The New Yorker, Kathleen Belew (assistant professor of history at U of Chicago) interviewed by Isaac Chotiner, 15 May 2022: Making Sense of the Racist Mass Shooting in Buffalo, subtitled, “An expert on the white-power movement and the ‘great replacement’ theory puts the act of terror in context.”
Some fascinating context and background.
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Washington Post, Michael Dirda, 10 Jan 2022: Science fiction — please, let’s not call it ‘sci-fi’ — is more than just a reaction to the present
OnlySky, Hemant Mehta, 7 May 2022: The Supreme Court should stop taking religious beliefs so seriously, subtitled, “Not every ‘sincerely held religious belief’ is sincerely held. The Supreme Court should admit that.”
NYT, Alexandra Alter, 11 May 2022: A Sci-Fi Writer Returns to Earth: ‘The Real Story is the One Facing Us.’, subtitled: “Kim Stanley Robinson, one of the most acclaimed living science fiction writers, is done with deep space narratives. His focus now is on solving real problems — like climate change.”
First, my favorite print magazine The Week, for May 13th, in its “Viewpoint” box on the “Best Columns US” page, quotes Francis Fukuyama in The Wall Street Journal (a newspaper I don’t read). But unlike the similarly found David French quote two days ago, I was able to find and link the source column.
The Wall Street Journal, Francis Fukuyama, posted 29 Apr 2022, in the 30 Apr 2022 print edition: The Long Arc of Historical Progress, subtitled, “A democratic world order is not the inexorable outcome of historical forces, but even amid setbacks, societies are clearly evolving toward equality and individual freedom.”
For now I’ll just quote the passage quoted by The Week. Which happens to be in the final paragraph.
Every year, hundreds of thousands of people—sometimes millions—leave poor, violent and poorly governed countries in search of a better life. Their destination of choice is never China, Russia or Venezuela. Rather, they seek out well-governed liberal societies where their children will have greater freedom and opportunity. It is they much more than the complacent inhabitants of liberal societies who realize that there is, indeed, an arc of history, with justice as its terminus.
David French on polarization; the inevitability of endless political arguments; how MAGA is about white Christian men.
Today’s San Francisco Chronicle has this opinion piece about religious freedom.
San Francisco Chronicle, Daniel Bogard and Tana Senn, 6 May 2022: Supreme Court’s Roe ruling would trample the religious freedom of every Jewish American
I’m not going to belabor the current abortion issue; it’s been going on for decades (and I’ve written about abortion before here), and the arguments haven’t changed. But before I comment or quote from any more links, let me summarize my position and why I believe the opposite positions are invalid.
LQCs: Wise Women and Men, How the Law Is Flimsy against Political Tides, and Why Conservatives Are So Anxious to Oppress Others
Several Fb friends have quoted this passage by the great Ursula K. Le Guin, originally posted at Reading Is Therapy, from her 1989 book Dancing at the Edge of the World: Thoughts on Words, Women, Places.
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