Category Archives: Politics

Links and Comments: Unread Books; Psychology and Logic; GOP Paranoia; Political Extremes

Posted on 19 October 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

From recent weeks’ NYT. Essay by Kevin Mims: All Those Books You’ve Bought but Haven’t Read? There’s a Word for That. The print title, October 14, was “The Importance of Unread Books” subtitled “Why a personal library should include books … Continue reading →

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Trump and Kavanaugh, Conservatives and Tribal Politics

Posted on 3 October 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

It’s not so much about fundamental disagreements between conservatives and liberals, reactionaries and progressives, (let alone the simplistic take about good vs. evil), as about social reaction to change… the changing demographic of the United States, and the inevitable expansion … Continue reading →

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Thomas L. Friedman on Anonymous

Posted on 13 September 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

Brilliant take by Thomas L. Friedman: ‘Anonymous’ Is Hiding in Plain Sight: The G.O.P. crowd who accepted the devil’s bargain is huge. That’s the anonymous-G.O.P. credo today: We know Trump is a jerk, but you’ve gotta love the good stuff … Continue reading →

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Links from NYT recently, with Comments

Posted on 12 April 2018 by Mark R. Kelly

Op-ed by Amy Sullivan in the New York Times, April 1 (posted March 31): Trump’s Christian Soldiers The recurring, amazing fact that the self-righteous evangelicals support someone like Trump. You could open a publishing press devoted to the theological and … Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, Evolution, Politics, Psychology | Leave a comment

What We Learned from This Morning’s Newspaper

Posted on 19 November 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Robert H. Frank, Molly Worthen, Anthony Doerr, and Nicholas Kristof on cutting taxes for the rich, rejecting Roy Moore-style evangelicalism, how even the conscientious among us react to warnings of climate change, and how Blue States do better at practicing … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: The Profound and the Pernicious

Posted on 13 November 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

From NPR, The Answer To Life, The Universe — And Everything? It’s 63. The headline is a riff on the famous episode in Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Wikipedia) in which a vast computer called Deep Thought … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Tribal Loyalty and Values v. Reality

Posted on 23 June 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

NY Times: The 15 Best-Educated Congressional Districts in the U.S.. All but two of which, including the just contested Georgia district north of Atlanta, are solidly Democratic. Hmm. \\ Also: Trump’s Lies, a comprehensive, up-to-date list. It’s not surprising that … Continue reading →

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Links and Comments: Tribal Epistemology

Posted on 8 June 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

Out of all the links compiled for my previous links post, this is the most substantial, the one I have enough comments on to put in a separate post. 19 May: Vox, David Roberts: Donald Trump and the rise of … Continue reading →

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Link and Comment: Modern Conservatism

Posted on 17 May 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

From a review in Sunday’s NYT Book Review, by Damon Linker, of a book about the famous conservative intellectual William F. Buckley, and his relationships to various presidents of the United States. The review is titled “William F. Buckley and … Continue reading →

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Stuart Brand Quote: The Only News

Posted on 11 March 2017 by Mark R. Kelly

A thought against the daily onslaught of political news (never mind the weather, local crime, and traffic accidents that comprise the everyday local TV news) — in the big picture of human history (and progress), almost none of that matters; … Continue reading →

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