Narcissists and Simpletons

Posted on Monday 15 December 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Trump’s vile comments about the deaths of Rob Reiner and his wife, and wondering what kind of people still support him;
  • How the MAGA right succumbs to the bias of believing in an ideal past;
  • Short takes on Ron Johnson; the world giving up on America; “slop” and “rage bait”; misunderstanding Denmark’s health-care system; the motive for teaching “intelligent design”; and Tom Nichols on Trump.
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First, we can’t look away from the despicable comments made by President Trump this morning about the deaths of film director Rob Reiner and his wife yesterday. Any more than we can look away from a train-wreck.

NY Times, 15 Dec 2025: Trump Seizes on Rob Reiner’s Death to Attack the Hollywood Director, subtitled “The president attributed the killing of Rob Reiner and his wife to “Trump derangement syndrome.” There was no indication that the couple’s political beliefs were linked to their deaths.”

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Moon Status; Dormant Bigotry

Posted on Monday 15 December 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Just two items today. First a think piece.

Slate, Joel Achenbach, 9 Dec 2025: Moondoggle, subtitled “Officially, America is supposed to land on the moon again in 2027—and Mars thereafter. Ask anyone inside NASA under Trump, and you will hear a far different story.”

(Achenbach is the writer of Captured By Aliens: The Search for Life and Truth in a Very Large Universe in 1999, a book sitting down in my stacks.)

This piece is about the incoherence of NASA’s planning in the Trump administration.
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Nominalism, and Some Cool Maps

Posted on Saturday 13 December 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • The idea of nominalism, from a 77-year-old book, that seems to have inspired MAGA’s arrested moral development;
  • Apocalyptic speculation in science fiction and in speculative maps;
  • Brief items about Trump’s whitewashing of American history, teaching students how to think, and the lunacy of asking tourists to turn over their social media history.
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Today’s think piece is courtesy Steven Pinker’s gift link in a Facebook post, where the title of the article appeared as “The Closing of the MAGA Mind.”

NY Times, guest essay by Laura Field, 13 Dec 2025: The 77-Year-Old Book That Helps Explain the MAGA New Right (gift link)

Pinker’s Facebook post comments:

Laura Field, a specialist in “illiberal studies,” explains one of the intellectual foundations of MAGA: that the root of all evil is the West’s rejecting a universal moral order based on religion. (She could have added to this excellent exposition that in fact many secularists are in fact “moral realists,” believing in a universal morality, but one that is based on reason & well-being rather than dogma and scripture.)

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Rituals and Routines, and Fonts

Posted on Friday 12 December 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Personal health updates;
  • Big Think on the need for everyday rituals;
  • Boing Boing on the origins of Calibri and Times New Roman, and stupidity;
  • Short takes on approval ratings, European leadership, earning more, and Trump’s image.
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It’s been a busy week of medical appointments, for blood work, to see the cardiologist (four and half years!), to see a new PCP (Y’s new insurance doesn’t cover my old one). Two of these involved long drives, into the city across the Bay Bridge, and down to San Carlos across the 92 bridge. Everything is fine, medically speaking. Today I managed to stay home all day today, though we’re going out to dinner in a little while. Another drive tomorrow, to Walnut Creek, for Xmas shopping.

\\\

Think piece of the day. This might have profound implications.

Big Think, Anne-Laure Le Cunff, 10 Dc 2025: Why your brain needs everyday rituals, subtitled “Rituals serve psychological functions that go far beyond mere habit or tradition.”
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Marriage, and Women

Posted on Thursday 11 December 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Adam Lee on whether marriage can survive the continued emancipation of women;
  • Thought of the day about who’s making progress and who are against it;
  • Short takes on a Republican loonie; on a Christian who advises calling gay men a slur; how Republicans reflexively opposite everything Democrats implement to help people, as being “woke”; and how Republicans favor business over public safely, every time.
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Today’s think piece.

