Of cultural interest
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More on “left” moralizing
A propos last week’s post, this remark from Jake McNulty’s very good book on Marcuse (in my Routledge Philosophers series) is also apt: A final observation: Marcuse’s profound investment in psychoanalytic thought appears to have no parallel among the analytic critical theorists [e.g., Haslanger, Manne, Stanley]. In leftist thought and practice, psychoanalysis has often served…
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Israeli law professor sued for defamation in small claims court…
…for basically calling (with ample justification) a racist far right Israeli settler a student of the Nazis. The small claims court, remarkably, foudn in favor of the plaintiff. Professor Harel of the Hebrew University, the defendant, kindly shares this account of the case and what it tells us about the state of Israeli society: Not…
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36% decline in student visas issued under Trump…
…during May and June 2025 (crucial months) according to CHE. The decline was even higher in some countries, like India. This is probably a combination of foreign students rethinking their interest in studying in the U.S., given the serial violations of the free speech rights of foreign students by the Trump Administration, and more vetting…
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Americans more likely to view fellow citizens as “morally bad” compared to citizens…
…in two dozen other countries. Great job Rupert Murdoch!
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When a prominent U.S. politician who blows with the political winds starts calling Israel an apartheid state…
…then Israel is heading for real trouble.
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Profiles in real courage: Yanir Mohammed
She fought for the rights of girls and women in Iraq against religious fundamentalists and the other forces of partiarchal reaction, only to be murdered by them. One is reminded, once again, of what RAWA said on the second anniversary of 9/11.
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Profiles in real courage: Carlo Roselli
He opposed Mussolini and the fascists, and paid with his life.
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Profiles in real courage: Sophie Scholl (and the “White Rose” student movement)
These young people paid with their lives for opposing the monster Hitler and the Nazis. She and her brother are really quite remarkable.
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State Rep. James Talarico, candidate for Senate in Texas, on the Colbert show
CBS didn’t air it, over fear of persecution by the FCC, which has all of a sudden discovered the “fairness” doctrine again. But the show is on YouTube: Talarico is way too religious for my taste, but this schtick may work in Texas. And generally, he articulates the Bernie Sanders line about what ails the…
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“The finance industry is a grift”
(MOVING TO FRONT, THIS MAY NOT HAVE PUBLISHED PROPERLY THE FIRST TIME) It’s not every day that the NYT publishes an article by an economist arguing that one of the main industries in NYC is a “grift.” Since many law professors study this “grift,” I’m curious to hear why the author is wrong or right.…
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AI developer warns the AI jobs apocalypse is closer than we realize
Here; an excerpt: [O]n February 5th, two major AI labs released new models on the same day: GPT-5.3 Codex from OpenAI, and Opus 4.6 from Anthropic (the makers of Claude, one of the main competitors to ChatGPT). And something clicked. Not like a light switch… more like the moment you realize the water has been…
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Chomsky and Epstein
Jeffrey Epstein strikes me as a massive distraction from any issue that actually matters, but the involvement of Chomsky in this sordid story has been a gift to the Chomsky haters. Chomsky, as most readers will know, suffered a serious stroke a couple of years ago, and can’t communicate. His wife has now issued a…
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Iran is not an anti-imperialist force
Two philosophers make sensible points.
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Profiles in real courage: Liviu Librescu
Holocaust surviver, Ceaucescu survivor, he died shielding his students at Virginia Tech from a gunman.
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Remarkable turnout in freezing weather to protest ICE in Minneapolis
Here. And the calls to abolish ICE are growing, including from the libertarian right.
To be worth using, a detector needs not only (A) not get very many false positives, but also (B) get…