Let’s Talk About Violence
Enough about sex. Let’s talk about violence, baby.
Harris on Harris: The Donald Trump Edition
After the gay nightclub massacre in Orlando last year, Roger Jimenez, pastor of a small Baptist church in California, gave a sermon proclaiming that he’s “upset” the gunman “didn’t finish the job,” and that the government should have all the “sodomites” lined up against the wall and “blow their brains out.” In the ensuing backlash, Jimenez complained that […]
Donald Trump and the Continuing Bush-Obama Legacy
My first foray into blogging was when, halfway into Obama’s first term, I wrote a long article titled Little Hope for Change: A Summary of the Bush-Obama Legacy, which my friend Tim Page turned into the website Obama the Conservative. It was a blog that featured just this single, periodically updated article, nearly 20,000 words […]
Limited Hangout: A Rare Dylan Bootleg
(LHN) In honor of Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize in Literature, to be awarded later this week, we are posting a video of this rare bootleg recording of Limited Hangout — a song that was originally the inspiration for the name of this blog.
Michelle Obama Gives Brave Speech on Saudi Women’s Rights
(LHN) Concluding a week that had already seen growing international attention around a petition by Saudi women for full-fledged citizenship, the activists behind the #IAmMyOwnGuardian campaign added a surprising and powerful ally to their ranks: First Lady of the United States, Michelle Obama. In an emotional speech during a Clinton campaign rally, Mrs. Obama condemned the appalling treatment […]
Technology Bringing Dumb Ethical Questions to Life (Kind Of)
On self-driving cars and the “Trolley Problem,” buttons that kill random Chinese people, Sam Harris, and The Twilight Zone.
Duck Speeches: This Month in Mangled, Mimicked, and Meaningless Words
Political speech, as George Orwell has noted, is often not speech in the fullest sense of the word. “Duckspeak” is tribal signaling, half-consciously discharging from the speaker’s oral cavity, meant to be received in the same unthinking stimulus-reflex manner.
Putin on the Baltic
The Ruskies are coming! And you thought the Cold War was over? Well, the “cold” bit might soon be. We better leave it to the pundits in their infinite wisdom to decide whether we’ve already progressed into a Lukewarm or even a Kind of Balmy War already.
Brexit: Hysteria, Prejudice, and Misguided Emotion on Both Sides
Public discourse is exploding with expressions of panic and a kind of solidarity in resentment. But underneath all the scorn and anger, few substantive arguments figure into the discussion, while many of the endlessly repeated conventional points are misguided and offensive.
The Marxists of Goldman Sachs
We’re all reactionary. This is the political equivalent of Dostoyevsky’s Christian maxim, “we’re all guilty”. No one can be in total solidarity with all of humanity, and those who pretend to are usually either irritating hippie-types, or real creeps, like cult leaders, fanatical militant egalitarians, or abusive parents. Much of the appeal of right-wing ideology […]
Limited Hangout 