Fragments of a blog
Fragments of a blog
Paul Krugman admits that he underestimated the current rate of inflation when assessing the impact of the $1.9-billion “American Rescue Plan” early in 2021. On the other hand, Lawrence Summers warned in February 2021 that inflation might rise too high…
A few years ago, I tried listening to Jordan Peterson debating Marxism with Slavoj Žižek. It soon became clear to me that Peterson was completely unprepared: he knew next to nothing about Marxism. Or, perhaps, he was deliberately playing the…
I’ve argued that anti-abortionists have a common cause with Big Brother worshipers. The word “surveillance” has already appeared in some news headlines on states’ enforcement of their anti-abortion laws. But there’s another consequence: young professionals are now less likely to…
On abortion, my thoughts aren’t much different now than in 2016: …[E]nforcing a universal ban on abortion will require a greater degree of governmental interference into the private lives of the citizenry. It would make every woman of childbearing age…
In Tablet, David Mikics quotes Wallace Stevens and explains: His grief is that his mother should feed on him, himself and what he saw,In that distant chamber, a bearded queen, wicked in her dead light. […] Madame la Fleurie, the flowering earth,…
According to the Cambridge Dictionary of Spanish, brea means tar or pitch. Confusingly, the Spanish definition provided alongside the English translation is “sustancia resinosa de ciertas coníferas.” Roughly, “the resinous substance of certain coniferous plants,” which sounds more like resin…
I was trying to write a sensible comment to a piece on Medium, It’s Time We Tell the Truth about the Rolling Stones, when I came across a stunning essay by Margo Jefferson. Ripping Off Black Music, published in 1973…
Writing in the New Republic, Chris Lehmann points out that a certain passage in Richard Rorty’s 1998 book, Achieving Our Country, appeared to prophesy the conditions of Donald Trump’s shocking ascension to the presidency. Lehmann then summarizes Rorty’s argument –…
Charles Seife writes about Stephen Hawking’s association with George Mitchell, the father of the American shale revolution: In 2002, Hawking met the oil baron George P. Mitchell and began a decadelong relationship that ended only when the magnate died in…
About ten days ago, Language Hat wrote about the 1928 novel The Cynics by Anatoly Mariengof (alternatively transliterated as Marienhof): Given its low profile, I probably wouldn’t have read it if Joseph Brodsky hadn’t called it one of the most…
Adam Kirsch writes in the New Criterion: If millions of people think Rupi Kaur is a poet, comparing her to Wallace Stevens won’t convince them otherwise. I believe I understand correctly what Kirsch is saying here but I wish he…
Back in September 2018, Steve Bannon was interviewed by Zanny Minton Beddoes at the Open Future Festival in New York. The event was organized by The Economist. At that moment, the interviewer had served as its editor-in-chief for three and…