Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
This interesting exchange between Danté Stewart and the well-known Episcopal theologian Fleming Rutledge appeared in my Twitter feed: It's not a simple subject to unpack but it's not as hard to understand as Rutledge thinks it is. First, no matter how you try to make it happen the New Testament doesn't really advocate changing, let …
Continue reading "The Answer, Fleming Rutledge, Is Blowing (in Part) in the Lectionary"
Including this now ex-Washingtonian: During the last night in my condo in DC, I had to walk my dog an extra lap around the block because a crazy person was outside screaming obscenities. I wasn’t afraid. I just didn’t feel like getting into it with him or having to listen to his story—his “Let me …
Continue reading "It’s Back to the 1960’s and 1970’s for Urban Decay, but Some Have Had Enough"
Wishful thinking from Foreign Affairs: Dollar hegemony isn’t foreordained. For years, analysts have warned that China and other powers might decide to abandon the dollar and diversify their currency reserves for economic or strategic reasons. To date, there is little reason to think that global demand for dollars is drying up. But there is another …
Continue reading "Dollar Hegemony Will End, But Not Voluntarily"
We are now approaching the two-month mark since the riots that erupted across the United States in late May and early June. There is a reasonable argument to be made that these riots were unprecedented in U.S. history — or at the very least, since the 1960s. Yet if one surveyed the national media today, …
Continue reading "Two months since the riots, and still no “National Conversation”"
Many jobs is our so-called capitalist economy aren't worth much: What’s going on? Surprisingly, one of the more convincing explanations comes from an anthropologist who has looked beyond narrow economic reasoning to examine the actual social or psychological functions served by many of the jobs in today’s service and knowledge economy. David Graeber of the …
Continue reading "A Lesson From the Middle East About Useless Jobs"
In wandering through some old posts, found this one from 2010, with certainly bears repeating, on free speech: Americans have always considered their rights–especially the one of free speech–as “inalienable.” And why not: after all, it’s in our fundamental national document, isn’t it? Isn’t that why we make such a big deal of “rights?” Because …
In the midst of the souring relationship between the two countries: Beijing vowed to retaliate after it said that the United States ordered its Houston consulate to be closed within 72 hours, calling it an “outrageous and unjustified move,” marking a serious escalation in the quickly deteriorating relationship between the U.S. and China… The announcement […] …
“In the summer of 1921 luck broke my way in the shape of the great Russian famine which then threatened to cost about 30,000,000 lives, and probably did cost 5,000,000 or 6,000,000 including deaths from disease.”1 For Walter Duranty, who as the Pulitzer Prize-winning foreign correspondent for the New York Times led the cover-up of the… …
Continue reading "What the woke movement shares with communism — UnHerd"
In this case, Gary Garrels, curator at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art: Until last week, Gary Garrels was senior curator of painting and sculpture at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). He resigned his position after museum employees circulated a petition that accused him of racism and demanded his immediate ouster. …
Continue reading "Falling to Cancel Culture in San Francisco"
In a post linked to a few days ago, this observation about the similarity of the Cultural Revolution in China to what's going on in the streets today: For instance, the Red Guards of 1968 often came from privileged backgrounds. The first groups emerged from the elite high schools and universities in Beijing and belonged …
Continue reading "Will the Current Marchers for #BLM End Up With a Maoist Fate?"
Positive Infinity 