One hundred and sixty years ago, the United States made a bold and fundamental alteration to the structure of its currency by eliminating the half-cent. Ever since, the basic denominations with which we exchange goods and services have been more or less constant. Meanwhile, inflation has drastically altered purchasing power to the point that today’s dime … Read more
The prologue of Telex From Cuba, published in 2008, opens with a young girl, Everly Lederer, fascinated by the notion of a physical boundary, the Tropic of Cancer, represented as a simple line on her globe. With her unconstrained imagination, “she pictured daisy chains of seaweed stretching across the water toward a distant horizon.” When … Read more
We just published a fantastic article (read it!) by staff writer David Freed about the future of the online music market. Spotify, Pandora, and Rdio have taken up where Napster left off, and, so the industry cliché goes, things will never be the same again. What better illustration of this last point than Los Angeles-based … Read more
For most of the 20th century, changes in the music industry were limited to hardware. The gramophone became the record player, which eventually became the hi-fi and later, the at-the-time revolutionary CD. The biggest labels dominated the industry, supervising the mass dissemination and release of albums in an age of limited media. Like a venture … Read more
In the spring of 1994, South Africa overcame mountainous obstacles to end apartheid and elect Nelson Mandela as its first black president. Twenty years later, it’s facing many more challenges, this time without the leadership of the man who united and healed a nation bitterly divided. Mandela left behind a legacy of democracy that in … Read more
George Watsky goes all in. Though far from a household name, he sells his music, tours the nation, and is surviving on his art. The 27-year-old California native is part of a generation of YouTube stars who use the website as a platform to spread their messages. Google’s partnership with AdSense, and the creation of … Read more
If our biggest concern in selecting a commencement speaker is finding somebody famous to pat our graduates on the back, we are missing a tremendous opportunity to learn as a community. Similarly, if our biggest concern with a chosen speaker is their policy record, we are also missing an opportunity to learn as a community. … Read more
The recent appointment of Michael Bloomberg to speak at Harvard’s commencement has generated massive backlash from some students due to the ‘stop-and-frisk’ police procedures that were put into place during his tenure as mayor of New York City. Yet choosing Bloomberg as commencement speaker does not mean that Harvard is supporting his policies, just as … Read more
On March 5, 2014, Harvard announced that Michael Bloomberg M.B.A. ’66, the former three-term mayor of New York City, will serve as the principal speaker at this year’s Commencement. The following two weeks saw a flurry of activity on social media and campus-wide publications fueled by voices against the choice, especially in light of Bloomberg’s … Read more
As soon as Michael Bloomberg was announced this year’s commencement speaker, Facebook, Twitter, and other social media filled with debates over whether the appointment was a good or bad decision on the part of the Harvard administration. There’s space for both sides of the spectrum. Supporters of this invitation could cite Bloomberg’s distinctive personal history … Read more