Also Check Out Murray's Book

 

First Paragraph

 In November 2004, I took a job with a courier company in Iraq and moved to a patch of gravel next to the airport in Mosul. Two small, temporary buildings served as office and living quarters. I shared them with two homesick Nepalese Gurkhas and a retired British soldier. Our planes flew in from Bahrain, and the four of us worked with a team of five Iraqis to unload and deliver their cargo. U.S. soldiers received care packages from family and equipment from far-off bases. Iraqis came to collect diesel engines, X-ray machines for the local hospital, and crate upon crate of untaxed Jordanian cigarettes for resale. At night, the Gurkhas ran up massive bills calling Nepal on our satellite phone, and the Brit watched movies, drank whiskey, and cleaned his boots and his gun.

- From The Way of the Strangers: Encounters with the Islamic State by Graeme Wood

The University Scam

We now make it relatively easy for students to meet the immediate cash outlay of attending college with readily available loans, but this has the effect of diminishing the consumer's natural tendency to scrutinize the real value of what he is paying for. The result is that students are starting their working lives shouldering large debts that will take them many years to repay, while in many cases what they are getting for it is little more than a piece of paper - a diploma certainly but without the skill and knowledge that such a diploma used to certify.

- John M Ellis, The Breakdown of Higher Education (2021)

[Photo by Ben Iwara for Unsplash+]

Taking No Prisoners

Sam Kriss on Jason Arday.

Firing in all directions.

Films About Totalitarianism: A Series

 

First Paragraph

 The word "revolution" has an interesting etymology. When asked by Soviet sociologists what it meant to them, Russian peasants responded "samovol'shchina," or, roughly, "doing what you want." In modern advertising, "revolutionary" has come to mean "radically new," and hence, by implication, "improved." When used in everyday speech, it is another way of saying "drastically different." From such usage one would hardly suspect that the word had its origins in astronomy and astrology.

- From A Concise History of The Russian Revolution by Richard Pipes

Deeply Appreciated

 Many thanks to Kurt Harden and all others who've written their very kind reviews of Pilate's Magician.

Those matter more than I can say.

The Tide is Turning

 

My Substack is up: The Divisiveness of Diversity Mismanagement.

[Photo by Fine Photographics at Unsplash]

Happiness

A Large Regular has a very helpful perspective by Michael Lewis.

[Photo by Ryoji Iwata at Unsplash]

The Math Gap

San Francisco Standard: A Berkeley mathematics class has students who are "five to eight years behind in mathematics."

An excerpt: "Office hours that should be spent discussing integrals instead become lessons on fractions and basic algebra you would expect students to learn in middle school."

[Photo by Eric Prouzet at Unsplash]