If I came from a small town by the Afghanistan frontier, I would not be here [or] able to read and write.
For many years, the biggest winter event here has been the Polar Bear Swim on New Year's Day (which makes Coney Island New York's arctic frontier, I suppose).
At J. Press, whose frontier I never crossed until I was past 30, I got a muffler in my school colors, which I throw around my throat even when the thermometer is pushing 60.
Given the Net's vast number of unregulated feeds, there was always the chance that, racing through such a lawless frontier, I'd see something illicit: sex, rage, unfiltered joy.
When politicians make grandiose announcements about specific science projects that are poised to "save the world", "move humanity further", "cross the next human frontier", I cannot help but feel cynical, suspicious and soon after, a little depressed.
In a lifetime of crossing borders I find this pitiless fence the oddest frontier I have ever seen — more formal than the Berlin Wall, more brutal than the Great Wall of China, yet in its way just as much an example of the same folie de grandeur.
Living at this frontier, I saw a fireworks-like display of life – the majesty of Christmas tree worms giving off a purple-white smoke as they spawn, or an endangered Goliath grouper attacking a barracuda, something no one had ever observed before.
No matter what the Chinese may think of the disaster-relief efforts of the new leadership, its online contingent seems relieved to find both solace and resources in their new frontier: "I remember in 2008 when there wasn't Weibo yet.
