“The Day Democracy Died”: vote for whichever candidate the Democrats nominate! But first listen to this song. (Thanks for the link, David Schwartz!)
Life
Iowa and Ireland: election math
What happened in Iowa? Well, we don’t really know for sure how Mayor Pete managed to astonish everyone, but that’s not what I’m writing about here. And what does it have to do with Ireland anyway? The issue is one… Read More ›
We need a respite from xenophobia.
Our xenophobic president is about to be acquitted of the high crimes and misdemeanors that he committed. His “alleged” actions have been proved, even according to Mitch McConnell’s good friend Senator Lamar Alexander (R, TN), who voted against additional witnesses… Read More ›
“There is a crack in everything; that’s how the light gets in.”
Leonard Cohen, Louise Penny, and Michael Connelly have nothing to do with each other. Nothing obvious, at any rate. But there’s an important connection that all these artists share, embodied by the quotation in the title to this post, which… Read More ›
Our War
This novel is strictly fictional. It’s just fiction, I tell you. It’s purely coincidental that Craig DiLouie’s Our War is about a Republican president who is impeached by the House, and then is convicted by the Senate (!), and then… wait for it…… Read More ›
Why do so many girls and women leave STEM?
No, I’m not going to mansplain the situation. I just want to draw your attention to a pair of essays about it, one by Karen Morenz, embedded within another by Scott Aaronson. My expectation is that nobody will disagree with… Read More ›
Purple and green
A present my sister Ellen made for Barbara and me: These four beautiful handcrafted quilted pot-holders in purple and green, to match the colors of the walls of our kitchen:
Against My Better Judgment: An Intimate Memoir of an Eminent Gay Psychologist
Would this headline be clickbait? “Eminent Harvard Psychologist Admits That He’s Gay!” Ho hum, it wouldn’t work as clickbait today. Nobody today would be shocked (except perhaps by the choice of verb in this made-up headline). But back in the… Read More ›
Catch and Kill
Donald Trump, Harvey Weinstein, Charlie Rose… What do these three have in common? If you’ve been under a rock for the past five years, you might not know. So read Ronan Farrow’s exposé, Catch and Kill. If, as is more likely, you… Read More ›
How about a nice, relaxing cross-country bus ride from NYC to LA?
“Miles on the MBTA.” That was the clever (but unobtrusive) title of Miles Taylor’s original blog, written for years while he was a high-school student in Cambridge. His goal was to visit and review every station on the Red, Blue,… Read More ›
