Salon, Kirk Swearingen, 8 Mar 2026: Trump’s misguided “Christian” war is anything but, subtitled “Some commanders claim the Iran war is serving Christ. Haven’t they noticed the fake Christian in the White House?”
What struck me here is the reference to a news item I saw elsewhere, just a day or two ago. Third para.
One of the obvious ironies of Donald Trump’s ill-conceived war of choice with Iran — and his statement to its citizen-protesters that this is their moment to overturn an authoritarian theocracy that is making them live in misery and destroying their economy — is that his MAGA movement is doing all it can to create a Christian white nationalist theocracy at home while cheering on the beating and killing of citizen-protesters.
Trump and his handpicked team of the worst people you can imagine (his incompetent, mewling kakistocracy) are gleefully attacking women, immigrants, universities, public education, scientists, LGBTQ+ folks and our historic allies, as well as nonpartisan experts in economics and governance and foreign affairs — everything, in fact, that has made America creative, prosperous and secure.
It’s gotten so dire under Trump that good people of all sorts are leaving the country in numbers not seen since the Depression.
The article goes on about its title theme, which is of course obvious.
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We see lots of studies and essays about our troubled times, the crisis of masculinity, and so on, that I’m beginning to think they are based on cherry-picked data by those who, like MAGA, reflexively think the past was better than the present. Was it really? Aren’t there always people living fragmented lives? Sure they do surveys, but you always have to inspect what kinds of questions they’re asking.
The Atlantic, Peter Wehner, 8 Mar 2026: A Word for Our Troubled Times, subtitled “Too many people are living fragmented lives.”
Beginning:
IN HIS 2024 book The Age of Grievance, Frank Bruni argues that America is suffering from a cultural sickness. We are angry, acrimonious, and indignant, he observes, consumed by resentments and committed to retaliation.
Plenty of empirical data supports Bruni’s assessment. A record high of adults—80 percent—believes that Americans are divided on the most important values. National pride, trust in government, and confidence in institutions are near record lows. The Princeton University historian Sean Wilentz says the United States hasn’t been this divided since the Civil War. Nearly half of Americans think another civil war is likely in their lifetime. Affective polarization—our distaste for those who do not share our politics—is at an all-time high, and shapes everything from where we shop to whom we wed.
Individually, Americans are suffering from an “epidemic of loneliness and isolation,” according to a 2023 report by former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy. Depression rates have skyrocketed; instances for adults under 30 have doubled since 2017. Suicide rates have increased by 37 percent since 2000. Anxiety is rising. America is facing a youth-mental-health crisis.
It seems at times as if America is a “twilight kingdom,” in the words of T. S. Eliot, in “this valley of dying stars.” Too many people are living fragmented lives: “Shape without form, shade without colour.”
OK, well, I have that Frank Bruni book, and I’ll take a look at it. Going on:
What we lack, in a single word, is shalom. I think shalom is among the most beautiful words in the Bible. In the New Testament, which was written in Greek rather than Hebrew, the word used is eirene. Shalom is often translated into English as “peace,” which many people take to mean the absence of conflict. But its fuller meaning is something closer to human flourishing.
And this connects to the ideas of Sam Harris and others about the goal of human morality: to maximize human flourishing, however that might be measured. (Certainly not about following tribal rules in ancient holy books.) And it connects to the ideas of Pinker and Norberg and others that the world really is better than it’s ever been, but people, blinkered by their reflex to detect bad things around every corner, simply don’t realize it. What’s the solution? Education, perhaps. Getting out in the world.
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Every once in a while you wonder why a reputable journal runs an article like this. To lure in those who don’t understand the extent this question has been answered? At the same time, the writer (several of whose books I’ve read) is exactly the type who wants the answer to this question to be yes. (But it’s almost certainly no.)
The Atlantic, Alan Lightman, 8 Mar 2026: The Mind-Body Question, subtitled “Are we all material—tissues and veins—or is there some nonmaterial substance, some essence, that transcends the corporeal form?”
Second paragraph:
Modern neuroscience has largely overthrown the classical view that the mind and the body are fundamentally different substances, and it has shown that all of our thoughts and mental experiences are rooted in the material brain. But even granting that scientific view, there remains a profound disconnect between our conscious self-awareness—rooted in the three pounds of gooey stuff in our skulls—and the rest of our body.
The writer understands this yet admits his “belief that I am more than just a jumble of tissues and nerves.” He surveys the history of philosophical thoughts on this issue, and the viewpoint of Christianity and other religions. Yet,
I must again confess that I am a materialist. I respect the belief in an immortal soul. I respect the belief in a nonphysical mind. But, despite my predilection for some transcendent element, I do not share those beliefs. Still, I am baffled by the disconnect I feel between body and mind. …
It’s this bafflement that bothers him, like a sore tooth he can’t help poking. The essay goes on; he pokes it some more. But the answer is never “yes.”
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There are scientists in every nation; the world has become saturated with the conclusions of Western science, because they work, because they stand up to testing and retesting. And so this item is apropos given most Americans believe that Iranians, or Muslims in general, are backward, heathen people who should be exterminated, or at least banished from US soil.
Boing Boing, Rob Beschizza, 3 Mar 2026: Iranian physicists estimate advanced civilizations last 5,000 years or less
And this seems to be the latest take on the eternal question posed by Fermi’s Paradox.
The Fermi Paradox describes a contradiction: stars and planets are abundant, but there is no obvious evidence of life beyond our solar system. The Drake equation presented a method for calculating the number of active civilizations there should be, but its components (such as the probability of planets capable of supporting life) remained mysterious. As technology fills in these blanks (we have identified 61 potentially habitable worlds among the 5200 or so observed “near” our own, implying 6 to 20 billion in our galaxy) Enrico Fermi’s question becomes more pointed: “Where is everybody?”
The lede here is their re-analysis of the Drake equation:
“Our analysis suggests that if intelligent life is common, technological civilizations must be relatively short-lived, with lifetimes constrained to ≲5×10³ years under our most optimistic scenario.
The writer notes: “That’s five thousand years. The good news is we’re just a century and change into being a broadcasting civilization.” But also: “5,000 years might be a generous estimate considering what’s happening to the civilization on this planet.”
And:
My preferred resolution is that the brief timeframe represents the impossibility of life to remain “lifelike” once technologically disengaged from the evolutionary processes that led to it. If nuclear, chemical or biological annihilation are obviously likely exits, there’s always “everyone becomes John De Lancie.”
(Referring to the Q character in ST:TNG.)
My thoughts, repeated here regularly, are that reasons human civilization might not last very long are apparent every day. The inability of humanity to move past tribalism; the eagerness of conservatives to roll back such technological and moral progress as we’ve made in the past few hundred years, as noted in the first item above.
