Author Archives: Mark R. Kelly

Mark Lilla, IGNORANCE AND BLISS

Posted on Monday 17 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled “On Wanting Not to Know” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Dec. 2024, 239p, including 12p notes and acknowledgments) This is a little book published just a couple months ago that appealed for a couple reasons. First, I read the author’s … Continue reading →

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Today’s Political Readings from Facebook and Substack

Posted on Saturday 15 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Musk’s boys don’t know Cobol; Robert Reich accuses MSM of being wishy-washy about the coup; Paul Krugman on the Trump administration suppressing health information; Connie Willis on Trump’s “massacre” of attorneys who resigned rather than drop charges against Eric Adams. … Continue reading →

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What They Mean By Traditional

Posted on Saturday 15 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Family arriving today for the weekend, so just a few quick items for now. DOGE is about putting “traditional” Americans back in charge; Where Nazi flags are fine, and Pride flags are banned; Musk is about purging federal workers to … Continue reading →

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Richard Dawkins: THE MAGIC OF REALITY

Posted on Friday 14 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled: How We Know What’s Really True Illustrated by Dave McKean (Free Press, Oct. 2011, 271pp, including 6p of index and acknowledgements) When I was organizing my nonfiction books notes and posts last December, I was surprised that I had … Continue reading →

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And They’re Doing It All In Plain Sight

Posted on Thursday 13 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Paul Krugman about Elon Musk, fraudster; Brian Tyler Cohen on how Musk’s search for fraud is only to advance his personal interests; How if Musk were trying to find fraudulent spending, he would have gone in with accountants, not computer … Continue reading →

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Diversity is Out, Racism is In

Posted on Wednesday 12 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Military veterans say the trans ban is logistical nonsense; How Musk and Vance stood up for a self-avowed racist; How Trump and his administration are intentionally on the wrong side of history, favoring “competent white men”; How philosopher Richard Rorty … Continue reading →

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Not-a-Surprises

Posted on Tuesday 11 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

I see TV commercials about health insurance that complain about “bills” and “not-a-bills”. I get plenty of both too. Not-a-surprise: Trump and Musk are really after tax cuts for the wealthy. Trump doesn’t grasp the point of foreign aid; Conservatives … Continue reading →

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The Roots of All This is an Unchanging Human Nature in a Changing World

Posted on Monday 10 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Heather Cox Richardson explains why the right to vote, not the Second Amendment, is the key to maintaining our rights; Robert Reich wonders where the lawlessness of the Trump regime will end; Paul Krugman sees the end of Pax Americana; … Continue reading →

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Nothing mattered, in the end

Posted on Sunday 9 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

NY Times’ timeline of Trump 2.0; NRA graphic from Facebook; A Canadian perspective on Trump; DEI graphic from Facebook; How Trump (and Musk) target agencies investigating *them*; The cost of scrapping the social cost of carbon; David French on the … Continue reading →

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Flooding the Zone with Shock and Awe

Posted on Saturday 8 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

How to deal with it; I’m trying to put things into a broader perspective of their deep motivations, which are always about basic, tribalist, human nature; Trump is taking over Kennedy Center because he objects to drag; Plastic straws, racist … Continue reading →

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