Of cultural interest
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On friendship (and Chomsky and Epstein)
Philosopher Peter Ludlow comments.
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A fitting July 4th essay for an America in which that malevolent buffoon is still President
Here (the full essay is behind a paywall, alas–but here are some excerpts).
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On the occasion of the opening of the Obama Presidential Center in my neighborhood
A different take on Obama, that makes some fair critical points. He was no progressive, alas. The way he has enriched himself non-stop post-Presidency has been particularly gross.
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Some hopeful trends in America
The Financial Times has always represented the prudent wing of the capitalist class, unlike the imprudent wing that has overwhelmed the Republican Party in America. This piece by one of its regular opinion columnists (who is quite scathing about Trump et al., but knows which class he represents) is revealing: When they go low, we…
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NYC mayor was right to skip the “Israel Parade”…
…which was really a parade celebrating the far right, racist, and pro-apartheid political leadership of Israel.
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The climate change catastrophe: India edition
All 50 of the hottest cities in the world were in India recently (temperatures of 110 degrees farenheit and up are not uncommon right now). Ghastly. And Modi is still pretending… (Thanks to Ruchira Paul for the pointer.)
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With Trump, there is no bottom to the corruption
Just the latest. If this criminal and his political movement is ever defeated, the government will need to undertake legal proceedings to disgorge millions if not billions of ill-gotten gains. UPDATE: As if to prove the point, Trump and his family are now given immunity for their tax cheating by the Department of Justice. What…
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“The end of the road for Dr. Disgrace”
That’s Dr. Jeremy Faust’s take on Senator Bill Cassidy’s defeat in the Republican primary yesterday in Louisiana. It was Senator Cassidy’s craven vote for the imbecile Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services that enabled the imbecile’s war on public health. As Dr. Faust writes: Cassidy will go down as a…
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“Oligarch watch”
Grimly amusing, and also informative about these dangerous people.
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Of all the malign actions of the right-wing super-legislature posing as a court…
…gutting the Voting Rights Act–one of the most decent and successful pieces of legislation aimed at counteracting the sorry history of American apartheid–on the basis of a “race neutrality” detached from reality may be among the worst. Justice Kagan’s dissent makes a lot of the correct points. What a disgrace. UPDATE: A useful critique by…
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On the perils of comparing per capita GDP: the case of Canada and the U.S.
Capitalist ideologists love per capita GDP, and it inevitably comes up in discussions of the economies of Canada and the U.S. This essay makes some important points (including that most of the higher per capita GDP in the U.S. is due to greater wealth inequality and to Americans having to work about three weeks more…
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Profiles in real courage: Andrée de Jongh
She helped hundreds of downed airmen escape from Nazi-controlled territory, and even survived Nazi capture herself.
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Statement by the DC shooter
Here. It is surprisingly cogent, considering that his actions were not.
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The problem for parents in America is that “America hates people”
Yes, indeed, a nice takedown of a bit of sociological idealism in the NYT: The article mentioned that policymakers need to focus on supporting parents, but in equal weight, if not more so, was the argument that America’s culture of parenting was the problem. Having raised kids for 18 years in the United States and…
My new book Aging and the Ethics of Longevity Science has just been published as an open access book with…