Latest Articles

Enlightened despots are never enlightened

October 21, 2018  •  The Boston Globe

DURING A CRACKDOWN on political dissent last year, the Saudi Arabian government arrested dozens of peaceful individuals. Those seized in just a single week's raids, The New York Times reported, included "clerics, academics, a poet, an economist, a journalist, the head of a youth organization, at least two women, and ... a son of a former king." None of the detainees was known to advocate extremist or criminal acts; their offense was that they failed to publicly applaud Riyadh's diplomatic and economic campaign against neighboring Qatar.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

Elizabeth Warren, typical white person

October 17, 2018  •  The Boston Globe

ON MONDAY, Senator Elizabeth Warren released the results of a DNA test confirming what everyone already knew: The "vast majority" of her genetic makeup is European, but she may have a Native American ancestor in her distant past. That makes her, as Barack Obama once said in a different context, a "typical white person."

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

Look what you made Taylor Swift do

October 14, 2018  •  The Boston Globe

ENDORSEMENTS IN Tennessee election campaigns don't usually draw international headlines. But when Taylor Swift on Oct. 7 told her 112 million Instagram followers that she intends to vote next month for two Democrats — US Senate candidate Phil Bredesen and Representative Jim Cooper — news outlets the world over rushed to report the news.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

Victims may be sincere, but memory is fallible

October 10, 2018  •  The Boston Globe

IN TIME, the rage and rancor of the Brett Kavanaugh fight will subside, as rage and rancor invariably do.

But the wounds of the last few weeks won't really heal. It's only a matter of time until a similarly bitter partisan fight erupts, and when it does we will sink to even deeper levels of spite and malice. The campaign to block Kavanaugh's confirmation went beyond anything we've seen in a Supreme Court confirmation battle, and the ugly recklessness of recent days will be back.

Of all the demons unleashed during the assault on Kavanaugh, perhaps the scariest was the casual repudiation of due process — the wholesale elevation of belief over facts as the yardstick by which accusations should be judged.

Continue to the full article  |  More articles

America has grown. Its highways should, too.

October 7, 2018  •  The Boston Globe

"NOBODY GOES THERE to eat anymore," the legendary baseball star and malaproprist Yogi Berra once said about a St. Louis restaurant. "It's too crowded."

We laugh at the ingenuous irony in Berra's words: His remark simultaneously contradicts itself, yet makes intuitive sense. Obviously the restaurant is crowded because customers are going there. On the other hand, who wants to go to a restaurant that's always crowded?

Continue to the full article  |  More articles