The challenge for Mr. Trump will be convincing voters that he really does mean to improve conditions for working-class and middle-class Americans and not just play to their grievances. If he does, and brings the party along with him, he…
Monthly Archives: July 2016
Nicholas Gallagher: Immigration and the Political Explosion of 2016 – The American Interest
Just as how at the turn of the 20th century, people failed to see how factory work would thoroughly replace family farming as the source of American income and identity, so too today we struggle to foresee what will come after “Allentown.” As…
An Alliance of Digital Artists (Art and Work in the Age of Instant Reproducibility)
If the Digital Artists Alliance never amounts to more than a temporary reference point, the basis for a gesture of respect by some site operators toward an ideal, then that will be enough for me, but I invite anyone interested in exploring larger possibilities to join me.
The Prospects for Alien Life on Titan Keep Getting Better – Gizmodo
Now, Rahm’s models are showing that under Titan-like environmental conditions, polyimine is both flexible and good at absorbing sunlight. “It turns out, different conformations of this material absorb different wavelengths of light, including wavelengths that are accessible on the surface…
Posted in Noted & Quoted, Science
Josh Marshall: Understanding the Trump/Star of David Blow Up – TPM
Racism and authoritarianism are core Trump values that predate and are separate from this campaign. The other thing that’s very apparent about Trump is that he’s shockingly, almost totally ignorant of the details of almost every public policy issue –…
The Oldest Song in the World – Open Culture
The piece, writes Richard Fink in a 1988 Archeologia Musicalis article, confirms a theory that “the 7-note diatonic scale as well as harmony existed 3,400 years ago.” This, Fink tells us, “flies in the face of most musicologist’s views that…
Watch a cyborg stingray made of rat heart cells swim using light – New Scientist
Designed by Kevin Kit Parker from Harvard University’s Wyss Institute and his team, the 16-millimetre-long soft robot has a gold skeleton overlaid with a flexible polymer. Its muscles are made up of about 200,000 rat heart cells laid down in…
Posted in Noted & Quoted, Science
Noah Rothman: Trump, Saddam, and Dovish Logic – Commentary
Prior to his ouster, the United States was compelled to engage in military action against Hussein as a result of his provocations in 1991, 1993, 1996, and 1998. Those military actions were precipitated by little things like the invasion and annexation…
Hussein Ibish: Elie Wiesel’s Moral Imagination Never Reached Palestine – Foreign Policy
The fraught relationship between Wiesel and his Arab contemporaries is characterized by a disheartening lack of compassion in the context of a conflict that often feels profoundly existential. Both Wiesel and his Arab detractors and antagonists all too often bought…
Posted in International Relations, Noted & Quoted Tagged with: Elie Wiesel, Holocaust, Israel, Palestine