Navigating the Digital Commons on Our Own Terms, by Kenn Orphan

Image by Anant Nath Sharma via Flickr

by Kenn Orphan
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Halifax, Nova Scotia
June 18, 2021

The other day I made a Facebook post that referred to the arbitrary and, yet, purposefully designed algorithms of social media and how they are effectively silencing and censoring people, especially those on the left. I have noticed it myself. I get far less traffic to my page than in prior years. This makes the social media “experience” less desirable (I will go into the reason why a bit later), and so I said I would likely be spending less time here as a result.

Bearing Witness at Aeon’s End: The Wound Becomes the Womb by Phil Rockstroh and Kenn Orphan

Image by RANT 73 – Visual Storyteller via Flickr

by Phil Rockstroh and Kenn Orphan
Writers, Dandelion Salad
September 13, 2019

PR: Kenn, this question haunts me: Is it still possible, amid constant inundation by the mass and social media simulacrum, for literature, poetry or a music to rouse the heart and foment rebellion against one’s complicity in what amounts to a bondage of sensibility? Naturally, we are given to outrage but, for the most part, it is directed, if we are honest, at our own sense of powerlessness against the mind-stupefying roil of events.

The Dead Letter Office of Capitalist Imperium: a Poverty of Mundus Imaginalis by Phil Rockstroh and Kenn Orphan

Image by Walt Jabsco via Flickr

by Phil Rockstroh and Kenn Orphan
Writer, Dandelion Salad
August 23, 2019

PR: What has been of greater service to humanity, the dark vision of humanity, limned in satire, by Jonathan Swift or the positivity-rancid homilies of corporate church of self-actualization? What is more propitious to the psyche, a descent into the underworld by Orphic imagination or the Icarusian dazzle on Instagram or the narcissistic intoxication induced by gazing upon one’s image reproduced by a thousand retweets on Twitter?

Chris Hedges: Generation Wealth and The Cult of Self

Screenshot by Dandelion Salad via Flickr
Watch the video below

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

RT America on Jul 28, 2018

Photographer and filmmaker, Lauren Greenfield, discusses the cult of self and its destructive qualities shown in her new film – Generation Wealth – with journalist Chris Hedges.

Abby Martin: The US Opioid Crisis

Image by roujo via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Abby Martin

teleSUR English on Nov 29, 2017

A new phenomenon has emerged in the United States: 64,000 people died in 2016 of a drug overdose—with 80% from opioids—with levels of addiction nearly 500% higher over the last six years.

Chris Hedges: The Fatal Addiction + How Big Pharma Created the Heroin Epidemic

Image by roujo via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

RT America on Jun 10, 2017

Heroin is now the leading cause of death in Americans under 50. In a special edition of On Contact, Chris Hedges travels to Sayerville, New Jersey to share the story of one of those victims, Shannon Miller, who died of an overdose at the age of 23.

Chris Hedges: Casino Capitalism

Screenshot by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Chris Hedges

RT America on Mar 25, 2017

On this week’s episode of On Contact, Chris Hedges discusses the ramifications of casino culture in America with Professor Natasha Dow Schüll, author of “Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas”. RT Correspondent Anya Parampil examines how gambling has become our premier form of entertainment and escape.

Technology Servitude by Joel S. Hirschhorn

by Joel S. Hirschhorn
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.foavc.org
January 5, 2013

Image by Susan NYC via Flickr

Everywhere I look outside my home I see people busy on their high tech devices, while driving, while walking, while shopping, while in groups of friends, while in restaurants, while waiting in doctor offices and hospitals, while sitting in toilets – everywhere.  While connected electronically, they are inattentive to and disconnected in physical reality.

People have been steadily manipulated to become technology addicted.  Technology is the opiate of the masses.