- Jan 27, 2016
- 8 min
Laughing, until we find out what's going on
Then I asked: 'does a firm perswasion that a thing is so, make it so?'
He replied: 'All poets believe that it does, & in ages of imagination this firm perswasion removed mountains; but many are not capable of a firm perswasion of any thing.' -W.Blake, Marriage of Heaven and Hell * Straightaway I suppose I should admit a personal vice: Donald Trump often makes me laugh. When he gave out Lindsay Graham's phone number several months ago (oh, so many months ago) I laughed. When
- Jan 17, 2016
- 3 min
A Healthy Record
Yesterday Politico reported that a Hillary Clinton "surrogate" was planning on calling for the release of Bernie Sanders's medical records as part of (whatever that means) a broader attack of his healthcare proposals. Jeff Weaver, the capaign manager for Sanders, called this "one of the most desperate and vile attacks imaginable," which is very strange, because it's probably the least vile of the attacks Clinton or her supporters has made on Sanders this past week. Calling fo
- Jan 11, 2016
- 5 min
That's pretty freaky, Bowie
NOTE: This post was written about 12 hours before I heard the news of David Bowie's death. Of course, the new album takes on quite a new and sad dimension that I could not have imagined a few hours ago. Battling cancer the last 18 months, Bowie must have known that he was not long for this world while making this record. It's a surreal piece of news. I'm leaving this piece up as it is and going to scratch my head and listen to some David Bowie. Rest in peace you strange glori
- Jan 6, 2016
- 7 min
Trump the Hot Potato
The other day a blogger from a liberal journal gave a conservative article a fair hearing – possibly even too much of a fair hearing. And this raised my brow a little, because any time someone from a well-known media outlet extends this kind of decency to their ideological opponent, it seems like grounds for a small spontaneous holiday. Mother Jones's Kevin Drum notes that Tom Nichols wrote a piece in the Daily Beast blaming the Trump phenomenon on the political correctness o
- Jan 3, 2016
- 7 min
The Double-edged Sword of Scott Atran
For several years the French-American Anthropologist Scott Atran has been trying to get people to listen to his findings on the group dynamics of violent radicalization terrorism, and it seems that some people in high places are beginning to listen. He has recently spoken at the United Nations Security Council, and following the rise of ISIS and terrorism attacks in Europe, his name can be found in the bylines of dozens of digital and print articles. Atran published Talking T
- Jan 2, 2016
- 2 min
The Great Talker, collected
I wanted to let Studs Terkel be the subject of this first post, in part because his spirit of interviewing and inquiry ought to be enjoyed by people who don't know about him, and because there is a new website where it's easier than ever to do it.. The Studs Terkel Radio Archive over the past couple years has been building up it's collection of radio interviews conducted by Terkel, whose career at WFMT has spanned nearly five decades. Terkel interviewed thousands of people. T
