A luxury economy is not a sustainable economy — The world got a new richest man recently. Though most of the press focused on the dethroning of Elon Musk, whose sweaty gyrations as the new owner of Twitter have sent the stock of his other companies, and therefore his net worth, plummeting, I found the man who replaced him…

The end of Japanese pacifism, or why it’s hard for countries to buck the status quo — For the last seven decades, Japan has been a different kind of nation. When the Second World War ended, the United States forced an unconditional surrender on Japan. In the last year of the war, the U.S. devastated the country, first with the savage firebombing of its cities, killing hundreds…

Two changed my thinking; two were just really good! — It’s the end of the year — time to scroll through the list of what I’ve read in the last 12 months and reflect on what I’ve learned. I’ll be honest — 2022 wasn’t a great year for me and books. This year’s list didn’t have as many great books…

How boring, ineffectual hearings made me feel better about democracy — The House of Representatives’ January 6th Committee will soon close up shop. In some ways, they will have accomplished very little. Thanks to the obstinance of the Republican Party, the committee wasn’t really bipartisan — it only had two Republican members, neither of whom have a political future after participating…

Welcome to the real world, kid — It’s that time of year: High school seniors all over the country who applied early decision are receiving their admission decisions. The hallways of high schools across the country are peppered with excited shrieks or disappointed sobs (gone are the days when students waited by the mailbox for a fat…

How authoritarians like Trump create and exploit states of emergency — Every day, more evidence emerges that we all lived through the dumbest coup attempt in history. Talking Points Memo revealed that Republican Congressman Ralph Norman texted the White House Chief of staff this gem of a message in the days after January 6th: Mark, in seeing what’s happening so quickly…

Could 2023 be… somewhat normal? A look through rose-colored glasses — Can we call 2022 the last weird year? Honestly, that’s probably going too far. There will be many weird years to come. So let me temper it a little bit: 2022 could be the last in a string of seven surreal years in American politics and society. I have a…

What AI really means for teachers and students — As most of us know by now, ChatGPT — OpenAI’s latest artificial intelligence tool — is simultaneously awesome and a little unsettling. In case you haven’t read up on it yet, ChatGPT is a predictive AI that has been trained on much of the text on the internet. …

Part of an occasional series on semi-important historical figures with fun names — Preserved Fish was an early member of the illustrious Fish clan, an important family in early American history. …