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Image Credit: Screenshot from Vimeo

The Super Bowl, with an audience of 111.5 million people, tends to be a place where the definition of “American” is equally invoked and contested. Not only do the hard hits and pick-sixes play out America’s strength, but also the commercials display American ingenuity and self-expression. After all, what could be more American than Bob Dylan in a Chrysler commercial, a cowboy driving a Chevy Silverado, a multilingual performance of “America the Beautiful” over a bottle of coke? At this year’s Super Bowl, only a personal injury attorney ad could top these greats.

Photo credit: Flickr user elizaO

It’s nice to think about graffiti as a free, democratic art form. Anyone can participate—all you risk is a fine or possibly jail time! But in Austin, lately, graffiti has been taken over by the big green capitalist monster (a monster, some might say, who’s slowly but surely encroaching on the town with heinous condos and hip, remodeled convenience stores that stock only local beer and kombucha).

The other day I flew from New York to Houston on a new Boeing 787 Dreamliner. This was just a few days before the aircraft was deemed unsafe for travel. Now I count myself among the lucky few who’ve had a chance to experience the vehicle. What’s all the hype about? The plane is Seattle-based Boeing’s newest in 20 years, and clearly represents their bid to remain one of the world’s top airline manufactures. (Europe’s Airbus A380 has presumably pressured Boeing to innovate.) Before last week’s grounding of all Dreamliners around the world, Boeing was struggling to meet demand. Before last week’s grounding there were roughly 100 of these planes in the global skies, and roughly five times that amount on order. Carriers include All Nippon Airways, Japan Airlines, and Air India. The only American airline company that flies them as of this writing is United Airlines. They own six Dreamliners, and I was lucky enough to be flying on their first, which has been in operation since early November. The Dreamliner’s issues had been in the news prior to my flight, but I did not learn about them until I was leisurely reading The New York Times midflight. Problems I read about included cracking windshields, wings leaking fuel, and batteries catching on fire. All this made for one of the more notable flights of my relatively short life.