Ian Crouch asks why more Americans don’t win the Nobel Prize for Literature. (The last one to do so was Toni Morrison in 1993, an award I remember especially clearly because a) I had only recently started reading her and b) I was struck by the fact of an African-American woman writer being so recognized.)Continue reading “The Never-Ending Angst Over the Nobel Prize In Literature”
Category Archives: Politics
The US Government Shutdown: Party Like It’s 1995
America awoke this morning to find its government shut down, thanks to Congress’ failure to pass a funding bill. Eight hundred thousand federal workers–including my wife, a staff attorney at the National Labor Relations Board–will be furloughed today. (My wife will go in for the first four hours to carry out an orderly shutdown ofContinue reading “The US Government Shutdown: Party Like It’s 1995”
Walter White’s Rage Against The Dying Light
Ross Douthat ponders the question of what makes Walter White the target of such sympathy–and perhaps even affection– even as it became clear that his criminality and amorality had run amuck: The allure for Team Walt is not ultimately the pull of nihilism, or the harmless thrill of rooting for a supervillain. It’s the pullContinue reading “Walter White’s Rage Against The Dying Light”
Alina Simone Doesn’t Like The Internet, Her Best Friend
The New York Times periodically publishes blog posts and Op-Eds by defenders of the intellectual property regimes that are a blot on our cultural landscape today; these defenders include what I describe as–for lack of a better term–‘the whining artist.’ This category includes all those who, seemingly stunned by the fact that the political economyContinue reading “Alina Simone Doesn’t Like The Internet, Her Best Friend”
Turn Down the Comments; We’re Talking Science Here
A couple of days ago, Popular Science decided to turn off comments on news articles. In a blog post, Suzanne LaBarre explained why: Comments can be bad for science. That’s why, here at PopularScience.com, we’re shutting them off….[W]e are as committed to fostering lively, intellectual debate as we are to spreading the word of scienceContinue reading “Turn Down the Comments; We’re Talking Science Here”
Breaking Bad and the War on Drugs
A video made by the Brave New Foundation and titled ‘What Breaking Bad Reveals About the War on Drugs‘ is making the rounds these days. It is brief, well worth a watch, and made up of rapidly edited clips from the show. It features the following screen legends–designed in Breaking Bad’s trademark ‘chemical elements letters’ style–thatContinue reading “Breaking Bad and the War on Drugs”
A Tiny Pleasure: Heading Home On Time
Yesterday evening, I took the train to my wife’s place of work at Brooklyn’s MetroTech Center. I was going to drop off my baby daughter at her mother’s office, and then head to the gym to workout. It had been a tiring day as any day of infant daycare invariably is; my wife was going toContinue reading “A Tiny Pleasure: Heading Home On Time”
NYPD to CUNY Students: Drop Dead
Corey Robin has an excellent post on the latest twist in the ‘General Petraeus at CUNY‘ fubar situation: students protesting Petraeus’ presence at CUNY are treated, first, to a tongue-lashing by various CUNY administrators including the University Faculty Senate, and then, when six of them are arrested, manhandled, and have the book thrown at themContinue reading “NYPD to CUNY Students: Drop Dead”
CLR James on the ‘Surprisingly Moderate’ Reprisals of the Haitian Revolution
Here are two very powerful passages from CLR James‘ classic The Black Jacobins: Touissant L’Overture and the San Domingo Revolution (Vintage Books, second edition revised, New York, 1962, pp. 88-89): The slaves destroyed tirelessly. Like the peasants in the Jacquerie or the Luddite wreckers, they were seeking their salvation in the most obvious way, the destruction of what they knewContinue reading “CLR James on the ‘Surprisingly Moderate’ Reprisals of the Haitian Revolution”
Creationism, Climate Non-Change, And All That
Phillip Kitcher‘s Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism (MIT Press, 1982) makes for depressing reading. Not because of any problems with its arguments, style, or content, but rather because, even as you read it, you realize that though the book was published in 1982, essentially the same points–in addition to others that would bolster the scientific standingContinue reading “Creationism, Climate Non-Change, And All That”
Samir Chopra 