Over the past year the literary world has been debating the appropriateness of teaching or reading Russian literature. In Ukraine, streets named after Lermontov and Dostoevsky, big hawks of Russian expansionism, are being renamed after writers who supported Ukrainian independence.[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Last week the House of Representatives held a hearing on the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic. Because Republicans are now in charge of the House, the door was open to bad faith science, wild speculation, utter nonsense, and even a[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Governor Bill Lee of Tennessee recently signed a bill to ban drag queen performances in public spaces and in front of minors, and to severely restrict health care services to trans youth. I was born in that state and have[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
ChatGPT and other AI services have taken hold of the imaginations and fears of the artistic, academic, and librarian circles I run in. There seems to be some vague potential for something positive down the road, but right now it[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Greg Sargent and Jeet Heer have written good pieces about the right wing seizure upon the lackluster federal and state response to the Norfolk train disaster in East Palestine to fan White resentment and victimhood. As Greg writes: What this[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
Roger Waters gave Pink Floyd fans a lot to talk about recently. His interview with the German magazine Bilder included his criticism of Israeli policy toward Palestinians (good) framed in analogies to the Nazi genocide of the Jews (bad); criticism[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
I try to avoid using Orwellian tropes in my work, because they get overused in political discourse, and often misused. But when the right keeps using the law to remove books and forbid teaching on subjects that make them uncomfortable[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
The murder of Tyre Nichols by Memphis cops set off a weekend of protests across the country. This follows weeks of protests in Atlanta against “Cop City”, a School of Americas style training camp to make police even more oppressive[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
If Congress is so concerned about fiscal responsibility and the federal deficit, then they should return federal taxation and spending to pre-1980 levels. Check out this chart from a Marketplace report on the history of the debt ceiling. Notice the[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
I doubt there is a “right side of history.” There are right things to do — fight fascism, advance human rights, reorganize society to meet everyone’s needs and liberate them from drudgery, etc — but I don’t think history is[…]↓ Read the rest of this entry…
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