Fsrcoin

LATEST ARTICLES ( 1483 )

• Another Day, Another Protest

  

  I attended Friday’s Albany protest against Trump’s inhuman cruelty to migrant people. Some things one has to do.Quite a few asked to take pictures of my sign.... Read more

  Posted on 14 July 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Social Disconnection and Trumpism

  

  “Grab them by the pussy.” I’ve striven to understand how any Americans could vote to put such a reptile in the White House.Columnist David Brooks keeps saying... Read more

  Posted on 11 July 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• William Kennedy and Magical Realism

  

  William Kennedy (now 91) is the great Albany author. Others (like Melville) have had Albany connections, but in Kennedy’s oeuvre, Albany itself holds center... Read more

  Posted on 09 July 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Trump at the Rubicon

  

  Julius Caesar’s army in Gaul was not authorized to enter Italy. Crossing the Rubicon River made him an outlaw. But he then proceeded to Rome to make himself... Read more

  Posted on 06 July 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Fantasyland: How America Went Haywire

  

  (A condensed version of my June 18 book review talk)In this 2017 book Kurt Andersen is very retro; believes in truth, reason, science, and facts. But he sees... Read more

  Posted on 03 July 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Making Burundi Great Again

  

  Burundi is a very fortunate country. True, they had a 12-year tribal civil war killing 300,000, but that ended in 2005. Fewer die these days. Read more

  Posted on 01 July 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• “Crimes That Shock the Conscience of Civilized Men” (and Women)

  

  That’s a phrase I remember from my legal education.Over a year ago we learned of Trump’s cruel policy of separating migrant children from parents. Read more

  Posted on 28 June 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Why Does Evolution Produce Such Diversity?

  

  A science writer friend pointed me to a recent “Edge” essay by Freeman Dyson (https://www.edge.org/conversation/freeman_dyson-biological-and-cultural-evolution)... Read more

  Posted on 26 June 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• The Holier-than-thou Syndrome and Biden’s Latest “controversy”

  

  Joe Biden said that as a senator he’d been able to work with colleagues he’d disagreed with, even segregationists like Mississippi’s James Eastland. Read more

  Posted on 24 June 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• ALARM! Russia Attacking America

  

  On 9/11 we were attacked. America united fiercely, in outrage and resolve, to confront the enemy and prevent a repeat.In 2016, a different enemy attacked us,... Read more

  Posted on 21 June 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Fat Girls and Sex

  

  NPR’s “This American Life” had a fascinating story featuring Elna Baker, a young fat gal (she used the F word). She tried to convince herself it wouldn’t truly... Read more

  Posted on 18 June 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Is China Our Enemy?

  

  In 1989, China’s regime followed Mao’s dictum, “power comes from the barrel of a gun,” shooting many hundreds of democracy proponents in Tiananmen Square. Read more

  Posted on 15 June 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Somaliland — “The Country That Was Left for Dead” — “A Country Doing Everything...

  

  Those are quotes (From Edna Adan and Michael Rubin) from a June 8 conference we attended, at Marist College, on Somaliland development. Read more

  Posted on 11 June 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Fantasyland — My Talk Tuesday, June 18

  

  Next Tuesday, June 18, at noon, I will give a talk at the Albany Public Library, 161 Washington Avenue, focused on Kurt Andersen’s book Fantasyland: How... Read more

  Posted on 11 June 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• “Automating Inequality” — Using Technology to Screw the Poor

  

  Automating Inequality is a book by local researcher Virginia Eubanks; I attended a talk she gave. The focus was upon three initiatives ostensibly aimed at... Read more

  Posted on 07 June 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Hate, Love, Humanism, and (of Course) Trump

  

  I’ve been called a hater, in blog comments. My extensive political analyses written off as simply hate. As though Trump hate is somehow built into me; a... Read more

  Posted on 04 June 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• What Love Becomes

  

  Love triumphs. They marry and live happily ever after. The End.But not always. In Jan Marin Tramontano’s new novel, What Love Becomes, we meet two fortyish... Read more

  Posted on 01 June 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• The Crisis of Followership

  

  Great Britain has a crisis of leadership. One main party now headed by an agit-prop Marxist; the other by a hapless prime minister, who has now quit, leaving th... Read more

  Posted on 30 May 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Reparations for Slavery?

  

  Reparations for slavery is becoming part of the “progressive” full Monty that Democratic presidential candidates must endorse. It’s a terrible idea. Read more

  Posted on 27 May 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Humans Becoming Gods — Or Chips in a Cosmic Computer?

  

  Yuval Noah Harari is a thinker of Big Ideas, with a capital B and a capital I. An Israeli historian, he wrote Sapiens: a Brief History of Humankind, about how w... Read more

  Posted on 24 May 2019 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY