Yes, again
From President Barack Obama’s farewell address: “Yes, we can. Yes, we did. Yes, we can.”
New Koch
The New York Times reports on Charles and David Koch’s efforts to promote fossil fuels by winning over minority voters.
“The Scope of Hate in 2016”
The fifth installment of the New York Times feature “This Week in Hate.”
A song for these times
In The New York Times , Bruce Handy writes about “Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.”
“This Week in Hate”
At The New York Times , a fourth installment of “This Week in Hate.”
Not from The Onion
Sylvester Stallone and subject-verb disagreement.
Man, oh man
Dated language in a New York Times book review.
“This Week in Hate”
The third installment of a new New York Times feature: “This Week in Hate.”
“This Week in Hate”
The second installment of a new New York Times feature.
Merriam-Webster v. fascism
Merriam-Webster is encouraging readers to look up something other than “fascism.”
NO TODO ESTÁ PERDIDO
In a tiny Mexican restaurant for lunch.
“This Week in Hate”
A new New York Times feature.
An anecdote from Mark Shields
“Wading through WikiLeaks makes you doubt whether Bill Clinton ever knew Joseph Heller.”
From an old notebook
Alfred Appel Jr.: “The great popularity of this show suggests there is a kind of exit poll being taken at the end of the 20th century, and the vote is in favor of eros over thanatos. Matisse is everyone’s person for celebrating the simple things that all the wars and disasters of the 20th century have not obliterated from the lives of ordinary people.”
Antigone in Ferguson
Whatever the fate of Sophocles and other representatives of “western civ” in academia, their work remains perpetually relevant to human suffering and human endeavor.
David Foster Wallace, Pokémon Go, Trump-Pence
Spect-ops and Johnny Gentle.
“Three Terrible Days of Violence”
Jelani Cobb writes about an American tragedy.
Eyes on the plane
Andrew Sullivan’s recent lament about the failure of “elites” to protect democracy from the likes of Donald Trump misses the point that Trump’s candidacy is itself the product of an elite — not a political elite but a media elite, one that has kept Trump (and even his parked plane) front and center for months now.
The limits of grit
Grit is a necessary — not sufficient — condition for learning. Angela Duckworth knows that. But her work seems to inspire those who think it’s possible to “fix” education without addressing poverty.
For those who can pay the most
Jeremiah’s Vanishing New York quotes a prescient observation from Jane Jacobs about how cities are destroyed by their success.
Café culture
Twelve-hour days in nineteenth-century France.
Ringo Starr, Canned Heat, LGBT discrimination
Ringo Starr has canceled a concert in North Carolina to protest state-sponsored discrimination against LGBT people. I am a bit thrilled to see that he has cited Canned Heat in doing so.
Recently updated
Is change possible? Tracking down words attributed to Myles Horton.
Is change possible?
Psychiatrist Mindi Fullilove tells an interviewer why she refuses to give in to the belief that “real change” is impossible.
From The Big Short
Blaming teachers for the mortgage crisis. Someone really did.
Walls
Where do we build a wall to protect us from ourselves?
In Connecticut, in Chicago
President Barack Obama: “Every time I think about those kids, it gets me mad. And, by the way, it happens on the streets of Chicago every day.”
“Sunday”
Listening to Frank Sinatra’s 1954 recording of “Sunday,” I was slightly startled to realize that the song depicts American life before the institution of the weekend.
Trump, go home
In a little corner of my imagination, I sometimes wonder whether Trump’s candidacy is an elaborate thought-experiment, something like Jane Elliott’s blue eyes–brown eyes classroom exercise. But I know I’m just imagining things.
NPR voice
“If I could attempt to transcribe it, it sounds kind of like, y’know . . . this .”