by Michael Tracey Postscript In November 2007, just as I was finishing a draft of this essay I was talking to a television executive during a visit to London. He asked if there […]
Meanings, pt. 4: an awful, dark year
by Michael Tracey In his essay, “The White Negro,” Norman Mailer references Marxist thought with a level of respect but pointed to its failure in application because, as he put it, “it […]
Meanings, pt. 3: public service
by Michael Tracey Let me return to a period which is widely regarded within the advanced industrial societies as a high water mark of public service broadcasting, the BBC in the early […]
Meanings, pt. 2: a crisis of prevailing values
by Michael Tracey It isn’t just that there is an appetite for scandal, sex, sleaze, death narratives, it is also that feeding such appetites can be very profitable. The fact is that […]
Meanings, pt. 1: Post-OJ America
by Michael Tracey “Everything’s got a moral, if only you can find it.” – Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland So on to the really interesting part: what has it all meant, what […]
Daxis, pt. 3: snake on a plane
by Michael Tracey There had earlier been another development that caught the attention of the local US intelligence services based in the embassy. In July Daxis had told me that he had […]
JonBenet, pt. 3: time to wake up, Professor Tracey
by Michael Tracey In the mid-1980s David Mills had tried to get a budget together to make a documentary based on my work on public broadcasting, making the case that market forces […]
JonBenet, pt. 2: vile bigotry and voodoo stupidity
by Michael Tracey Several incidents in particular focused my attention not on the murder but on how we seemed to be dealing with it as a culture. In March 1997 the CU […]
JonBenet, pt. 1: the establishment of a narrative
by Michael Tracey SHE pass’d away like morning dew Before the sun was high; So brief her time, she scarcely knew The meaning of a sigh. As round the rose its soft […]
Ramseys cleared; Denver Post releases the truthers
In a long-overdue move, Boulder prosecutors have officially cleared the family of JonBenet Ramsey in the girl’s December 26, 1996 murder. I say “long-overdue” because for those of us who’ve paid attention […]
Progressive Culture | Scholars & Rogues 