In the December 1st New York Times, this opinion piece on Trump’s mental health: To the Editor: I am the editor of “The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President.” We represent a much larger number of concerned mental health professionals who have come forward to warn against … [Read more…]
An analysis from the Guardian (11/19/17) on “Why are libertarians lining up with autocrats to undermine democracy?” is found here. However, the long-term corrosive effect of Russia’s use of disinformation to break down trust in western institutions is hard to measure and may be unmeasurable. What is clear is that it is continuing with the … [Read more…]
View From the Valley Telecom Internet Tech Leaders Dismayed by Weaponization of Social MediaBy Tekla S. Perry Posted 14 Nov 2017 | 15:00 GMT IEEE SPECTRUM The tech industry can’t hide from the information war, particularly when its own creations are being weaponized. That was the consensus of a panel at the Techonomy17 conference in … [Read more…]
From the Guardian – Wednesday 15 November 2017 The inventor of the world wide web remains an optimist but sees a ‘nasty wind’ blowing amid concerns over advertising, net neutrality and fake news Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s optimism about the future of the web is starting to wane in the face of a “nasty storm” of … [Read more…]
In the New York Review’s Daily blog, Marilynne Robinson’s essay “Year One: Rhetoric & Responsibility” reminds me that we had a President in Obama who could appreciate her gifts and actually carry on a conversation at this level. I specially like this paragraph: The Trumps are a special problem, unembarrassed money-grubbers in whom other motives … [Read more…]
In a great article capturing the current efforts to make stupid “right”, Ariel Dorfman pulls together the stings in “Trump’s War on Knowledge.” From the NY Review of Books NYR Daily column, Oct 12, 2017.
Trump’s unfitness for office is a scathing reduction of the first six months of the Trump administration.
Lovely article in the NY Times of July 18, 2017 from Walter M. Shaub, Jr., former head of the Office of Government Ethics. The article can be found here and is a fine reminder of what has transpired in the first six months of the Trump administration. The cascading effects of the president’s departure from … [Read more…]
Always good to read Chompsky’s views and, as usual, he clarifies the issues in today’s State of the Union. From the New York Times, July 5, 2017. On nuclear war, actions in Syria and at the Russian border raise very serious threats of confrontation that might trigger war, an unthinkable prospect. Furthermore, Trump’s pursuit of … [Read more…]
In a heartbreaking article in the Washington Post about Secretary DeVos’ stand on climate change, the author, Valerie Strauss, adds a letter written by Sheldon Whitehouse, Rhode Island Democratic Senator where the Senator writes of the efforts of the Heartland Institute, a climate denial “think tank” to promote a climate denial information packet sent to … [Read more…]