Orhan Cam / Shutterstock Conspiracy theories have a long history, but the actual term “conspiracy theory” emerged much more recently. It was only a few decades ago that the term took on the derogatory connotations it has today, where to call someone a conspiracy theorist functions as an insult. So it may come as no […] More
Pete Buttigieg speaks with members of the media on March 1 in Plains, Georgia. AP Photo/Matt Rourke According to family lore, my father suspected I was gay when I was six because I liked cars with windshield wipers in the rear. (As a shrink, he’s always had a penchant for looking under the hood, so […] More
Other sectors of the world economy may be suffering but the arms industry continues to do a roaring trade, and nowhere more so than in the MENA region. In its annual report released on March 9, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), notes a dramatic increase in weapons exports to a part of the world engaged […] More
What message is Attorney General William Barr sending citizens in defying court order? Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images What happens to the rule of law when even the top law enforcement official in the land refuses to obey it? That’s the question raised in a stinging rebuke of Attorney General William Barr and his Justice […] More
Donald Trump filed his paperwork to run for reelection only hours after his inauguration in January 2017, setting a presidential record, the first of his many dubious achievements. For a man who relished the adulation and bombast of campaigning, it should have surprised no one that he charged out of the starting gate so quickly for 2020 […] More
Watching French President Emmanuel Macron’s address to the nation on March 12, I couldn’t avoid admiring the skill with which he deployed two supremely engineered strategic themes. After drawing attention to the importance of a concerted European response to the pandemic, he insisted that the French government would not only bypass the interests of the […] More
The philosopher Martha Nussbaum has a prodigious output and, indeed, it takes a prodigious effort to keep up with it. No sooner had I completed reading the latest trio of her books than a new one was signaled, many of the recent works being based on her delivery of prestigious guest lectures at universities around […] More
A sudden controversy has exploded in the Netherlands. In March, the Dutch department store HEMA began selling a traditional Dutch pastry under the name chocoladebal (chocolate ball) instead of moorkop (referring to the head of a dark-skinned person). HEMA followed in the footsteps of a small baker who believed the racist connotation left the chocolate-glazed […] More
