As you learn more about an author, it can change how you feel about their book — My havurah (Jewish fellowship study group) decided to read Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, a bestseller published last year and featured in the New York Times. The author, Oliver Burkeman, has a Jewish background — someone in his family escaped the Holocaust — and he was raised “non-spiritual”…

It’s also performative — The type of discussion we call “philosophy” has always been about making conceptual distinctions. Words, generally, distinguish one thing from another. At least, they sure try. But many distinctions are feats of imagination, and it’s hard to know where to “draw the line,” so to speak. This keeps philosophers busy. …

Adam Serwer’s ‘The Cruelty is the Point’ — In 2018, Adam Serwer wrote a popular essay in The Atlantic called “The Cruelty is the Point.” It explained Trumpism. The title alone carries the point. In 2021, he released a good essay collection, using The Cruelty is the Point as the title. As I’ve been thinking lately about how…

That may be the intent. It sure looks like the outcome. — In yesterday’s episode of The Reidout, “Liz Cheney shows America the Jan. 6 committee means business in new video” (June 14, 2022). MSNBC host Joy Reid interviews NBC news reporter Ben Collins. The segment begins at 25:14–31:33 on Apple Podcasts. The Far-Right’s Freshly Anti-Trans Narrative Ben Collins says of the right-wing in the United States:

Because they’re bored by finally winning against abortion rights — On a recent episode of TruthOut’s “Movement Memos” — “Attacks on Trans Rights and Abortion Rights Are ‘Bound Together’” (June 3, 2022)—Kelly Hayes talks with fellow Truthout contributor Shane Burley, author of Fascism Today and Why We Fight. They talk about what Hayes describes as “the far right and how…

Violent far-right U.S. groups are ‘hugely and deeply’ anti-transgender — On June 10, NBC reporter Ben Collins spoke on “All In with Chris Hayes.” At one point (33:26–34:17 Apple; 33:52–34:41 Spotify) , he said that violent groups like the Proud Boys have “moved on” from the interests they had while Trump was in office. No longer, Collins said, are these…

But this award-winning novel can — If you read the description of Jeanne Thornton’s 2021 novel Summer Fun, you’ll learn that it’s the story of a young woman “obsessed with the Get Happies, the quintessential 1960s Californian band.” The character feels she needs to know: “Why did the band stop making music? Why did…

No, J. K. Rowling’s 2020 blog post wasn’t compassionate to trans people — The day J. K. Rowling published her June 2020 blog post, “Reasons for Speaking out on Sex and Gender Issues,” it was rebutted in a 120-tweet thread. It has been rebutted many more times since. Yet it keeps coming up. In particular, I have seen it endorsed in Helen Joyce’s…

This is real life, not a TV special, but also it’s a TV special — We shouldn’t treat politics as entertainment so we can kick back and watch it on TV, but: Watch the Hearing We should all watch the House committee’s long-awaited public hearings on TV. The first one is this Thursday night, June 9 — primetime! You can watch live, in full, on ABC, NBC, CBS…