Of cultural interest
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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.
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Canada PM Carney, speaking to the ruling class at Davos, speaks the truth…
…which politicians almost never do. It’s fair to say he has risen to the occasion! Some excerpts: It’s a pleasure — and a duty — to be with you at this turning point for Canada and the world. I’ll speak today about the rupture in the world order, the end of the pleasant fiction and the…
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Profiles in real courage: Franca Viola
She defied Sicilian custom, and refused to marry her rapist, instead taking him to court, changing both Italian mores and law.
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Profiles in real courage: Frank and Beatrice Lumpkin
This is an inspiring read about an interracial, working class couple, united by politics and love, who spent the bulk of their activist careers in and around Chicago.
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On Trump’s neo-mercantilism: the Christian Right meets Silicon Valley
This is an informative interview.
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Elise Stefanik: Good riddance!
A humorous farewell to a despicable politician.
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“Grumpy Chinese Guy”
Somehow I fell upon this guy on FB (the link is to his YouTube page). He does sensible class-based analysis of various topics in the news, and he’s pretty good! Some readers may enjoy this.
Porphyry of Tyre on Theology and Theurgy (Harvard University Press & Center for the Study of World Religions, 2026) Permanently…