Something terrible is always happening around the world. Many of us living in peaceful places can’t help but wonder at our good fortune while we seek to understand what has gone so wrong elsewhere. 1 Two mornings a week on my ninth floor terrace,
Politics
Neely and Penny: What Do We Know?
The other day, a friend was sitting in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park with a friend when a friend of the friend appeared. Somehow a recent incident came up. On May 1, a 24-year-old, white ex-marine named Daniel Penny put a thirty-year-old black man named
Sunlight at Amherst?
I finally have the basic answer to the question I posed to my alma mater, Amherst College, nearly two years ago. Subscribers to this website may recall that, after being excluded from a Zoom presentation in 2021 due to the College’s reliance on an
Disability Discomfiture
I remain deadlocked with my beloved alma mater, Amherst College, over its refusal to answer my question about how many blind and otherwise physically disabled students it has admitted in the past ten years. As I wrote in my July 5, 2021 essay
“I Think,” Therefore I Listen
A book review I just encountered from six decades ago uses the phrase “I think” not once, but twice. Such a concession to subjectivity isn’t only rare today, but even frowned on. It shouldn’t be. “I think” might make the world a kinder, gentler
Two Tribesmen, Three Allegiances
1 That societies are split by tribalism is a commonplace, but last weekend’s World Cup quarterfinal game between England and France showed tribalism in a special light. Two aspects of that December 10 game may have significance even for those who