Political Thought
Peter Thiel’s cover story for the October 3 National Review is worth a read. Essentially, he breaks “progress” into distinct components and argues that the United States is losing steam on the most important. Part of our problem, he argues, is that we’ve culturally begun to behave as if every aspect of society moves forward…
Readers of the Sunday Providence Journal will be familiar with the “In Quotes” column that typically appears on page A2; basically it’s a few notable quotes from the week, usually with a picture of the speaker. This week, one in particular caught my eye, because it’s from Brown professor Wendy Schiller, and I think it…
Michael Morgenstern, a Brown University graduate and blogger sympathetic to the Occupy Wall Street movement, does an excellent job of summing up OWS’ political and organizational let’s-call-them-challenges-for-now with this short passage…Anarchy doesn’t work. Income disparity will always exist to some extent. Destroying a system rather than working with it (at least to some extent) is…
This is about what one should expect from a communist utopia: Until May, a sign inside the gate identified the property as the Beijing Customs Administration Vegetable Base and Country Club. The placard was removed after a Chinese reporter sneaked inside and published a story about the farm producing organic food so clean the cucumbers…
A contingent from “Occupy Wall Street” is now gearing up to “Occupy Providence”. Earlier this evening, WPRO’s Matt Allen interviewed Bob Plain. He is covering the Occupiers’ Rhode Island campaign, which is currently in the planning stage. (Hey, Bob, when you get a minute, can we hear more about the hand signals employed at their…
A central reason that I don’t often write about pop literature and such — apart from the fact that, as fun as doing so can be, my time is better spent elsewise — is that the online practice of warning about spoilers seems to me to indicate a potential threat to the sanctity of those…
Justin’s post brought the word “meddling” to mind. And that made me remember this from Tocqueville: The nature of despotic power in democratic ages is not to be fierce or cruel, but minute and meddling. Despotism of this kind though it does not trample on humanity, is directly opposed to the genius of commerce and…
On July 14, Andrew put up an excellent post responding to a comment from Michael Morse and explaining what we mean when we talk about the inherent corruption of the public sector, particularly with respect to unionization: When someone regularly deals on a firsthand basis with people in need of real help — and in…
So, U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan is threatening to stop enforcing regulations if Congress doesn’t modify them to account for the failure of those regulated to comply: Frustrated by what he called a “slow-motion train wreck” for U.S. schools, Education Secretary Arne Duncan said he will give schools relief from federal mandates under the No…
The argument over the value or harmfulness of television is an old one, but Ben Berger brings it to an important insight. He notes that the medium itself has downsides, and that it tends toward content that compounds them: … Postman and his fellow media guru Marshall McLuhan both insisted that “the medium is the…
