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One would’ve had to have been living in a cave not to have been aware of the recent street violence in the United Kingdom. For those of us who lived through the riots here in Hong Kong in 2019 and 2020, there was an extreme feeling of déjà vu as we watched attacks on police, Continue reading »

Australia’s AUKUS submarines could be “wildly out of date” by the time they arrive, according to David Sanger, the White House and National Security Correspondent for The New York Times. He says the Pentagon is focused on transitioning the US to unmanned submarines “for either surveillance or for attack”, and that the subs Australia negotiated Continue reading »

A recent article by Michael MacKinley provides an accurate reflection on the (lack of) value placed on human life by those who propagate war. It brings to mind a statement of the past that, to paraphrase, states “a bayonette is a weapon with a working man on either end.” Michael points to two salutary lessons Continue reading »

As anyone who knows me or reads my work knows, I have an infinite amount of interest in writing about the Holocaust, in whatever genre: history, fiction, essay, travelogue, diary, memoir, poetry, whatever. I also have an infinite appetite for voices in writing about the Holocaust: sardonic, ironic, bemused, impatient, poignant, heroic, anti-heroic, sociological, callow, creepy, fantastical, comedic, whatever. But the article in the September issue of Harper’s, “My Auschwitz Vacation,” by the writer Tanya Gold, tested my patience. It’s unbearably familiar and hackneyed. How many articles can we read on the silliness and stupidity of a tourist’s response to an extermination camp? Teenagers go to Auschwitz and take selfies. Justin Bieber visits the Anne Frank House and writes in […]

Saudi Arabia won’t pay the U.S. back for fueling its warplanes as it bombed Yemen, but the U.S. recently resumed weapons sales to the kingdom.

The post Senator Calls U.S. Support for Saudis a “National Disgrace” After Intercept Reveals Unpaid Debt to Pentagon appeared first on The Intercept.

“In a 2020 podcast interview discussing the benefits of grandparents in children’s lives, J. D. Vance agrees when the host says, ‘That’s the whole purpose of the postmenopausal female.’” — Vanity Fair

Sure, I might be a childless cat lady with a solid career as a quantitative analyst, but Senator Vance and a podcast host researching the theory of everything have helped me see the lack of meaning in my existence, so I’m applying to become your child’s surrogate grandmother, with my husband’s approval.

As someone who studied hard, worked late, and allowed myself to be interrupted more times than even I, a researcher, can count in order to get to where I am today, I understand your wife’s need to work, but in my role as your child’s surrogate grandmother, I would offer the added benefit of being a mentor and a model for what your wife can expect once she experiences menopause. I can also help her to see, as I do now, that the purpose of a woman’s life is far greater than a career.

Secretaries of State allow passenger numbers to soar by 38% at business airport, despite objections from locals and climate campaigners

It’s probably been done before, though I don’t know of the book if it has, but one could write a terrific book on Marx and his breakups. The model here would be Phyllis Rose’s Parallel Lives. Instead of a book about five Victorian marriages, however, and the mix of intellectual, personal, and political sparks they emitted, this would be a book about Marx’s intellectual and political divorces. And how each was a critical turning point in his thought and life. The criterion for inclusion would be that Marx had a personal relationship with these individuals. No chapters on Hegel or Smith or Aristotle. Otherwise it would be too sprawling and insufficiently personal, more of a standard intellectual history rather than […]

There’s a lot of worship of intelligence in our society. Some of it is justified but much isn’t.

I’m reasonably intelligent: I’m at the level where I’m startled if someone is much smarter than I am; it doesn’t happen often.

But it does happen. There are people who make me feel stupid.

Intelligence is essentially two things: ability to perform mental operations, and speed of operation. A smart enough person can perform operations a less smart person can’t; can more swiftly learn how to do operations available to both, and processes faster.

Intelligence at its highest levels leads to polymaths: people who have mastered multiple subjects. All that speed matters.

Generally speaking, though, a smarter person will just get to the same conclusion a stupider person who knew the same things would get to faster. Think the kid at the front of class putting his hand up first.

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Early in President Trump’s term, McSweeney’s editors began to catalog the head-spinning number of misdeeds coming from his administration. We called this list a collection of Trump’s cruelties, collusions, and crimes, and it felt urgent then to track them, to ensure these horrors—happening almost daily—would not be forgotten. This election year, with the very real possibility of Trump returning to office, we know it’s important to be reminded of these horrors and to head to the polls in November to avoid experiencing new cruelties, collusions, corruption, and crimes.

Scrambling before showtime Politico has two pre-DNC convention stories worth examining. The first by past convention planners provides a back-stage look at the frenetic preparations for a convention that is at once a four-day infomercial for the Democratic nominee for president, and a last-minute scramble to re-write the script for a convention planned around a different candidate. How to make it must-see TV when everyone knows the outcome? It’s “like herding (childless cat ladies’) cats“: That’s why at this convention, you will see at least one “must-cover” speaker each night: President Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton on Monday, President Barack Obama on Tuesday, President Bill Clinton and Governor Tim Walz on Wednesday, and Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday. Even with big names, a Democrat supporting a Democrat isn’t newsworthy, but much like a 1970s sitcom, extra-special guests are — especially Republicans supporting Democrats. This is why conventions have tried to highlight unlikely supporters or allies.

All of us must play a part in lowering our nation’s political temperature. So I applaud Project 2025 mastermind Kevin Roberts for postponing publication to rewrite and tone down the violent rhetoric in his forthcoming memoir, Dawn’s Early Light: Burning Down Washington to Save America (with a foreword by J. D. Vance), I’ve decided to follow his lead by making similar edits to my forthcoming book, ROCKET’S RED GLARE: Embracing the Cleansing Fire of Patriotism That Will Burn Our Modern-Day Sodom to the Ground So That a New America Can Rise from the Ashes.

Because my memoir was sent to reviewers in its original form, then excerpted online (often out of context) to widespread and vociferous backlash, my publisher has asked that I publicly endorse these new revisions to show that I am “on board” and to “indemnify them” in case of what they described as “a 150 percent chance of litigation.”

I approve of all these changes, is something I’m contractually obligated to say here.

In July a report on the UK's largest immigration detention centre found it was "filthy" and "dilapidated" and had drug problems

Cutting ties with the controversial columnist and the magazine's Associate Editor would be bad for business – and it is hard not to conclude that it must agree with him, writes Brian Cathcart

Ironically, the riots during a leadership election give the party a unique opportunity to turn a page and turn their back on Farage-type populism. The signs are they will not take that opportunity