The Hidden Costs of Unnecessary Work

By reevaluating the role of work, we can remake our economy and our lives

_____ As America looks cautiously toward economic “reopening” post-pandemic, most official prescriptions tend to share a fundamental premise: rebounding to pre-pandemic G.D.P. growth and pursuing the promise of new employment opportunities in the private sector. President Biden’s "Build Back Better" climate and economic recovery plan has been geared toward putting Americans back to ...
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The Hidden Costs of Unnecessary Work

Steve Bannon and the Aesthetics of Catholic Romanticism

Why the populist Svengali wants to have a power base near the Vatican

_____ Steve Bannon would have you believe he’s a “gladiator,” but his exploits in Rome suggest a more apt historical analogy: clearly he is a Romantic. In August 2020, Bannon was arrested and charged with fraud for his involvement in the mismanagement of a crowdsourced fund to build President Trump’s border wall. ...
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Steve Bannon and the Aesthetics of Catholic Romanticism

Why Asian Americans Need a Language Access Revolution, Now

Taking stock in the wake of the Atlanta spa murders

_____ On Tuesday, March 16, a white man killed eight people – among them six Asian American women – at a massage parlor in Georgia. Almost a week later, the 911 caller’s desperately hushed pleadings won’t leave my head. When I replay the woman’s voice – turning hard, Korean corners on hanging ...
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Why Asian Americans Need a Language Access Revolution, Now

Joe Biden Embraces Liberalism

But is he returning to a New Deal vision? Comparisons to Harry Truman may be more apt

_____ Yesterday, the Biden administration issued a proclamation on Black Maternal Health Week. It noted that African American mothers die from pregnancy-related complications at two to three times the rates of white, Hispanic, Asian American, and Pacific Islander women, no matter what their income or education levels. President Joe Biden and ...
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Joe Biden Embraces Liberalism

Reflections on Violence

In defense of rioting, looting, and vandalism

_____ What follows is an excerpt from a longer interview with AK Thompson, conducted by E. Colin Ruggero, and published as part of a special edition of Theory in Action titled “Revisiting the Riot: 10th Anniversary of A.K. Thompson’s Black Bloc, White Riot.” Thompson’s book was first published in 2010 by the ...
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Reflections on Violence

What A Korean American Will Find in Minari

And what most Americans will miss about the Oscar-nominated film

_____When Parasite came out, I couldn’t bring myself to watch it. Looking back, it was for the same reason that I – a philosophy graduate student at Stanford – resisted Asian philosophy for six years: I didn’t want to be a typical Asian taking interest in Asian things. I wanted to ...
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What A Korean American Will Find in <em>Minari</em>

Wounds That Don’t Heal

A new movie about the Iraq war reminds us that soldiers have always been left to cope with the visible and invisible toll of war

_____ On Friday March 12, Anthony and Joe Russo’s film Cherry was released on Apple TV+. Adapted from Nico Walker’s mostly autobiographical novel of the same name, it stars Tom Holland as Cherry, a Cleveland native who enlists in the Army and deploys to Iraq. There, he is traumatized by the ...
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Wounds That Don’t Heal

Dan Crenshaw’s Eye

As he recovers from sight-saving surgery, will the second-term Texas congressman reflect on the health insurance that other Americans don’t have?

_____ Last week, Representative Dan Crenshaw (R, TX-2) sent out a quietly heartbreaking press release. It notified constituents and colleagues that Crenshaw would be temporarily out of commission as doctors work to save his one partially-functioning eye. OK, you may not like Crenshaw very much: I don’t. He is a Trump baby, elected ...
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Dan Crenshaw’s Eye

Brazil

Land of despair

Brazil faces two threats, both lethal. On top of COVID-19, the country faces another virus, lethal to democracy: the virus of autocracy. The pandemic is brutally sweeping Brazil. Almost 4000 deaths per day, according to official data. There is no reason to doubt that we will reach more than 500,000 ...
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Brazil

Why We Shouldn’t Cancel Foucault

Even if he did have sex with underage boys in a Tunisian cemetery in the Sixties

_____ This interview appeared in Spanish in La Tercera, a daily newspaper published in Santiago, Chile. It was prompted by the claims recently made by Guy Sorman on French television and in The Sunday Times that (as the Times’ headline puts it) “FRENCH PHILOSOPHER MICHEL FOUCAULT ‘ABUSED BOYS IN TUNISIA’.” _____ Andrés Gómez ...
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Why We Shouldn’t Cancel Foucault

The PMC Has Children

Virtue Hoarders: The Case against the Professional Managerial Class

_____ From the very moment of conception, which for professional managerial class (PMC) parents is always a “choice,” the future child and infant possesses “potential” that has to be both optimized and maximized. PMC mothers have to do prenatal yoga while setting up intrauterine Mozart streams on pregnant bellies. Preparing for ...
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The PMC Has Children