“It’s the economy, stupid!” James Carville crowed throughout the 1992 presidential election, and has pretty much continued crowing since. What do you do when you know it’s the economy that […]
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“Philosopher” is one of those job descriptions in America that brings inevitable jokes about unemployability. Carlin Romano’s new book, America the Philosophical, aims at transforming the Rodney Dangerfield of academic […]
Private company Space X successfully launched its unmanned Falcon 9 rocket into space early Tuesday morning from the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Florida. Worldcrunch provided some fun facts […]
There’s no such thing as universality in art, says Stephen Greenblatt. We always create and read from the perspective of our own time and place. What then accounts for the curious power some works have to communicate with us directly across the centuries?
In a post last May, entitled The First Trillionaires Will Make Their Fortunes in Space, we speculated about how the future explorers of space will be chasing unimaginable riches: As Peter Diamandis […]
In the avalanche of analysis and speculation about Chief Justice Roberts’ stunning decision to side with the Supreme Court’s liberal wing to uphold Obama’s healthcare law, one strain paints Roberts […]
The first post in a series looking at John Stuart Mill and the defence of individual liberty. The great English philosopher and thinker John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) regarded himself as […]
Phoney-baloney outrage. Black-hat, white-hat exaggeration. Every day, I get emails some activist organization or other, suggesting that the nation hangs by a thread, about to drop into a bottomless pit […]
I have thoroughly enjoyed reading the comments to my last post, “Are You A Paster, Presentist, Or Futurian?” Some readers proclaimed their temporal orientation with pride. Others shared insights into […]
On March 10, 2009, President Obama announced that environmentalist and civil rights activist Van Jones would serve as a Special Advisor to the White House, overseeing the administration’s ambitious and […]
However hard most political leaders try, almost whatever they do in an attempt to look fashionable and plugged into the real lives of voters, it never seems to quite work. […]
John Gray’s review of Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind is fun because Gray is vehemently opposed to almost everything, but he clearly thinks this is a pretty good book anyway. […]
There’s a heap of news I didn’t get to write about in greater depth this week, but all these stories deserve at least a look: • Remember the Anglican church, […]
The United States of America murdered an innocent man. But this is not the main reason we should be against capital punishment. Carlos DeLuna was put to death in 1989 […]
In the midst of an intense meditation on Walt Whitman in his Studies in Classic American Literature, D. H. Lawrence suddenly proclaims: The essential function of art is moral. Not […]
While the president is “the ultimate authorizer of Armageddon,” what if his mind “is deranged, disordered, even damagingly intoxicated?
Why do skeptics bother to debunk quackery if the rational adult who chooses to use these unverified methods harms no-one but himself?
Specific to climate change and energy related activities, environmental groups outspent conservative groups and their industry association allies $394 million to $259 million.
I’d be remiss if I let 2011 slip by without a tribute to Elizabeth Bishop (1911–1979), who was born a century ago and who now looms larger over contemporary poetry […]
To be or not to be Scandinavian, that might be the question soon enough for Scotland, if it decides to become independent. For the time being, Scotland is still a […]
Like the Beatles discography or the screenplay for Casablanca, the King James Bible is a rare instance of true collaborative genius.
This is an open letter in response to a religious group, who have argued to remove a piece of entertainment based on their moral values, in a secular society. The […]
I’m not a big science fiction reader, but I admire how the genre has just enough of a toehold in reality that it feels plausibly weird. It stakes out the […]
What happens when the complexity and magnitude of the problems facing our civilization “simply exceed our biological capabilities”?
Following up on our study analyzing the shifting roles and emerging practices of science journalists in the digital age, Declan Fahy contributed a valuable discussion to the news site of […]
“Nobody has ever painted eyes, women’s eyes particularly, so well as Lawrence,” Romantic painter Eugene Delacroix wrote after visiting British painter Thomas Lawrence in 1825 and finding himself bowled over […]
Modified ecstasy could one day have a role to play in fighting some blood cancers, according to scientists. The drug is already known to effectively kill cancer cells isolated in test tubes.
Here’s the information on our final conference of three funded by the University of Chicago: 2pm THURSDAY will feature a high successful and stunningly philosophical transplant nephrologist (kidney doctor) defending, based […]
Now the stuff of history books, the iconic photographs of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States were once front-page news: snarling dogs, baton-wielding police, high-pressure fire hoses, and […]
In Monday’s GOP primary debate, Newt Gingrich earned praise from conservatives while drawing justifiable anger from many for his labeling of Barack Obama as the “food stamp president.” As the […]