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LATEST ARTICLES ( 1455 )

• Evolution: The Blind Watchmaker and the Bat

  

  What is it Like to be a Bat? was a famous essay (I keep coming back to) by Philosopher Thomas Nagel. Its point being our difficulty in grasping — that is,... Read more

  Posted on 24 November 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Medicare for All: a Critical Look

  

  Bill Hammond gave a talk on this to the Capital District Humanist Society. He’s the Empire Center’s Director of Health Policy, and is critical of the single... Read more

  Posted on 21 November 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Christian Destruction of the Classical World

  

  Hans-Friedrich Mueller is Professor of Ancient and Modern Languages at Union College. I heard (twice!) a talk he gave, based on a book by Catherine Nixey... Read more

  Posted on 19 November 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Foreign Service Heroes and Patriots, Telling the Truth

  

  Foreign service professionals normally toil for their country under the radar. Now some are at the center of a storm. Trump has tried to keep them silenced, to... Read more

  Posted on 13 November 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Bolivia, China, and 1984

  

  Bolivia’s longest-serving President Evo Morales was first elected in 2006, a left-winger, of indigenous background, former head of the Coca growers union. Read more

  Posted on 12 November 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Elizabeth Warren’s Candidacy

  

  Democrats love government; Republicans hate it. Of course that’s a big oversimplification. But in this respect Elizabeth Warren is the quintessential Democrat. Read more

  Posted on 09 November 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• End Road Work? No!

  

  We’ve all seen those signs along highways, saying “End Road Work.” This movement seems very misguided. I can think of many things that should be ended, but... Read more

  Posted on 08 November 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Facebook: Helping to Destroy Civilization

  

  Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says he won’t stop running political ads — even lying ones. Trump has already run ads falsely smearing Biden. Read more

  Posted on 05 November 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Political Follies Across the River in Rensselaer County: Maddening, Wilting,...

  

  MaddenPatrick Madden is the Democratic mayor of Troy. Last time he won the primary against Rodney Wiltshire, an African-American, by only a handful of votes. Read more

  Posted on 03 November 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Two Kinds of Trumpers

  

  He famously said he’d lose no votes if he shot someone on Fifth Avenue. Recently one of his lawyers actually argued in court that if he did it, the law could no... Read more

  Posted on 31 October 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• What is Humanism?

  

  Some religious voices assail humanism as a belief in nothing. Thus blamed for (supposed) moral rot; as if morality needs some supernatural basis. Read more

  Posted on 28 October 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Trump and Republicans: How Vile Can It Get?

  

  Before Trump took office, I wrote that power doesn’t make bad men better. Since, I’ve kept repeating: it will get worse. And so it goes.Trump’s every word... Read more

  Posted on 25 October 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Impeachment, Nixon, and Me

  

  I watched Nixon’s 1974 farewell speech live, with tears in my eyes. Not tears of sorrow; it was actually a bizarre speech. But at the moment’s poignancy and... Read more

  Posted on 22 October 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• DeRay Mckesson and Black Lives Matter

  

  DeRay Mckesson is a Baltimorean who got activist during the Ferguson protests and is prominent in the “Black Lives Matter” movement. He wrote a book, On the... Read more

  Posted on 20 October 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Impeachment and the Party of Rule-breaking

  

  Trump’s Northern Syria retreat is shredding U.S. national interests. Our longtime Kurdish allies, thrown to the wolves, are now aligning with the Syrian regime... Read more

  Posted on 17 October 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Strangers in Their Own Land: Understanding America’s Right

  

  Since 2016 I’ve striven especially hard to understand what’s happening in America. Arlie Russell Hochschild is a Berkeley professor who, in the same quest,... Read more

  Posted on 14 October 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Ethiopia’s Abiy Ahmed: Good News Story

  

  Ethiopia’s leader Abiy Ahmed has received the Nobel Peace Prize. Those prize choices sometimes seem strange, but not this one, it’s a bull’s eye. Read more

  Posted on 12 October 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Trump Ends U.S. Protection of Kurds, Inviting Slaughter by Turks

  

  A Kurdish army (originating from Iraqi Kurdistan) has occupied an enclave in Northern Syria, as key allies of the U.S. in the battle against ISIS, in which... Read more

  Posted on 10 October 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• The Bible: a Book of Fiction

  

  Adam and Eve. Cain and Abel. Noah’s Ark. Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Joseph and centuries of Egyptian slavery. Moses, Passover, the Red Sea,... Read more

  Posted on 08 October 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Defining Deviancy Down and Trump’s Reality Inversion Storm

  

  “Defining deviancy down” was a Daniel Patrick Moynihan trope. When something once deemed intolerable becomes tolerable. Like births outside marriage. And... Read more

  Posted on 05 October 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY