Isaac Asimov, FUTUREDAYS

Posted on Wednesday 26 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled: “A Nineteenth-Century Vision of the Year 2000”
(Henry Holt, trade paperback, 1986, 96pp)

This is a thin little book I’ve had for nearly 40 years, since it was published. It’s ostensibly about a set of “cigarette cards” (presumably included with packs of cigarettes) designed to promote the end-of-century festivities in France in 1900. They were never distributed, but one pack survived and was brought to Asimov’s attention. So the book shows about 40 of these cards, along with Asimov’s comments about what each depicted, and how accurate or plausible those visions of the future were.

Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Isaac Asimov, science fiction | Comments Off on Isaac Asimov, FUTUREDAYS

Largely Unnoticed?

Posted on Tuesday 25 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Two big topics today: how Trump is aligning with dictators, breaking 75 years of America as leader of the free world;
  • With items from NYT’s Fred Kaplan, Atlantic’s Tom Nichols, and Robert Reich.
  • Some reflections from two books I’ve just read;
  • And the second topic: conservatives as bigots and simpletons, with many examples;
  • And Trump’s hypocrisy about playing golf, and his projection that that’s what government workers are doing.
– – –

The earlier homepage title, about how Trump has abandoned 75 years of America as leader of the fee world, is there in the fourth paragraph.

NY Times, Fred Kaplan, 25 Feb 2025: Trump’s Foreign Policy Has Completely Departed From Reality, subtitled “And the geopolitical stakes are high.”

Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, History, Lunacy, Politics | Comments Off on Largely Unnoticed?

Yearning and Discontent

Posted on Monday 24 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Why is half of American cheering for chaos?
  • Jonathan Rauch on “patrimonialism”;
  • DOJ deletes data on cop misconduct; Project 2025 and conspiracy theories; Kari Lake spreads the social security lie; a Trump lie about office workers;
  • Why firing IRS workers during tax season is a huge mistake;
  • Does Putin have something on Trump?, as the US refuses to condemn Russia for invading Ukraine;
  • Why would Trump fire senior military leaders without cause?

I’m thinking this piece aligns with Tom Nichols and James Marriot, whose comments I’ve noted recently. Is there something vaguely or not so vaguely discontent with the ease of the modern world? A yearning for conflict and autocracy that aligns with base human nature?

Washington Post, Shadi Hamid, 25 Feb 2025: Why half of America is cheering for chaos, subtitle “The fight isn’t between the left and right anymore. It’s a clash over the system.”

Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Culture, Politics | Comments Off on Yearning and Discontent

Gaslighting Reality

Posted on Sunday 23 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Trump’s lying reaches new levels; and Musk’s DARVO strategy. (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim and Offender)

– – –

NY Times, Peter Baker, 23 Feb 2025: In Trump’s Alternate Reality, Lies and Distortions Drive Change, subtitle “Condoms for Gaza? Ukraine started the war with Russia? The president’s manipulations of the truth lay the groundwork for radical change.’ [gift link]

Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Narrative, Politics, Psychology | Comments Off on Gaslighting Reality

Outdoing Themselves Every Day

Posted on Saturday 22 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Musk lays off government workers overseeing his car company;
  • Musk asks federal employees to justify their jobs or be fired;
  • Trump issues an EO stating that only he can interpret the meanings of law;
  • Adam Serwer on how MAGA is about reversing the civil-rights movement.
– – –

It gets worse and worse.

For example, this makes a kind of sense.

AP, 22 Feb 2025: Musk’s cost-cutting team is laying off workers at the auto safety agency overseeing his car company (via)

Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, conservatives, Politics, Tribalism | Comments Off on Outdoing Themselves Every Day

Incompetence and Restlessness

Posted on Friday 21 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Wired on the incompetence of DOGE;
  • Thoughts about why all this is happening now;
  • Heather Cox Richardson quotes James Marriott of The Times about how the post-World War II liberal order has allowed the seeds of its own destruction to flourish;
  • With a note about Tom Nichols’ latest book, which I’ll write up here soon.
– – –

Wired, Brian Barrett, 20 Feb 2025: The Incompetence of DOGE Is a Feature, Not a Bug, subitled “A series of mistakes by DOGE shows just how arbitrary and destructive this slash-and-burn strategy can get.”

Continue reading →

Posted in History, Human Nature, Politics | Comments Off on Incompetence and Restlessness

Sea Change: Living in History, and Most People Not Noticing

Posted on Thursday 20 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • By supporting Putin and demonizing Ukraine, the US is withdrawing from the post-World War II world that it created and has supported for 80 years;
  • With comments from Heather Cox Richardson, Nicholas Kristoff, Slate’s Emily Tamkin, and NYT’s Peter Baker;
  • And my observation that most people don’t realize that history is happening around them, and haven’t throughout history.
– – –

Heather Cox Richardson, February 19, 2025

The past week has solidified a sea change in American—and global—history.

A week ago, on Wednesday, February 12, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced at a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Brussels, Belgium, that President Donald Trump intended to back away from support for Ukraine in its fight to push back Russia’s invasions of 2014 and 2022.

Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Politics | Comments Off on Sea Change: Living in History, and Most People Not Noticing

A Continual Stream of Lies and Gaslighting

Posted on Wednesday 19 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly
  • Trump claims Ukraine started the war; Zelensky accuses him of living in “disinformation space”;
  • Musk, corrected about the lie that 150-year-old people are still receiving Social Security, keeps spreading that lie;
  • Tom Nichols on Trump and Musk and Hannity, who have no idea how American democracy works;
  • Thomas L. Friedman on how the world is complex, and how conservatives do not understand this;
  • Dahlia Lithwick realizes DOGE is a protection racket.
– – –

Today’s outrageous statement by Trump, made so casually it’s hard to believe it was a red herring meant to distract the media for a news cycle so they would not notice how Musk continues to dismantle the government; more likely it’s Trump gaslighting the world, sure that whatever he says will be believed by his followers. We’re in Orwell territory, again.

Politico, 19 Feb 2025: Trump blaming Ukraine for Putin’s war leaves Europe reeling subtitled “The U.S. president called out Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a diatribe against Kyiv.”

Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, Lunacy, Personal history, Politics, Psychology | Comments Off on A Continual Stream of Lies and Gaslighting

How Soon Will This Madness End?

Posted on Tuesday 18 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

I keep thinking this has to implode, sooner rather than later. Trump and/or Musk will do something so egregious, so dangerous, that *someone* will step up to reign them in, even if very carefully, behind the scenes, so as not to upset the clueless MAGA supporters.

  • The Trump team keeps firing essential workers, perhaps by “accident,” now officials working on bird flu, and FAA employees despite several recent plane crashes, and earlier, the nuclear stockpile team.
  • Trump speaks like a true dictator about saving the country;
  • Trump and Musk’s claims of abuse have no evidence;
  • The immigrant taking away American jobs is… Elon Musk;
  • They want to throw people in jail;
  • How evil is the absence of empathy;
  • Measles outbreaks are linked to religious schools;
  • Is Donald Trump more like Hitler or August Caesar? Both;
  • Heather Cox Richardson on the “liberal consensus” and how the majority of Americans don’t actually want to get rid of government programs.

Examples of the first item today and yesterday.

NBC News, 18 Feb 2025: USDA says it accidentally fired officials working on bird flu and is trying to rehire them

Also:

NBC News, 17 Feb 2025: Hundreds of FAA employees are let go as Trump’s mass layoffs continue, subtitled “Nearly 300 Federal Aviation Administration employees were fired just weeks after a midair collision over Washington, D.C., killed 67 people.”

Not to mention the Delta rollover plane crash in Toronto yesterday.

Continue reading →

Posted in Conservative Resistance, History, Human Progress, Politics | Comments Off on How Soon Will This Madness End?

Mark Lilla, IGNORANCE AND BLISS

Posted on Monday 17 February 2025 by Mark R. Kelly

Subtitled “On Wanting Not to Know”
(Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Dec. 2024, 239p, including 12p notes and acknowledgments)

This is a little book published just a couple months ago that appealed for a couple reasons. First, I read the author’s previous book, THE ONCE AND FUTURE LIBERAL (review here), which was a decent-enough summary of various political matters, if not especially revelatory. And second, this book suggests it might inform associated themes about disinformation and fake news, about why people would prefer conspiracy theories to objective truth.

Continue reading →

Posted in Book Notes, Philosophy, Psychology | Comments Off on Mark Lilla, IGNORANCE AND BLISS