America's gun madness: How guns went from tools to ideology to identity. By LUCIAN TRUSCOTT

Three letters: NRA. Beginning in the 1970s, the National Rifle Association transformed itself from a shooting sports organization into a political lobbying arm of the Republican Party.   How did we get from a little NRA indoor firing range with .22 target rifles to an entire convention hall filled with weapons of war and nostalgia for… Read More America's gun madness: How guns went from tools to ideology to identity. By LUCIAN TRUSCOTT

Fedor Stepun, 1884-1965

NB: Fedor Stepun was a Russian writer, editor, professor, political commentator. In 1922, he. along with over 200 non-communist intellectuals perceived as hostile to the Bolshevik regime. was arrested and ordered to leave the USSR within a week. They included the philosopher Nikolai Berdyaev, and scores of other academicians, writers, artists, editors of journals etc. DS… Read More Fedor Stepun, 1884-1965

Christopher Caldwell: Is This the End of French Intellectual Life?

 At the end of last summer, Le Débat, France’s most prestigious intellectual review, accompanied its 40th-anniversary issue with a wholly unexpected announcement: It would cease publication forthwith. Le Débat and its three or four thousand loyal readers had maintained an allegiance to the political left since the Cold War — but the meaning of “left”… Read More Christopher Caldwell: Is This the End of French Intellectual Life?

Shrestha Singh: I’m A First-Generation Indian American Woman. I Married Into A Family Of Trump Supporters

It was the grown-ups’ turn for presents. Tradition was to do a swap-or-steal gift exchange. I watched as my brother-in-law, a usually mild-mannered man, picked a gift and then shook it at the camera in our direction, a taunting glint in his eye. I looked closer. Whoever had wrapped it had meticulously taped a $2020… Read More Shrestha Singh: I’m A First-Generation Indian American Woman. I Married Into A Family Of Trump Supporters

Austin Ratner & Nisarg Gandhi: Psychoanalysis in combatting mass non-adherence to medical advice

The USA’s failure to contain COVID-19 has been spectacular from every angle. Looked at as a case of mass non-adherence to medical advice, however, it’s unique in modern history. Never before have so many citizens had so much access to information and simultaneously protested public health recommendations with such full-throated denial of the medical facts.… Read More Austin Ratner & Nisarg Gandhi: Psychoanalysis in combatting mass non-adherence to medical advice

MIND OF STATE, Episode 10: Justice, Rage & Peace. By Civil Rights Activist Eric Ward

MIND OF STATE, Episode 10: Justice, Rage & Peace    Civil Rights Activist Eric Ward — Exec Director of the Western States Center and Senior Fellow of the Southern Poverty Law Center — was an inspiration to speak with on White Supremacy, White Nationalism, Authoritarianism and how we combat these threats to our democracy https://apple.co/2W9rDdH… Read More MIND OF STATE, Episode 10: Justice, Rage & Peace. By Civil Rights Activist Eric Ward

Richard L. Eldredge: To my family who chose Trump over me: Was it worth it?

NB: A personal mini-memoir that is not only moving, but could make us think seriously about the significance of politics in private life; and the emotional investment involved in ideological thinking. It is important not only for Americans, but for people in different parts of the world whose inner lives have been transformed by their… Read More Richard L. Eldredge: To my family who chose Trump over me: Was it worth it?