December 2019 Well, here we are at the end of 2019. Finally. It's been a long haul. As Charlie Sykes of The Bulwark recently quipped on his podcast, "I don't know whether to bash my head on the desk or take up day drinking." Since neither of those options is particularly salutary I've taken to writing as a way to confront the hard reality of our times. When I began the blog in 2017 my blogging [...]
December 2019 Resource Articles: Rigging the Vote: How the American Right Is On the Way to Permanent Minority Rule / Ian Samuelson in The Guardian (UK) (here) What Unites Trump's Apologists: Minority Rule / E.J. Dionne in The Washington Post (here) The Republican Party Is Laying the Foundation for Minority Rule / Egberto Willies in Daily Kos (here) Memos Reveal Scope of GOP Gerrymandering Ambitions / David Daley in The Intercept (here) Why Republicans Play [...]
December 2019 OK, here's the story. This year has been hell on wheels for my nervous system what with running around the world (four countries and counting), the Mueller report, the impeachment proceedings, the rise of neo-Nazism in what was formerly East Germany, Brexit, the Yellow Vests in France and forty million other things that give me a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. In my usual fashion I've met all these bumps [...]
December 2019 Resource Articles: Boomers Are Not OK / Helen Lewis in The Atlantic (here) The Coming Generation War / Niall Ferguson in The Atlantic (here) The People Who Stole the World / Sarah Mazzetti in The Baffler (here) Our Parents Are Ruining the Entire World / Linette Lopes in Business Insider (here) Baby Bust: How the Boomers Broke America / Politico Podcast with Ben White and Bruce Gibney (here) "OK, Boomer." It's now a [...]
December 2019 Resource Articles: The GOP is Gaslighting America / Joel Mathis in The Week (here) Trump Apparently Thinks He's a Master at Gaslighting / Eugene Robinson in The Washington Post (here) Lies, bulls**t and gaslighting: A field guide to Trump's reality-warping mendacity / Paul Rosenberg in Salon (here) How to Fight the Shifting Impeachment Goalposts / Jonathan V. Last in The Bulwark (here) Trump is Gaslighting America Again -- Here's How To Fight It [...]
December 2019 If I were writing in 1919 instead of 2019 I wouldn't feel the need to explain who William Morris is. He was a Big Deal in his day and had significant influence in a number of fields, including aesthetics, literature and politics. These days, however, he's become rather an esoteric interest, which I find a great pity. He has much to offer us denizens of the modern world because he had his head [...]
December 2019 Since Sasha Baron Cohen in a recent public speech (here) dragged Mark Zuckerberg over live coals I figure I have the green light to let rip about my own stance toward social media. If Borat is getting in on the act, then nothing should hold me back from doing the same. So here goes with the "Old But Gold" take on social media. I have one advantage particular to people my age: I [...]
December 2019 My goodness, how they pile up, these English spinsters. Barbara Pym, Edith Sitwell, the Bronte sisters, Jane Austen, and tacked onto the list is Stevie Smith, a contemporary of Pym. As was the case for me with the author Vita Sackville-West, I first came into contact with Smith's work via film. The film in question is a wonderful performance of Hugh Whitemore's play about Smith's life, appropriately and economically entitled "Stevie," with the [...]