It’s almost a cliche, I suppose: hiker returns from a trip from to vale, glen, mountain, and stream, with tales of folks met on the trail, their idiosyncratic characters, their inspirational accounts, their quirky characteristics, their reminder that the world is full of interesting and distinctive people, that, strangely and ironically enough you can leaveContinue reading “Colorado Notes – I: The People You Meet On The Trail”
Author Archives: Samir Chopra
Donald Trump Looks A Gift Horse In The Mouth
A smarter politician than Donald Trump would have realized the windfall Khizr Khan had granted him, one with which he could have pulled off a miraculous triangulation of his own. To do this Trump could have done the following: Welcomed Khizr Khan’s remarks, acknowledged his family’s sacrifice, and then said, “This is the kind ofContinue reading “Donald Trump Looks A Gift Horse In The Mouth”
Orange Is The New Black And The Privatization of Prisons
Spoilers Ahead. Orange is The New Black has attracted–not unjustifiedly–some flak for its powerful and painful fourth season: it has been accused of being ‘trauma porn for white people,’ and of having ‘failed the Dominican community.’ Still, the show has provided some powerful drama in those thirteen episodes, largely by throwing off any pretensions thatContinue reading “Orange Is The New Black And The Privatization of Prisons”
Dan Savage Should Run For Dogcatcher
Dan Savage thinks the Greens should walk before they try to run: I have a problem with the Greens…. I have a problem with these fake, attention seeking, grandstanding Green…party candidates who pop up every four years, like mushrooms in shit, saying that they’re building a third party. And those of us who don’t haveContinue reading “Dan Savage Should Run For Dogcatcher”
Dishwashing: The King Of Procrastination Strategies
Washing the dishes has long held a honorable position in the arsenal of strategies adopted by those who procrastinate. (Sometime in the near future I anticipate Facebook and Twitter conducting some sophisticated data analysis to indicate how many of their users announce it as such.) Indeed, we should elevate this claim to be one ofContinue reading “Dishwashing: The King Of Procrastination Strategies”
Melville On ‘The Most Dangerous Sort’: The Outwardly Rational Madman
In Billy Budd, Sailor (Barnes and Noble Classic Edition, New York, p. 40) Herman Melville writes: [T]he thing which in eminent instances signalizes so exceptional a nature is this: though the man’s even temper and discreet bearing would seem to intimate a mind peculiarly subject to the law of reason, not the less in his heartContinue reading “Melville On ‘The Most Dangerous Sort’: The Outwardly Rational Madman”
The Comforts Of ‘Abide With Me’
Legend has it that Mohandas Gandhi adored Abide With Me, “a Christian hymn by Scottish Anglican Henry Francis Lyte most often sung to English composer William Henry Monk‘s…’Eventide‘.” I learned of this particular proclivity of the Mahatma long after I had first heard the hymn’s notes as a child attending or watching the Beating RetreatContinue reading “The Comforts Of ‘Abide With Me’”
Barbara Tuchman Contra Hot Takes
Barbara Tuchman kicks off the preface to her Practicing History: Selected Essays (Ballantine Books, New York, 1981) by writing: It is surprising to find, on reviewing one’s past work, which are the pieces that seem to stand up and which are those that have wilted. The only rule I can discover as a determinant–and it is aContinue reading “Barbara Tuchman Contra Hot Takes”
Teflon Trump’s Terrifying Troops
I did not watch the Donald Trump acceptance speech last night; I did not want to run the risk of a disturbed night’s sleep. I did however, read a transcript that was available on the net before he went live. It was a terrifying read just because it was so ‘good’: pitch-perfect in its toneContinue reading “Teflon Trump’s Terrifying Troops”
A Trump Win And The First-Past-The-Post System
Every election cycle, we learn all over again, the bad news about ‘swing states’ and ‘undecided voters’ and ‘independents.’ There are ‘red states’ and ‘blue states’ and then there are ‘states in play’: those electoral precincts in the nation whose demographics make their electoral outcomes uncertain. Every election cycle, the political candidates of the twoContinue reading “A Trump Win And The First-Past-The-Post System”
Samir Chopra 