Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

Woodie Guthrie, Racism, Trump, and Beach Haven

From an old sixties coffee house person, just a little history. In 1950, Woodie Guthrie signed a two year lease to reside in a Fred Trump’s Brooklyn development. Having wandered around the countryside for a number of years, he knew the North did not have any special claim to racial enlightenment. One event of a […]

In light of Charlottesville, I noticed…

Exclusive: Trump to focus counter-extremism program solely on Islam … https://www.reuters.com/…/us-usa-trump-extremists-program-exclusiv-idUSKBN15G… Feb 1, 2017 – The Trump administration wants to revamp and rename a U.S. government … Republicans wrestle with effort to cut Obamacare … Although CVE funding has been appropriated by Congress and the grant recipients were … Life After Hate, which rehabilitates former […]

The “Narratives” of Higgins’s “Warfare”

The word ‘narrative’ appears 41 times in the infamous Higgins memo, “POTUS and Political Warfare.” Guys, it’s time for some narrative critique. The narrative Higgins is most concerned about is something he calls “cultural Marxism,” which he defines in a paragraph at the top of page four of the memo: As used in this discussion, […]

More on the Gender Gap in STEM

I found a piece from two years ago on the notoriously far right, alt-right Public Broadcasting Service website entitled Column: Why the STEM gender gap is overblown by Denise Cummins, a research psychologist. She begins by noting that men don’t outnumber women in all areas of STEM, and she provides this graph:

“The Changing of the Guard:” the prescient 1980 book that foretold neoliberalism

“The Changing of the Guard:” the prescient 1980 book that foretold neoliberalism About a month ago I read the synopsis of an interview in which Thomas Frank described the near evisceration of the Democratic Party.  Here’s his simple version: “[T]he Democrats have, what happened is that some years ago they decided they didn’t want to […]

Rational Optimism?

by Peter Dorman (originally published at Econospeak) “Rational” Optimism? I just finished this long, rather convoluted meditation on “rational optimism”.  Must we admit the world is getting better, getting better all the time? Really, there are two types of multidimensionality that need to be considered.  The first is that “better” is, if it’s anything, vector […]