ON MATTERS OF DUBIOUS INTEREST
Don’t Overthink a Climate-Change Debate Climate change got just 15 minutes out of 4 hours of Democratic debates The Debates Showed America Still Doesn’t Know How to Talk About Climate Change Tom Perez, the DNC Chair, says he won’t allow one because if he gave in to Jay Inslee’s request he’d then have to permit …
Jay Inslee has a radical plan to phase out fossil fuel production in the US Writer David Roberts of Vox has as his subtitle: “This is going to make some people mad.” Jay Inslee, as you may know, is the only Democratic candidate to base his whole campaign on the issues of climate change. His …
Thursday night’s State of the Union showed the President bantering about his age and at times not taking himself too seriously. After the speech he worked the room and said, “I kinda wish sometimes I was cognitively impaired,” meaning, I think, that it would be a good way to deflect the outrageous charges against him. …
I’m going to rest up like my friend here. I’m going to eat well and play some music. And I’m going to remember our military dead—which is what the holiday used to be about. For many it’s become just another day off from work, an excuse to shop the many sales, a big weekend for …
“Reality,” says Haruki Murakami in a novel, “is just the accumulation of ominous prophecies come to life.” Indeed, you don’t have to be a total pessimist to agree with that judgment. The world is presently so full of ominous prophecies that we’re simply incapable of taking action in critical areas. The greatest conundrums and quandaries …
In my life I’ve been very lucky to spend time and live in some desirable places: venues like Greenwich Village, Martha’s Vineyard, Little Compton Rhode Island, Chesapeake Bay, the coast of Maine. I took vacations to rare places like Tortola, the Leeward Islands and, years ago, Cozumel. Now we learn that Cozumel, home to great …
There has been so much written about “woke” that I hesitate to add to the glut. And so I will. It’s probably gotten to the point where most black people would just as soon avoid the term. When language gets so loaded that it incites cultural warfare it’s time to unload it. But since woke …
I beg to offer up some half-baked fallacies that many people still find plausible. On serious inspection, they are either unworkable, unattainable, or ill-conceived. Still, our society is often moved to accept, even welcome them. Gun control. Many Americans are up in arms about the recent mass shootings, growing in numbers each year. Feckless proposals …
The NY Times recently published a piece in which a 41-year-old doctor in Boston muses about advances in the science of anti-aging. She is pregnant with her first child and wonders whether aging is really inevitable. Her dad does pull-ups at age 70 and pursues studies on “how he might slow the ticking clock.” Aging …
I tried to get into the real story about this guy, but it turns into a labyrinthian tale of more and more compromised women, abortions, and unacknowledged sons. So much media attention (e.g., here and here) has followed the Walker revelations that it almost dulls the controversy. The moral implications of Walker’s behavior have often …