Introduction The outcome of the 2016 Presidential election still rankles and puzzles. How did Donald J. Trump get elected? How could anyone vote for him? How could that many people vote for him, the sixty-two or so million people who actually did? I don’t know the answer. Perhaps no one does. Because the times are... Continue Reading →
Background Stanley Cavell, the American philosopher and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Harvard University, died recently at the age of 91. Coming to philosophy by way of music and film, he authored a diverse assortment of philosophical texts including The Claim of Reason, Must We Mean What We Say?, Pursuits of Happiness: The Hollywood Comedy of... Continue Reading →
End of Life Songs Suppositions about dying educe meanings for living. Death opposes life. Likewise, life addresses death. Death is for life a grand question and master teacher. What? When? Where? How? Why? Then? Meanings granted to death both enhance and diminish living. I first explored the interrogative quality of death sixty-two years ago in... Continue Reading →
In Ben Taub’s report, The Spy Who Came Home, published in the May 7, 2018 issue of The New Yorker, subtitled Why an expert in counterterrorism became a beat cop, the story is told of Patrick Skinner—a seasoned CIA counterterrorist expert, with extensive experience in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Jordan—who gives it all up in favor of a... Continue Reading →
Introduction The right to vote is the basis and spiritual heart of democracy—precious, hard won, sacred. Yet, ninety million eligible voters didn’t vote in the presidential election of 2016. Sixty-six million people voted for Hillary Clinton and sixty three million for Donald J. Trump, who became President by garnering more than the requisite 270 votes... Continue Reading →
Harpers Magazine included an excerpt in its January 2018 issue from Virginia Eubanks’ book Automating Inequality, just published by St. Martin’s Press. According to Eubanks, government officials, using sophisticated computer technology, are now able to routinely ensnare poor people in the digital equivalent of the poorhouse of yore by tracking them down, monitoring them, stereotyping... Continue Reading →
Dear Sheffield, Thanks for sharing the commentary supposedly written by Ian Duncan and published in The Baltimore Sun. I say supposedly because Ian Duncan, their journalist on intelligence and military issues, didn’t actually write it, and the piece never appeared in The Sun. The real title is “Ten Percent is Not Enough.” It was written... Continue Reading →
The Civil War is, for the American imagination, the great single event of our history. Without too much wrenching, it may, in fact, be said to be American history. Before the Civil War we had no history in the deepest and most inward sense. Robert Penn Warren, The Legacy of the Civil War, 1961 Introduction... Continue Reading →
In Trumpster University Learning Lab 1, ten days ago, we found that no amount of disqualifications could be amassed sufficient to dissuade followers from voting for Donald Trump in the 2016 Presidential Election. Today’s report on Trumpster University Lab 2 builds upon the first. It convened a select group of Trump voters dedicated to critical thinking... Continue Reading →
