I've been looking for, finding and losing jobs since I was 14, the legal working age in Washington State. The first job I was fired from, after just a couple of months, was a filing job at a pool equipment supply company in Seattle. I did get former Supersonics All-Star power forward Shawn Kemp's old home address out of the deal, so that's something. But that was the dawn of the 90s, and while I'm sure I gained and lost at least ten more jobs in that decade, I'm pretty sure it couldn't compare to the volatile 00s. I wasn't always fired, mind you-straight-up firings, lifetime, I can count on one hand. No, these days things are much more passive-aggressive. Generally the work was temporary from the get-go, or else I was downsized, and sometimes I even quit or transitioned to part-time on relatively good terms. I, like most Americans, have been fully widgetized. The concept of job security is a sort of mythical legend from a pre-historic dreamtime. READ MORE

At the celebration of all things capital known as the D conference, put on by the Wall Street Journal, Vagina Monologuist Eve Ensler raised the topic of the coltan trade in the Congo. It was a classic piece of "awareness raising" in the Southern California celebrity cause tradition, where a bit of conscience was paraded out to the crowd of venture capitalists and technology acolytes but no conclusions drawn or consequences demanded. During the discussion with the Journal's Kara Swisher, Ensler brought up widespread sexual assault in the Eastern Congo as part of ongoing regional warfare. READ MORE

In the United States, the rich are often a few steps removed from the havoc they wreak on society. For instance, the trader in commodities derivatives is a step away from the commodities trader, who's a step away from the bulk buyer of actual, physical commodities, who's a step or more a way from the farmer who grows or raises the commodities. While the derivatives cowboy may take some interest in how corn is grown in America, when it comes to the realities of the field and plow, he couldn't be more ignorant. That ignorance means he can operate free from any bounds of conscience when making trades. And, at least in theory (if not in practice) American capitalists don't have the power of the state as a trump in the hole. But for the oligarchs who benefited from the breakup in the Soviet Union, extracting value from their positions are a bit more hands-on. READ MORE