"I wake up at 3 AM, check my phone to see what fresh hell has come out, and it's usually two words: 'Trump threatens.'" — Peter Bale We're reversing the lens today. Rather than examining America from the inside, we're peering at it from the outside in—from New Zealand, at…
"Great minds think alike? It's completely wrong. It's not that great minds think alike; it's that different minds are great." — David Oppenheimer It's diversity week. Yesterday, Brian Soucek argued in favor of what he calls the "opinionated university" to protect free speech. Today David Oppenheimer, law professor at UC…
"They are changing venture capital from a 30% tax to 0% tax. If Robinhood succeeds, it makes Sequoia and Andreessen's business model untenable." — Keith Teare The Silicon Gods must have their blood. And they've finally come for the funders of disruption, the venture capitalists, who are now being disrupted…
"150 universities have adopted neutrality policies just since October 7th. I'm on the losing end of this trend." — Brian Soucek Universities keep claiming what they see as the moral high ground of neutrality. But Brian Soucek, who holds the MLK chair at UC Davis School of Law, believes that's…
It's not just the right that's reacting against liberal democracy. Some progressives are also embracing populism. Charles Derber, longtime professor of sociology at Boston College, has a new book called Fighting Oligarchy: How Positive Populism Can Reclaim America. Rather than a dirty word, he argues, populism is an inevitable political…
"American culture likes martyrs, not marchers." — David Masciotra, quoting Jesse Jackson A couple of days ago, a great American died. Jesse Jackson was 84. He was somebody. Even Donald Trump acknowledged the passing of "a good man"—which, as my guest today notes, Jackson probably wouldn't have appreciated. David Masciotra…
"It truly is becoming a desert right now for book publicists." — Bethanne Patrick A couple of weeks ago, there was an "absolute bloodbath" at The Washington Post with hundreds of workers laid off and the book section totally gutted. Ron Charles, the beloved fiction editor, is gone. So is…
"I'm much more likely to protest when I feel responsible—when violence is being done in my name." — Bruce Robbins As always, the media is full of stories about political protest. A Columbia University Gaza protester held by ICE claims to have been chained to her bed after a seizure.…
"We are still dealing with a system which tolerates rampant abuse of accused people." — Emily Galvin Almanza Back in April 2024, we interviewed Thelton Henderson, one of the first African American federal judges in America. What disturbed me about our conversation was that even though Henderson grew up in…
"Two years from now, all white-collar jobs may be gone." — Dario Amodei (via Keith Teare) Are we spiders or are we frogs? That's the existential question facing us humans after just another revolutionary week in AI technology. Keith Teare leads this week's tech roundup with a video the aspiring…
"She's a ten to me and that's the part that matters." — Paul Eastwick If it's Valentine's Day, we must be talking about love. Paul Eastwick studies attraction and relationships at UC Davis, and his new book Bonded by Evolution takes aim at the "old science" that treated romance like…
"How can you not be a populist in this day and age?" — Hélène Landemore In February 2020, The New Yorker profiled a Yale professor making the case for citizen rule. Six years later, that political scientist, Hélène Landemore, has a new book entitled Politics Without Politicians arguing that politics…