OnlySky, Adam Lee, 10 Dec 2025: The end of marriage?, subtitled “If marriage goes extinct, it will be because it deserves to.”

Haven’t read it yet. Why would this be? Among some progressives there’s an idealistic notion that human nature can somehow be overcome. I’m less sanguine about that.

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Steven Pinker: ENLIGHTENMENT NOW, post 1

Posted on Thursday 11 December 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled “The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress”
(Viking, Feb. 2018, xix+556pp, including 102pp of notes, references, and index.)

This is the last of the ‘big’ Steven Pinker books that I’ve read but not yet written up here. Though there was one book in between them (THE SENSE OF STYLE, 2014) and though the connection isn’t explicit, this book is a companion, perhaps even a spiritual sequel, to THE BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE. (And RATIONALITY, 2021, is in a sense third in a trilogy.) I read this one when it came out, in early 2018. Upon reviewing it and my notes just now, this one strikes me as perhaps the single-most core volume in my library that summarizes my own worldview, one aligned with liberalism, aligned with science fiction, and describing how to approach the world objectively and not via the filters and biases of tradition or received religious ideology. And how that approach, unlike those of tradition and religion, has brought about great improvement in the world.

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Human Happiness, and Fonts

Posted on Wednesday 10 December 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Sean Illing and Brad DeLong wonder why, with all humanity’s progress, aren’t we happier? An eternal question;
  • Paul Krugman on how Trump thinks people aren’t properly grateful for his perfect economy;
  • Marco Rubio defeats a woke font;
  • Heather Cox Richardson on how ChatGPT finds that modern America contains “multiple factual impossibilities”;
  • John Pavlovitz on how we can’t change these hateful people, we have to outnumber them.
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Today’s think piece.

Is this a hedonic treadmill matter? Or something else?

Vox, Sean Illing, Dec 2025: The world has gotten richer — so, why aren’t we happier?, subtitled “Technological progress and economic growth are preconditions for human happiness, not a guarantee.”

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Most People Are Nice; Scientific Truths

Posted on Tuesday 9 December 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Hannah Seo at Vox: people are nicer than you think;
  • Ethan Siegel at Big Think: 10 scientific truths that became unpopular in 2025;
  • Briefly noted: the Texas governor wants to install Turning Point USA chapters in every high school; Trump’s idea of culture is hosting UFC cage matches; Trump critics are to be identified as “domestic terrorists”; and apparently it’s religious discrimination to punish students for harassing trans kids.
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Here’s an idea with broad applicability.

Vox, Hannah Seo, 9 Dec 2025: People are nicer than you think, subtitled “We consistently underestimate how much other people like us, and it may be hurting our social lives.”

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Retreat and Hypocrisy

Posted on Monday 8 December 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Why does Trump promote AI, while cutting funding for science and medicine?
  • Why does Trump pardon drug traffickers, while shooting boats in the Caribbean that are supposedly, without evidence, trafficking drugs?
  • Paul Krugman on the end of the free world;
  • Robert Reich on the last person in the world who deserves a Nobel Peace Prize;
  • John Pavlovitz on how if you support ICE, you shouldn’t be celebrating Christmas;
  • Brief items about Trump’s phony peace prize; the right-wing media grift; how Hegseth and Bondi have responded about illegal orders to the military; and how Trump has committed the same mortgage fraud that he now accuses of others.
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Why is Trump so obsessed with AI…

Axios, 8 Dec 2025: Trump says AI executive order targeting state laws coming this week (Via)

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Detached from Reality

Posted on Monday 8 December 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Would conservatives insist that student papers defending creationism or flat eartherism qualify in science classes, if citing the Bible as evidence?
  • More about Trump’s white supremacist policies;
  • Brief items about Russia, Masculine public hangings, Trump’s “library,” and AI sermons.
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More about that student paper.

NY Times, opinion by Jessica Grose, 6 Dec 2025: How One Student’s Failing Grade Became a Cause Célèbre on the Right
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