Subterms
You pay little attention to the systems of your body — circulatory, digestive, pulmonary — unless something goes wrong. These automatic systems ordinarily go about their business, like unseen clockwork, while you think about a vexing problem at work, drink your morning cup of coffee, walk up and down the stairs and head out to […] More
Phillip Roth’s 2004 novel, “The Plot Against America,” has been made into a six-part TV series and shown recently on HBO in the United States and Great Britain. David Simon wrote the script for the television version and directed the production. Simon’s earlier credits include “The Wire,” “Treme” and “Murder: Life on the Streets,” all […] More
The Democrats and the Joe Biden presidential campaign find themselves embarrassed by an accusation of sexual assault dating back to 1993. Donald Trump and Bill Clinton before him have clearly demonstrated that allegations of sexual assault do not disqualify a candidate from becoming president. But in the era of #MeToo, following the Harvey Weinstein affair, […] More
The Democratic Party in the US has once again undertaken its mission to remove the biggest obstacle to achieving the promise of efficiency in democratic government. It consists of preventing people — in this case, its own voters — from having a voice in democracy. Can America’s Progressive Movement Thrive Without Bernie Sanders? READ MORE […] More
Last week, on William Shakespeare’s 456th birthday, US President Donald Trump — presumably under the influence of James Joyce, whom The Donald undoubtedly remembers as the author of “Finnegan’s Woke” — let the stream of his semi-consciousness guide his thoughts along a meandering medicalized path traversed by rivers of ultraviolet light subcutaneously striving to bleach […] More
Fear, in the globalized sense of the word, had largely dissipated ever since the height of the Cold War, when the world stood by as the two superpowers stared each other down with nuclear weapons. Largely absent since the days of brinkmanship seen during the Berlin Airlift and the Cuban Missile Crisis, the world has […] More
Fox News’ Tucker Carlson has interviewed Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick twice since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic. Patrick, a Republican, wants the American people to understand a simple fact: that the economy is far more important than human life. He has affirmed once again his unequivocal belief: “There are more important things than […] More
There is a general recognition that major problems and issues of our world — including understanding them and their causes and proposing remedies and coping strategies — are rarely simple in nature. Complexity theory and the long history of systems science, as exemplified by the work of such authorities as Ludwig von Bertalanffy, Talcott Parsons, Russ […] More
