Music: Joni Mitchell — ‘Don Juan’s Reckless Daughter’
America’s bluest state loves its Republican governor
Russell Berman writes: For a politician who’s never lost an election, Phil Scott is not much for campaigning. He didn’t formally announce his candidacy last year for a third term as Vermont’s governor until the state filing deadline in May. Scott ran his race, such as it was, out of a small garage on the outskirts of town that he rented to keep his motorcycles. The space had internet but no plumbing, so his two campaign staffers used porta-potties outside….
The values that drive Biden
David Brooks writes: Some people get their worldviews from ideological constructs or philosophical movements like “conservatism” or “progressivism.” Biden derives his worldview from lived experience, especially the world of his youth, and how his parents taught him to see that world. It created the moral underpinnings of the big legislative packages he is proposing. The story about his father includes the key elements of the Biden worldview. First, a social location. What matters is not only how a person sees…
Israel is falling apart, because the conflict controls us
Dahlia Scheindlin writes: For a few days in early May, Israel appeared close to establishing a new government. After four elections in two years that failed to produce a decisive result, the country was poised for a surprising partnership of ideologically diverse parties including, for the first time, an independent Arab party — Raam. Such a government would have been fraught, even shaky, but it would have ended the two years of political chaos and replaced Israel’s right-wing prime minister,…
Hamas breaks out of its Gaza cage
Amjad Iraqi writes: A ceasefire between Israel and Hamas was finally announced Thursday night after 11 days of devastating bombardment and indiscriminate rocket fire that killed over 240 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and 12 people in Israel. As far as many observers are concerned, this deal — which, if it holds, will undoubtedly prevent countless more deaths, injuries, and wanton destruction — should finally put an end to the vicious saga. This desperate return to “calm,” however, remains a…
Bitcoin mining is giving new life to old fossil-fuel power plants
The Wall Street Journal reports: Across America, older fossil-fuel power plants are shutting down in favor of renewable energy. But some are getting a new lease on life—to mine bitcoin. In upstate New York, an idled coal plant has been restarted, fueled by natural gas, to mine cryptocurrency. A once-struggling Montana coal plant is now scaling up to do the same. The lofty price of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies has investors pouring money into power generation—and risking a backlash. Elon…
Why conservatives want to cancel the 1619 Project
Adam Serwer writes: Nikole Hannah-Jones is an award-winning Black journalist. She is also one of the developers of the 1619 Project, a journalistic examination of slavery’s role in shaping the American present. Last year, that work won her a Pulitzer Prize. Now it appears to have cost her a tenured chair at the University of North Carolina’s Hussman School of Journalism. The news outlet NC Policy Watch reported on Monday that the university’s dean, chancellor, and faculty had backed Hannah-Jones’s…
The English professor who foresaw modern neuroscience
Christopher Comer and Ashley Taggart write: In the 21st century, neuroscience has been able to extend our understanding of the brain beyond brain anatomy to an increasingly functional view of cognition. Every year brings new insights on memory and imagination, and reveals often surprising areas of convergence with fields such as anthropology and philosophy. Yet it was a Cambridge professor of literature, almost a century ago in the aftermath of World War I, who pioneered a view of cognition we…
Music: Joni Mitchell — ‘Paprika Plains’
Gaza conflict amplifies ‘identity crisis’ for young American Jews
The New York Times reports: Dan Kleinman does not know quite how to feel. As a child in Brooklyn he was taught to revere Israel as the protector of Jews everywhere, the “Jewish superman who would come out of the sky to save us” when things got bad, he said. It was a refuge in his mind when white supremacists in Charlottesville, Va., chanted “Jews will not replace us,” or kids in college grabbed his shirt, mimicking a “South Park”…
Peaceful coexistence in Israel hasn’t been shattered – it’s always been a myth
Nimer Sultany writes: On Tuesday, in my hometown of Tira, which is inside Israel’s pre-1967 borders, the shops were closed and the streets were empty. A general strike had been declared in protest over Israel’s policies, whether the ethnic cleansing in Sheikh Jarrah, the storming of al-Aqsa mosque, or the onslaught on Gaza. As the Palestinian death toll continues to rise, commentators lament the shattering of coexistence inside Israel between Palestinian and Jewish citizens. Yet in my experience as a…
In Israel’s mixed Jewish-Palestinian towns, old frustrations boil into violence
Aida Touma-Sliman, a Palestinian member of Israel’s Knesset, writes: Several mixed towns in Israel looked like war zones over the past two weeks. In these communities, such as my hometown, Akka, Jewish Israelis and Palestinians like me live near each other. Recently, small numbers of young Palestinians, enraged by Israeli provocations at Al-Aqsa Mosque and plans to evict Palestinian families from their Sheikh Jarrah homes, clashed with police and attacked local businesses. Hundreds of other Palestinians, myself included, attempted to…
Sen. Bernie Sanders to introduce resolution of disapproval on $735 million U.S. arms sale to Israel
The Washington Post reports: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is preparing to introduce a resolution on Thursday disapproving of the U.S. sale of $735 million in precision-guided weapons to Israel, according to a draft obtained by The Washington Post. The resolution aims to halt the planned sale to Israel by the Biden administration of JDAMs, or Joint Direct Attack Munitions, and Small Diameter Bombs, as the worst hostilities in years continue between Israel and Hamas. The resolution needs only a simple…
The pandemic’s mental wounds are still wide open
Ed Yong writes: This time last year, the United States seemed stuck on a COVID-19 plateau. Although 1,300 Americans were dying from the disease every day, states had begun to reopen in a patchwork fashion, and an anxious nation was looking ahead to an uncertain summer. Twelve months later, the situation is very different. Cases are falling quickly. About half as many people are dying every day. Several vaccines were developed faster than experts had dared to predict, and proved…
Arizona’s absurd election ‘audit’ could be just the beginning for Trump dead-enders
Eric Lutz writes: Back in November, on the same day Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump in the 2020 election, Alabama Republican Mo Brooks announced that he would fight the results of the vote—and urged his colleagues to do the same. “There’s no way I’ll vote in the House to ratify the Electoral College votes of states where illegal votes distorted the will of the people in those states who voted legally,” the congressman wrote November 7. “This election was stolen…
The self is not singular but a fluid network of identities
Kathleen Wallace writes: Who am I? We all ask ourselves this question, and many like it. Is my identity determined by my DNA or am I product of how I’m raised? Can I change, and if so, how much? Is my identity just one thing, or can I have more than one? Since its beginning, philosophy has grappled with these questions, which are important to how we make choices and how we interact with the world around us. Socrates thought…