I won’t say much here beyond, “Read Randall Kennedy’s essay in this month’s issue of Harper’s.” He’s a Harvard Law professor. I saw him talk a number of times when I was a grad student 20-25 years ago. As a public intellectual, his focus is race relations and the subject is central to his Harper’s essay. I’m not going to attempt to summarize because I wouldn’t do it justice. (Doing it justice would require a “deeper dive” than I’m able to make at present.) Suffice it to say that I believe his observations and assessments are astute and that they apply beyond race relations, i.e., they are also applicable to efforts to change our culture and politics.
Author Archives: Chris
On following your passion
Mike the Mad Biologist noted this piece in his links today:
- Bailey Poland, “Follow Your Passion” is Terrible Career Advice
Good essay. Related reading/listening:
- Gordon Marino, A Life Beyond ‘Do What You Love’
- Miya Tokumitsu, In the Name of Love
- Barry Schwartz on WBUR, Why Do We Work?
- Samuel Florman, Nice Work [Ed.: From 1976. Just as on point today as it was then.]
Weekly Digest – September 20, 2015
Must Read
- Lawrence Mishel and Alyssa Davis, Income Stagnation in 2014 Shows the Economy Is Not Working for Most Families
- Adele Stan, GOP Debate: Fiorina Vanquishes Trump [Ed.: The intellectual response to last Wednesday night’s Blight at the Museum.]
- NY Times Editorial Board, Crazy Talk at the Republican Debate [Ed.: And the visceral response.]
Should Read
- Paul Krugman (NYT), Fantasies and Fictions at G.O.P. Debate
- Robert Borosage, The Republican Foreign Policy Consensus: Lunacy
- Dean Baker, The Elite’s Childlike Commitment to Austerity
- Brad DeLong, No, The Federal Reserve Should Not Be Tightening Right Now. Why Do You Ask?
- Rep. Ken Gordon Discusses Paid Family and Medical Leave at White House Conference
- Charles Blow (NYT), Bernie Sanders and the Black Vote
- Brad Plumer, Saudi Arabia squandered its groundwater and agriculture collapsed. California, take note.
Bernie Sanders bibliography
In the interest of cultivating a more informed electorate I’ve started a Bernie Sanders bibliography, i.e., links to information on Sanders’ record as an elected official as well as what he’s proposing as a presidential candidate and the perceived merits thereof. I will update it as I find new posts worth linking to. Feel free to suggest additions.
Last updated April 16, 2016.
New links (mostly to older pieces)
- Sally Jacobs, As Vermont official, Sanders ‘got things done’
- Matt Taibbi, Inside the Horror Show That Is Congress [Ed.: From 2005. Still relevant]
- Anthony Brooks, Sanders Got His Start In Burlington, And His Policies Continue To Shape The City
- Clare Foran, The Lifelong Republicans Who Love Bernie Sanders
Music for Friday night
Thought for the Day: 17 September 2015
Best-selling author Rick Perlstein will talk American politics in Hall Center lecture
A question for Rick Perlstein, should we make our way out to Lawrence, KS tonight:
Sixty years ago Democratic Party grandee Dean Acheson said: Republicans are an essential part of America. They are the party that understands economic growth, and represent those for whom America is working, and for whom economic growth is sufficient.
Today, however, when I look at the Republican Party, that is not the party I see.
I see a party that caters to plutocrats–but increasingly to heirs and successful rent-seekers, not to real entrepreneurs. I see a party that caters to a bunch of white identity-politics practicing Fox News-watchers whom it scares by saying bad guys are coming to get them–for Pat Buchanan, Jews; for Ron Paul, Blacks; for Donald Trump and Kris Kobach, Mexicans; for Sam Brownback, Californians; and for the mayor of Irving Texas, Muslim immigrant anchor-baby teenage-engineers.
You have written three big books of the history of this transformation. But you are only halfway through. Can you give us now the one-paragraph synopsis of what the bottom line will be when you will have finished writing all eight volumes of your history?
Weekly Digest – September 13, 2015
Must Read
- NASA, New Pluto Images from NASA’s New Horizons: It’s Complicated
- Bruce Bartlett, Jeb’s tax plan makes George W. Bush’s policies look good
- Rima Regas, Bernie Bias: The Mainstream Media Undermines Sanders at Every Turn
- Ezekiel Emanuel (NYT), The Solution to Drug Prices
Should Read
- Peter Loftus, Bernie Sanders to Introduce Bill Targeting High Drug Prices
- Domenico Montanaro and Tamara Keith, Fact Check: Hillary Clinton’s Email Defense Is A Mixed Bag
- Garry Emmons, Sports Superfans, Deflategate Obsession And America’s Collective I.Q.
- Robert Reich, What Happened to the Moral Center of American Capitalism?
- Chris Shelton, Why Workers Need the Working Families Party
- Daniel Larison, Scowcroft, the GOP, and the Nuclear Deal
- Tyler Rogoway, So What the Hell Is Russia Doing In Syria Exactly? Continue reading
Thought for the Day: 12 September 2015
Way back in the 1980s, while driving around town to deliver lectures deploring the lack of political awareness among the comatose masses, MIT professor Noam Chomsky stumbled across sports talk on his car radio. He marveled at the deep knowledge and intelligence that Chuckie in Attleboro or Gladys in Melrose brought to bear on their favorite teams and players. After all, these were the same ordinary Americans whose talk about international affairs or domestic problems Chomsky considered “at a level of superficiality that’s beyond belief.” Yet callers to sports radio, Noam in Cambridge realized, “have their own opinion and they conduct intelligent discussions. It’s an interesting phenomenon. I don’t think that international affairs or domestic politics are much more complicated.”
In other words, if people applied the same intelligent scrutiny and research to public policy questions as they did to sports, Team USA might be doing a whole lot better. Chomsky concluded that Americans don’t apply their sports smarts and passion to politics and public policy because they don’t believe it will change anything; they feel they might as well focus on something fun.
– from Garry Emmons, “Sports Superfans, Deflategate Obsession and America’s Collective I.Q.“
Chart of the Day: 10 September 2015
Labor Day Must Listen: “Why Do We Work?”
One of the segments on WBUR’s On Point this morning, “Why Do We Work?” From the teaser:
We work to live, we live to work. Most of us lucky enough to have a job give most of our waking hours to our job. Why? Just for the paycheck? Our guest today says work for many of us is reduced to a paycheck, but what we yearn for is the right to work hard, to give to our job and our team and feel respect and self-respect.
I only caught about half of the segment but it was very good. The featured guest, Barry Schwartz, was no pollyanna. Yes, there will always be crap, deadbeats, etc. to deal with but, if we choose to, we can create work environments which defined by positive achievement rather than dealing with BS.
Two Three other Labor Day links:
- Mike the Mad Biologist, Republicans, You’ve Come a Long Way Baby
- Harold Meyerson, A Happy Labor Day – Really
- Anne Lamott, Instilling a love of unions