NY Times, Paul Krugman, 2 Oct 2023: Why MAGA Wants to Betray Ukraine
Big Think, Elizabeth Gilbert and Nick Hobson, 1 Oct 2023: Is psychology good for anything?, subtitled “Recent high-profile instances of fraud in psychology have led some to wonder if there’s anything useful about the field at all.”
So how’s that impeachment hearing going?
The New Republic, Michael Tomasky, 29 Sep 2023: Impeachment Hearing Proves Even Dumb Fascists Can Be Dangerous, subtitled “The House Republican effort to make a case against Joe Biden is mostly blundering—but their collective face-plant can still cause some significant damage.”
Apropos of this weekend’s events in Washington DC. In some cases there are smart solutions to our problems that even Democrats refuse to entertain. Because politics.
NY Times, Peter Coy (subscriber-only newsletter), 29 Sep 2023: There Is Only One Way to Fix the National Budget
First, a couple science bits. Let’s start with an intriguing episode of Veritasium.
Veritasium: Math Has A Fatal Flaw.
Maybe not a “flaw” but an aspect beyond human intuitive understanding: how in any system of mathematics, there exist true statements that cannot be proven. With an example of John Conway’s “Game of Life,” which shows how very simple rules can lead to very complex results. (Evolution skeptics take note.)
Items today:
Robert Reich, AlterNet, 27 Sep 2023: Trump is nuts — and his condition seems to be getting worse (Also posted here: Robert Reich, Substack, 27 Sep 2023: The worst of all the media’s false equivalences)
I discovered today that my long-time friend Larry Kramer — no, not the writer Larry Kramer, but one Charles L. Kramer who lived in Los Angeles for decades, until his move to suburban Austin TX back in 2006 — has died, at age 70. This was a situation I’ve feared and which finally came to pass. We were friends for decades in LA (we met in a gay bicycle club). He moved to Austin in 2006, where I did visit him a couple times, though lastly in 2012. Over the past decade, we usually called or emailed every couple weeks.
He had been a successful business exec, for record companies in Hollywood, for decades, until he decided he could afford to retire. He moved away from LA to suburban Austin TX, primarily (he told me) because as an obsessive bicycle rider, there were lots of roads in that area he could ride on. Despite the fact he knew no one in Austin.
And he did ride his bicycle, obsessively, for many years. Until injuries to his legs and ankles — originating from an injury by an accident with a city bus in Griffith Park, in LA — led to a series to operations and hospital stays over the past decade.
Recently, after not hearing from him for a month (since my birthday on Aug. 30th), a couple days ago another friend of his, one Marcelo, contacted me, that he had not heard from Larry in a couple weeks. I called Larry and called and emailed. No response.
So I did the duty. What do you do when someone far away is out of contact, maybe has died? Alone? I phoned the hospital he was last in; they told me to contact the police; the police referred me to the sheriff; and the sheriff sent someone to his address to do a “well check.” And found him, in his house, deceased, “for a while.”
I’ve contacted the couple of his friends that I know of. I don’t know what happens next.
As we get older, we are more and more alone.
To begin: we had another confidant set of religious predictions in the past couple weeks, about a Biblical “Rapture” to happen on Sept. 23rd, which of course did not come true. (Are we clear about what the “Rapture” means? Here’s Wikipedia. To us in the real world, it seems insane that anyone would believe this.)
This has happened over and over throughout history. They never learn. How do believers’ rationalize this kind of failure? There’s a long history of them doing so.
OnlySky, Captain Cassidy, 26 Sep 2023: Rapture Rapture everywhere, and not an empty pile of clothes to be found, subtitled “If reality could rein in some of these zealots, the Rapture would never have become a belief in the first place.”
The right has become so extreme, things so outrageous that decades ago they would have prompted calls for resignation or censure or disqualification from future office now go by without much notice, i.e. not on the front pages of papers, or the nightly network news. And his followers don’t care, and would I’m sure will continue to endorse him. This is where Republicans are now.
The Atlantic, Brian Klaas, 25 Sep 2023: Trump Floats the Idea of Executing Joint Chiefs Chairman Milley, subtitled “The former president is inciting violence against the nation’s top general. America’s response is distracted and numb.”
One more good piece about Rupert Murdoch and his legacy.
NY Times, Opinion by Michelle Goldberg, 21 Sep 2023: The Ludicrous Agony of Rupert Murdoch
Goldberg is reacting in part to a new book by Michael Wolff, The Fall: The End of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty, to be published next Tuesday. The choice bits:
