An academic study conducted by Lee Epstein, William Landes and Richard Posner confirms something many of us have only intuited till now: [T]he business docket reflects something truly distinctive about the court led by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. While the current court’s decisions, over all, are only slightly more conservative than those from the courtsContinue reading “Big Business and its Friends on the US Supreme Court”
Category Archives: Politics
CUNY Administrators: Hanging with the Powerful
Readers of my ‘With Trustees Like These, Who Needs Enemies‘ series of posts will know that I’m not overly fond of CUNY administration. From interfering with faculty governance, to cracking down on academic freedom, to awarding golden parachutes to overpaid, retiring vice-chancellors, they appear to have most bases covered in their drive to subvert theContinue reading “CUNY Administrators: Hanging with the Powerful”
Letters to the Editor, Big Mouths, and Getting Slapped Down
By definition, a blogger is a bigmouth. He or she wants to say things out loud, write them down, and have others read them. As I noted in my ‘Happy Birthday Blog’ post last year, I intended this blog to be a ‘letter-to-the-editor plus notebook and scrapbook space,’ one where I could sound off andContinue reading “Letters to the Editor, Big Mouths, and Getting Slapped Down”
Ben Jonson on Doctors
A few weeks ago, I had made note here of a brief excerpt from Molière’s Love’s the Best Doctor, which rather pungently satirized doctors. Today, here is another master of comedy–Ben Jonson–on doctors. (A personal reminiscence follows.) As an added bonus there is some skepticism directed at the cost of medicine, the products of the pharmaceutical industry, andContinue reading “Ben Jonson on Doctors”
Shrapnel is Still Deadly, No Matter Where It Strikes
Many years ago, while talking to my father and some of his air force mates, I stumbled into a conversation about munitions. There was talk of rockets, shells, casings, high-explosive rounds, tracer bullets, napalm, and all of the rest. Realizing I was in the right company, I asked if someone could tell me what ‘shrapnel’Continue reading “Shrapnel is Still Deadly, No Matter Where It Strikes”
Might Same-Sex Relations Be Evolutionarily Advantageous?
A prominent fallacious argument used against same-sex marriage is the good ‘ol ‘we’re only protecting our species’ one. I referred to it in a post a while ago: [R]oughly, same-sex marriage is problematic because a) marriage is all about procreation and the raising of children and because b) evolution tell us that reproductive success isContinue reading “Might Same-Sex Relations Be Evolutionarily Advantageous?”
Samuel Chase and Judicial Supremacy
In the history of the US Supreme Court, Samuel Chase holds a singular, if dubious honor: he is, to date, the only Supreme Justice to be impeached (he was, however, ultimately acquitted by the US Senate). The background to his impeachment is indicative of the political ferment so common in the early days of theContinue reading “Samuel Chase and Judicial Supremacy”
Eagleton on Sex and Sexuality: Fun, and Not-So-Much (Respectively)
In yesterday’s post, I offered a couple of critical remarks in response to Stanley Fish‘s review of Terry Eagleton‘s Reason, Faith and Revolution. Those remarks were directed at a pair of passages excerpted from Eagleton. Today’s post features Eagleton too, but cast as reviewer, not reviewee, on everyone’s favorite topic: sex (and the considerably more seriousContinue reading “Eagleton on Sex and Sexuality: Fun, and Not-So-Much (Respectively)”
Fish on Eagleton on Religion
Stanley Fish reviews Terry Eagleton‘s Reason, Faith and Revolution in The New York Times and approvingly quotes him contra the excesses of Christopher Hitchens: [T]he fact that religion and theology cannot provide a technology for explaining how the material world works should not be held against them, either, for that is not what they do. When Christopher Hitchens declares thatContinue reading “Fish on Eagleton on Religion”
Brooklyn is Back in the Playoffs, Or, The Lure of Tribalism
Tribalism in sports is a funny thing. Like most Brooklyn residents, I was upset and dismayed by the rushed development deal for the Atlantic Yards project, the centerpiece for which was the Barclays Center, home of the Brooklyn Nets, transplanted from across the river, where they functioned as the New Jersey Nets. (Back in thoseContinue reading “Brooklyn is Back in the Playoffs, Or, The Lure of Tribalism”
Samir Chopra 