This week, the government is doing its best to convince them that it’s working for the public good. It’s hired Olympic skier Ryan St. Onge, current Miss America Caressa Cameron, and former teen star Donny Osmond to do testimonials on television and on YouTube. It’s placed … >>
Of all the e-mail I’ve received, this was the strangest. It read: “Hello, Mr. Pilewski. Would you like to order a pizza?” I was half expecting the sender to be a Nigerian pizza chef who needed help smuggling lots of dough out of his country. But instead, it was an old college acquaintance. Years and entire continents had separated us … >>