The United States is currently recording over 700,000 new cases of Covid-19 per day and the number is rising rapidly.  Fortunately, vaccines are quite effective at preventing severe disease, and Pfizer’s anti-viral drug, Paxlovid is remarkably effective at preventing death and severe illness from Covid-19.  However, only 265,000 courses of Paxlovid are expected by the […]

One of those Matadors of the Culture Industry When Theodor Adorno referred to “one of those matadors of the culture industry,” in his “Free Time” radio lecture, he was presumably referring to the idols of stage, screen, television, or recording studio who are the staples of the supermarket tabloid personality cult. Oddly, though, his construction of […]

The Central Asian Alphabet Issue  It remains too soon to comment in detail on the current upheaval in Kazakhstan as it is simply impossible to figure out what is happening, with multiple conflicting accounts and claims coming from many sources. Rather I want to comment on a deeper question that has been brought up in […]

When a fellow CNN correspondent asked their own Dana Bash what were the underlying causes of the nation’s partisan gridlock, Bash replied, “Three things: Redistricting. Redistricting. And, redistricting.” Congress, let’s get it right. First off, Congressional Districts are under the purvey of federal, not state, law because the constitution says: Section. 4. The Times, Places […]

Coronavirus dashboard for January 11: good news and bad news With no new economic releases today, let me give you a brief update on the fast-moving Omicron wave.First, the good news: as I pointed out yesterday, several States that were hit hardest first by Omicron look like they are hitting or have already hit peak: […]

Politics as a Hobby* In a radio lecture he gave two and a half months before he died in 1969, Theodor Adorno explored the paradox that people do not know what to do with their free time and thus no longer even like it because “[t]hat state of freedom has been refused them and disparaged for so […]

Coronavirus dashboard for January 10: how “mild” Omicron is depends upon how much you lag the data So, how “mild” or not, is Omicron? It depends on whether you lag the data on hospitalizations and deaths or not.The original story out of South Africa was that Omicron was extremely mild. Despite a huge spike in […]

Incoming Virginia Governor Youngkin Goes In All Anti-Environment  Incoming GOP Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin has just announced his choice for Secretary of Natural Resources, Andrew Wheeler, a longtime coal lobbyist, who served as Trump’s EPA director in the latter part of his term. He has an utterly abysmal environmental record, so bad I cannot think […]

I am temporarily banned by Twitter for “Violating our rules against hateful conduct.” because of the attached tweet. I don’t know if “all men must die” was interpreted as a threat rather than a simple statement of fact by the algorithm or if calling deontological reasoning confused or fanatical was considered hate speach. Maybe I should […]