Yes, it has come to this: reporters, at CNN no less, who have studied calculus. In an article on the impending departure of White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, we have the following: Kelly’s highly criticized handling of the [likely wife beater Rob] Porter controversy was an inflection point in his tenure ….” For…
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The Devil is in the Footnotes
Evelyn Douek is an S.J.D. candidate at Harvard Law School, studying international and transnational regulation of online speech. Before coming to Harvard to complete a Master of Laws, Evelyn clerked for the Chief Justice of the High Court of Australia, the Hon. Justice Susan Kiefel, and worked as a corporate litigator. She received her LL.B….
Sweeping up a few Republican crumbs
Okay, that’s a bit harsh, even though, let’s face it, a lot of Republicans are crumbs. A week or two ago, I ran a piece, “John McCain, Paul Ryan, and the Myth of the Virtuous Republican”, in the course of which I quoted fairly extensively from two often interesting “I’m outta here” books by (more…
Traveling North: The Education of Alice Barnstable
I hate to admit it, but the day I graduated from college was the worst day of my life. Actually, it wasn’t so bad except for like the last two hours. So I guess those last two hours must have been pretty bad, right? I graduated from the University of Maryland with about 3,000 other…
Books
Alternative Worlds Elvis and Others by Alan Vanneman Many scientists have advanced the concept of a “multiverse”, a near-infinite number of alternative realities that co-exist with our own, yet can never be observed by us. If this theory is true, then there are perforce a near-infinite number of Elvis Presleys, some differing only slightly from…
Sebastian Mallaby, shamelessly—nay, nakedly—covering Alan’s ass
(Author’s note: What started as a brief headslap directed at Sebastian Mallaby turned into a 3,000+ word semi-diatribe on the subject of the multiple sins of Sebastian, Alan Greenspan, and a few other big-wigs. Read at your own risk.) Okay, not my ass, the other Alan’s ass—Alan Greenspan, former chairman of the Federal Reserve. The…
American Catholics and American Jews are not happy campers. And neither, it seems, are America’s evangelicals
This conversation didn’t happen, but it could have: Monseigneur Vivaldi: “Have you read that Pennsylvania grand jury report? Over three hundred priests accused of sex abuse! We’ve hit rock bottom! It can’t get any worse than this!” Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò: “Hold my beer.” Yes, Viganò’s now notorious letter is rockin’ the church in ways…
Daniel Drezner, harrumphing audibly, but not (alas!) intelligibly
Okay, whole lotta’ unpackin’ goin’ on here, whole lotta’ unpackin’ goin’ on. A couple of weeks ago, WashPost guy Dan Drezner, whom I (sometimes) like, uncorked a whole lotta nonsense due to the death of Princeton professor of international affairs Robert Gilpin, writing in praise of Gilpin in a column bearing the pungent subhead “It’s…
Alan Vanneman’s Mythbusters! Why the “myth” of upward mobility does and does not matter
Robert Samuelson, who is, frankly, rarely my favorite economics pundit, writes a not entirely terrible column, “Upward mobility is a myth”, largely pivoting off a recent study, “The Fading American Dream: Trends In Absolute Income Mobility Since 1940”, issued by the National Bureau Of Economic Research, put together back in March 2017 by a bunch…
The Koch Bros, not without virtue, and, yeah, not without sin
The Koch Bros, the Dave and Charlie Show, are definitely in the news these days, pissing on and pissing off Cap’n Two Scoops by hitting him hard on two of his very worst “raise the drawbridge” policies—protectionism and hostility to immigration. Koch, Inc, the menagerie of political funding and pressure groups the brothers have concocted…