Monthly Archives: January 2025

As Things Fall Apart

Posted on Thursday 23 January 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

How Trump’s war against DEI isn’t actually about merit; How despite claims of merit, those executive orders were shoddily written; How Trump prioritizes white Christian patriarchy; Comments from Heather Cox Richardson, Paul Krugman, and Robert Reich; How conservative response to … Continue reading →

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What Our Time Will Be Remembered For

Posted on Wednesday 22 January 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Doing next to nothing, while the world burned. Our time will be remembered for nothing else than our inaction on climate change; David Wallace-Wells searches for a silver lining; A book I’m reading recalls similar conservative resistance to action on … Continue reading →

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Party of Hypocrites

Posted on Tuesday 21 January 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Trump’s pardons of the January 6th rioters was an act of contempt, and a violation of the Constitutional standards he claims to uphold; Trump and his minions show contempt for an Episcopal bishop at Washington’s National Cathedral who pled for … Continue reading →

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A New Cycle of Doom: Trump’s Second Inauguration

Posted on Monday 20 January 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

What I said about the inaugurations 4 and 8 years ago; About Trump’s inauguration this morning, a fact-check of his speech, and how he did not place his hand on the Bible; Paul Krugman on lies, David A. Graham on … Continue reading →

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For Certain Values of Great

Posted on Sunday 19 January 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

From Facebook, a few days ago. The science fiction writer Robert Charles Wilson attempts to summarize the current condition in a single sentence. Facebook, Robert Charles Wilson, 11 Jan 2025: via David Gerrold. The concentration of wealth is driving novel … Continue reading →

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Immigration, Economic Growth, and the Limits of the Planet

Posted on Saturday 18 January 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

NYT has ideas about regulating immigration, given the assumption that America needs more people; Paul Krugman looks at economic growth (and Scott Bessent); But neither of them addresses the impact of continued economic growth, or expansion of the population, on … Continue reading →

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Lakoff on “Privateering,” and the Consequences of Shrinking the Government

Posted on Friday 17 January 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

More things are fitting together. Conservatives, be careful what you wish for. Chapter 7 of the Lakoff book, THE POLITICAL MIND, which I passed over in my review, is about what he calls “privateering.” This is when government services are … Continue reading →

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Cynics, Conspiracies, and the Oligarchy

Posted on Friday 17 January 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

RFK Jr. is a cynic, not a skeptic; Conservatives would rather punish California than deal with the climate crisis; Paul Krugman on how Trump has no plans, only yes-men; Why the decline of DEI is a worry; Peter Thiel now … Continue reading →

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Jonathan Haidt, THE ANXIOUS GENERATION

Posted on Thursday 16 January 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled “How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness” (Penguin Press, March 2024, 385pp, including 90pp of acknowledgements, notes, references, and index.) Here’s the latest by the author of one of my favorite books, THE … Continue reading →

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Competence Is Beside the Point

Posted on Wednesday 15 January 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Several items today about the confirmation hearings for Pete Hegseth and Pam Bondi; “Anonymous smears” and “I am not familiar with that statement”; competence isn’t the point, loyalty and disruption are. The consequences of a “woefully uninformed electorate” and whether … Continue reading →

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