Saturday, November 9, 2024

aftermath of a regression for the mean: Trump 1.01



I live in a state—a nation: California (12% of U.S. pop.)—which voted strongly for Harris, for the Democrats’ Harris. I live in this world.

So, should I bother analyzing why a slight (sleighted) majority of the continent’s population prefers a showman, a propagandist, a carnival magician, a salesman playing power broker?

That’s something to explain relative to one’s interests in political life, integral for me generally.

Friday, October 25, 2024

facets of evolutionary dissonance



Who in the U.S. isn’t tired of the presidential election season? And I’m despaired about the degree of appeal that fascist Trump has in the world’s most “advanced” (pluralist) “democracy” (federation, which eludes the E.U.). (Nordic nations work well politically because they’re much more—still—ethnically homogeneous.)

Among many comments I make weekly at Washington Post articles,
this article on truthlessness in our politics caused this comment today, which implicitly laments the developmental relativity of political sense. (“FEMA” there is the Federal Emergency Management Administration,)

Sunday, June 16, 2024

Bloomsday for greater humanity



Leaders from the great plurality of nations, meeting in Switzerland, may have seemed to voice platitudes in their communique, but ask yourself: What can ultimately cohere humanity “fruitful[ly], comprehensive[ly] and constructive[ly]” other than sanctified commitment to the United Nations Charter and fidelity to UN-congruent international law by collaborative global political leadership?

The Summit photo is almost enough: “We are here. ‘High-level’ dialogue will prevail.”

Saturday, May 11, 2024

for united nations evolving Palestinian prosperity



At the New York Times, the excellent article on “…Biden’s Clash with Netanyahu…” caused my short comment, which brought a couple of replies, but the Times stopped new comments before I could post a second reply. In case you’re not a subscriber to the pay-walled site, here’s my comment, replies, and the reply which I couldn’t post:
me: I want to see more attention given to how collaborative regional leadership can lead to a Palestinian state which Israel can accept (especially by helping that to be so, in partnership); and extended attention given to how all regional powers can collaborate to rebuild Gaza.  

We need a vision for hope which is realistic and detailed, so that we have better reason to endure too much news about unbearable tragedy; so that Israel can be seen to serve constructive aims; and so that Palestinians can focus their energies on self-determination, not mere recovery.

Saturday, April 13, 2024

more exemplary persons



One of the great dimensions of democracy is the well-informed citizen. But time for that is stolen by the normal job world. Nevertheless, sustaining principled journalism is a noble profession.

A great exemplar was Robert McNeil, who died today at 93 (News Hour tribute video). This memorable man of art, as well as addict of news which matters, noted some years ago (tribute video: 10:00 min.) that “Winston Churchill said...the empires of the future are going to be empires of the mind.”