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LATEST ARTICLES ( 1483 )

• What is It Like to Be a Bat? A Cat? Or Me?

  

  I’ve written before about the problem of the “self.” What is it like to be a bat? was the title of a famous article by philosopher Thomas Nagel. Read more

  Posted on 15 December 2013 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Pacific Rim: R E A L L Y B I G Monsters

  

  We saw Pacific Rim because we were at a resort and that was the film shown. The night before was Grown Ups 2; it had a great cast; but also Adam Sandler. We lef... Read more

  Posted on 11 December 2013 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Israel: Triumph and Tragedy, Past and Future

  

  A recent Thomas Friedman column discusses a book by Israeli newspaper columnist Ari Shavit – My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel. Read more

  Posted on 06 December 2013 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Nelson Mandela: Will and Goodwill

  

  My remembrance post about Margaret Thatcher lionized her for something all too rare in political “leaders” – will. Thatcher knew what was right. That’s not... Read more

  Posted on 05 December 2013 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Robert Nozick and a Socialist Libertarianism

  

  The late philosopher Robert Nozick authored a classic libertarian text, Anarchy, State, and Utopia. Subsequently, he didn’t exactly recant it, but did decide it... Read more

  Posted on 02 December 2013 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• My 25th Anniversary: A Beautiful Life

  

  November 27 is my 25th wedding anniversary. Such occasions can be considered meaningless calendrical artifacts. But they do provide prompts for reflection and... Read more

  Posted on 27 November 2013 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Bloody Mindedness

  

  OK, I’m supposed to be an optimist.So there’s this place in Japan called the Yasukuni shrine, a memorial to Japan’s war dead. Fine, except that it enshrines som... Read more

  Posted on 24 November 2013 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• “Nestor Chylak Killed Kennedy”

  

  Nestor Chylak“Nestor Chylak killed Kennedy,” was a graffiti I found scratched on a wooden school desk almost 50 years ago. It lodged in my brain because it... Read more

  Posted on 21 November 2013 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Albany Peace Project: Peace Through Magical Thinking

  

  I recently reviewed Steven Pinker’s excellent book about why violence is declining. But one thing he failed to take into account was the power of wishing it. Read more

  Posted on 18 November 2013 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Immortality, in Grass Processed Through a Horse’s Digestive System

  

  I worked at the New York Public Service Commission from 1970 to 1997. Periodically we have retiree reunion lunches. It can feel like entering a time capsule.... Read more

  Posted on 16 November 2013 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• If You Like Your Obamacare, You Can Keep It

  

  The President repeatedly said that if you like your health plan, you can keep it (“no matter what,” he even added). He forgot to add: IF the government likes... Read more

  Posted on 11 November 2013 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Carl Strock: Telling It Like It Is

  

  Carl Strock was a local newspaper columnist in Schenectady, NY, whose career ended badly. He then self-published a book reviewing it. Read more

  Posted on 07 November 2013 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Jonathan Franzen’s “Freedom”

  

  Jonathan Franzen’s first significant novel, The Twenty-Seventh City, was pushed at me by my librarian wife. I was impressed by a writer so young (mid-twenties... Read more

  Posted on 03 November 2013 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Defending Myself About “How Old Is The Self?”

  

  Recently I posted a recap of my Philosophy Now article critiquing Julian Jaynes’s “bicameral mind” theory. Marcel Kuijsten replies with a long scathing attack,... Read more

  Posted on 30 October 2013 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Belief in Economics

  

  Economics has been called “the dismal science.” And calling it a “science” at all is arguable. Yet to me it’s the essence of understanding how the world works. Read more

  Posted on 26 October 2013 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Moscow on the Hudson: New York’s Corrupt Politics and Casino Referendum

  

  I am proud to be an American. But not to be a New Yorker.I’ve written about the slime of Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (still in office, despite further... Read more

  Posted on 23 October 2013 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Is There a God? Why I Am an Atheist and Humanist

  

  Many different religions have been practiced throughout history and around the world – with endlessly different and conflicting stories. Can anyone be sure thei... Read more

  Posted on 17 October 2013 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Why Liberal Intellectuals LOVE the Death Penalty

  

  Gregory Benford’s sci-fi-ish novel Artifact takes place in current times. Archaeologists (annoyingly, he spells it without the second “a”) discover a strange... Read more

  Posted on 13 October 2013 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• The Warmth of Other Suns and “The City of New Orleans”

  

  I loved Isabel Wilkerson’s 2010 book, The Warmth of Other Suns, about the great migration of blacks from the South between the 1910s and ‘60s. Read more

  Posted on 07 October 2013 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY

• Alice’s Adventures in Shutdownland

  

  Let’s see if I have this right. The government is shut down (except for the parts nobody wants shut) because the Republicans won’t authorize the money for it. Read more

  Posted on 05 October 2013 CULTURE, POLITICS, SOCIETY