An Odious and Unwise Endorsement

The American Association of University Professors endorsed a political candidate for the first time in its 110-year history.

Its views, long suspected, are now out in the open.

A Crisis in the Humanities

 Quillette: Peter Boghossian writes about the rigid orthodoxy on political issues.

Not to worry. They will defend your right to agree with them.

On Writing

 When I write, I feel like an armless, legless man with a crayon in his mouth.

- Kurt Vonnegut

[Read the sample from my novel, Pilate's Magician. The book went through numerous drafts.]

Living with Heat

The hottest day in Phoenix was memorable: 122 degrees in 1990.

Somehow all of the "But it's a dry heat" jokes didn't work then. I opened my front door, and it was like opening the door of an oven.

Stunningly hot.

But living in Phoenix is usually akin, I suppose, to living in Alaska: you adjust to the weather. Most places are air-conditioned and there are times when you are only moving about in an air-conditioned car.

[And the winters are marvelous.]

It is expected that our water bills will climb due to the multistate battles over Colorado River water. Much of that is unfair because Arizona has been far more active with water conservation than California. 

There is also the sensitive issue of agriculture. Farming can easily take more water than a sub-division, but the state and the nation will pay a price if the farms disappear.

In the meantime, we're optimistic. The predicted high temperature for today is 104 degrees. Some rain is expected next week.

Hmm

 

The Paradox of The Information State

 And herein lies a central paradox of the information state. The great ills that it seeks to remedy, such as disinformation, are themselves products of the very thing, namely the surveillance- and attention-based Internet, on which the state relies. That is why, throughout all the outcry about the evils done by Facebook or Twitter, the politicians who are loudest in condemning those platforms do not take the obvious step of seeking to make them less powerful. Their aim is not to reform or rebuild the repressive infrastructure of the Internet, only to make it serve their own interests.

- From The Information State: Politics in the Age of Total Control by Jacob Siegel

The Real Victims of The Long March Through American Institutions

 

My Substack essay explores how it happened.

[Photo by Colin Lloyd at Unsplash]

"There Will Come Soft Rains"

 "August 6, 2026."

A spooky story by Ray Bradbury.

Films About Totalitarianism: A Series

 

The Arday Scandal

 The Free Beacon on the scandal involving the youngest black professor in Cambridge history.