Music: Ivan Lins — ‘Acaso’
For most of human history, equality was the norm
Kim Sterelny writes: Most of us live in social worlds that are profoundly unequal, where small elites have vastly more power and wealth than everyone else. Very few of the have-nots find this congenial. As experimental economists have shown, we tend to enter social situations prepared to take a chance and cooperate in collective activities. But if others take more than their share, we resent being played for a sucker. We live in unequal worlds, and few of us are…
The grave implications for the world if China covered up the origins of Covid
John Gray writes: If … it becomes clear that the pandemic originated in failures of the Chinese state, the damage to its model of government will be irreparable. At the same time, the West would be faced with the uncomfortable fact that Xi Jinping’s China is a totalitarian regime. Secrecy and cover-ups are normal in such systems. Only in 1990 did the Soviet state formally accept responsibility for the Katyn massacre of 22,000 Polish officers and intellectuals in 1940, carried…
A Biden climate test on the banks of the Mississippi
Bill McKibben writes: I suppose that, if I’d thought about it, I could have figured out that there had to be a place where you could jump across the Mississippi. But I’d seen its majestic flow at so many points along its course (ripping through Minneapolis, regal in St. Louis, oceanic by Baton Rouge) that I’d never imagined it as a mere trickle. Now I have—I’ve waded through that trickle, in fact—and on an epic day in recent American Indigenous…
After risking their lives as U.S. govt employees, Afghan interpreters are now being denied visas
The New York Times reports: It was an offhand comment, blurted out in frustration. It may have destroyed Shoaib Walizada’s chances of earning a cherished visa to the United States. Mr. Walizada, who interpreted for the U.S. Army for four years until 2013, said that he had complained one day, using profanity, that his assigned combat vest was too small. When the episode came to light later that year, Mr. Walizada’s preliminary approval for a visa was revoked for “unprofessional…
Only in our anti-truth hellscape could Anthony Fauci become a supervillain
Margaret Sullivan writes: In October, Fauci told CBS’s “60 Minutes” that he and his family had received death threats and said he required a security detail to do his daily power walks. In November, former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon was banned from Twitter after he called for Fauci’s beheading. But the campaign against Fauci has dramatically intensified recently — especially since BuzzFeed and The Washington Post released his email trove last week. And in a twisted way, it makes…
The far-right paramilitary wannabes feeding Mike Flynn’s conspiracy machine
The Daily Beast reports: When QAnon conspiracy theorists descended on a Dallas event hall in late May for their convention, they were met at the door by members of 1st Amendment Praetorian, a tough-talking new volunteer group devoted to running security at MAGA events, assembling “intelligence” dossiers on perceived Trumpist foes, and foiling threats from “antifa” protesters, real or imagined. Decked out in black shirts bearing their group’s Roman-helmet logo, the self-proclaimed Praetorian members soon found that Dallas was light…
No one knows how often DNA jumps between animal species
Christie Wilcox writes: To survive in the frigid ocean waters around the Arctic and Antarctica, marine life evolved many defenses against the lethal cold. One common adaptation is the ability to make antifreezing proteins (AFPs) that prevent ice crystals from growing in blood, tissues and cells. It’s a solution that has evolved repeatedly and independently, not just in fish but in plants, fungi and bacteria. It isn’t surprising, then, that herrings and smelts, two groups of fish that commonly roam…
Music: Ivan Lins — ‘Abre Alas’
Message to email subscribers – updated – again
July 4: Sorry for the recent interruption in email updates. They will resume on July 12. Meanwhile, I’m still updating the site as usual. June 10: Since starting War in Context and then Attention to the Unseen, everyone who signed up to receive email updates has received these via Feedburner (which was acquired by Google in 2007). Since its acquisition, Feedburner has suffered death by a thousand cuts — the latest of which is that they are about to end…
Republicans are fighting against a multiracial democracy
Thomas B. Edsall writes: Determined to enforce white political dominance in pivotal states like Georgia, Arizona, Texas and North Carolina, Republicans are enacting or trying to enact laws restricting the right to vote, empowering legislatures to reject election outcomes and adopting election rules and procedures designed to block the emergence of multiracial political majorities. Republicans “see the wave of demography coming and they are just trying to hold up a wall and keep it from smashing them in,” William Frey,…
My fellow Republicans, stop fearing this dangerous and diminished man
Barbara Comstock writes: Many Republicans want to move on from the Jan. 6 attack. But how is that possible when the former president won’t move on from the Nov. 3 election and continues to push the same incendiary lies that resulted in 61 failed lawsuits before Jan. 6, led to an insurrection and could lead to yet more violence? If you doubt that a threat of violence exists, look at the recent poll from the Public Religion Research Institute and…
America still undervalues public health
Ed Yong writes: During a pandemic, no one’s health is fully in their own hands. No field should understand that more deeply than public health, a discipline distinct from medicine. Whereas doctors and nurses treat sick individuals in front of them, public-health practitioners work to prevent sickness in entire populations. They are expected to think big. They know that infectious diseases are always collective problems because they are infectious. An individual’s choices can ripple outward to affect cities, countries, and…
An open letter on U.S. media coverage of Palestine
An open letter on U.S. media coverage of Palestine: Finding truth and holding the powerful to account are core principles of journalism. Yet for decades, our news industry has abandoned those values in coverage of Israel and Palestine. We have failed our audiences with a narrative that obscures the most fundamental aspects of the story: Israel’s military occupation and its system of apartheid. For the sake of our readers and viewers — and the truth — we have a duty…
Is Biden risking a Cold War with China?
Thomas Wright writes: In Biden’s view, the United States and other democracies are in a competition with China and other autocracies. This is being exacerbated by a period of rapid technological change that could give China an opportunity to leapfrog the United States in certain areas. Biden regularly invokes his many conversations with Xi Jinping to observe that the Chinese leader is deeply ideological in his personal commitment to authoritarianism. Biden’s top Asia adviser, Kurt M. Campbell, has echoed that…
Biden has never trusted Putin
Politico reports: When President George W. Bush first met Vladimir Putin, he seemed smitten, describing the still-new Russian leader as “very straightforward and trustworthy,” even claiming he got “a sense of his soul.” A certain Democratic senator from Delaware had a very different reaction. “I don’t trust Putin,” Joe Biden said in the days after the June 2001 Bush-Putin summit in Slovenia. “Hopefully, the president was being stylistic rather than substantive.” Twenty years later, Washington has come around firmly to…