There's a lot of talk in progressive circles about "The Revolution." This was especially prevalent during the Bernie Sanders campaign. Some progressives had the idea that all that stood between us and Paradise was something so artificial that we could break through it with a single presidential victory. Unfortunately, the actual elephant in the room is far more substantial: the inconvenient truth that there are more conservatives than there are liberals in this country.… [more]
In all our declarations and discussions of how terrible Trump is, or how "broken" our democracy is, or how oppressive the "Establishment" is, let's not forget the doubly metaphorical elephant in the room: the fact that roughly half of our fellow voters cast their ballots for Trump, and that even now, after the disaster his presidency has been so far, a significant number of them still support him.… [more]
I saw the movie "Arrival" yesterday — for the second time. I plan to watch it at least once or twice more, depending on how many friends I can compel to join me. Before I saw it for the first time, I had certain preconceptions about what it would be, based on reviews I'd read. The reviews also told me that I would be surprised by what it actually turned out to be.… [more]
To my mind, the most important line from Bernie's email to his delegates yesterday asking them not to protest was, "But that's not what will expand the progressive movement in this country." For Bernie, the goal is to make actual progress in this country, and he realizes that in order to do that, the progressive movement needs to grow, because right now, we just don't have the votes to elect a presidential candidate like him.… [more]
About a month and a half ago, I wrote a post about why Bernie Sanders was losing the Democratic nomination to Hillary Clinton. Since then, Sanders has done much better in various state primaries, and has closed Clinton's delegate lead from 24% to 10%. Nevertheless, his chances of winning are much lower now than they were then, because there aren't many more delegates up for grabs. … [more]
I recently wrote about how to properly understand scientific studies. In this post, I want to discuss three recent pieces of news that might be producing science cynicism. I'll present each item, give examples of how it might be simplistically misconstrued, and then explain its true significance.… [more]
Unfortunately, it's looking like Bernie Sanders is not going to win the Democratic nomination. Or if he does, it will only be through a miraculous turnaround in how Democratic voters have been casting their ballots so far. (Perhaps in combination with a number of superdelegates switching their endorsements.)
Here's the scope of the challenge:… [more]
I have lots of friends who are very committed to either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders, and their zeal has me feeling optimistic about the future of the Democratic party. Whoever wins the nomination is going to have an army of near-fanatics at their service, and I'm excited about the possible VPs each might select. I'm also looking forward to the next meaningful primary cycle four or eight years from now, when I suspect we'll have even better candidates to choose from — Hello, Elizabeth Warren!… [more]
This is my review of the recently recalled picture book, A Birthday Cake For George Washington. For those who haven't seen it and will now be unable to obtain it, here's my page by page synopsis of the book with excerpts from the text and tiny, super low resolution thumbnails of the interior pages.… [more]
I went out to see the full lunar eclipse tonight. Here on the West coast, the Moon was suppose to rise in time for us to see the whole nearly hour and a half of its full eclipse, but where I was, the Oakland hills and a thin layer of hazy cloud cover kept it out of sight for over an hour. … [more]
