The Simulation Hypothesis

By Jeannette Cooperman

Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson shocked a lot of his fans when he gave the simulation hypothesis fifty-fifty odds of being true, adding that it was hard to argue that we were not in a simulation.

Uncategorized | Dispatches

The Black Man behind the Curtain of the Rush Limbaugh Show

By Gerald Early

Integrated into this flattering memoir of Limbaugh is Golden’s autobiography, his adventures in radioland as a data analyst, a producer, a call screener, and an on-air personality. The book also devotes considerable space to Golden’s political views as a Black conservative.

Reviews

Tales of the Semi-Prisoner of Pennsylvania Avenue

By Claude R. Marx

Trump supporters may consider William P. Barr something of a modern-day Judas Iscariot, while Trump critics will deem him to be a shameless apologist. But those who take the time to read One Damn Thing After Another: Memoirs of an Attorney General will learn a great deal and have the chance to draw their own conclusions.

Reviews

Memories of Standing Rock, Five Years Later: Part Two

By John Griswold

Standing Rock disappeared from mainstream media in the daily deluge of political scandals and outre behavior. But Native Americans had predicted that sparks from Oceti Sakowin’s sacred fire would be carried around the earth, and they could be seen in other Indigenous camps and movements that resisted the Bayou Bridge Pipeline in Louisiana, the TransCanada Keystone XL pipeline, and the Thirty Meter Telescope on Mt. Mauna Kea.

Essays

The Art of Interrupting

By Jeannette Cooperman

To decide whether interrupting is rude, you cannot generalize. You need to know the style (verbal and cognitive) of everyone in the conversation, as well as its tone and its level of difficulty.

Uncategorized | Dispatches

The Slap Heard Round the World, or What is the Sound of One Hand Clapping?

By Gerald Early

The Oscars have figured out how to make this long, boring show interesting: Have the participants assault each other.

Uncategorized | Dispatches

Pillow Talk

By Jeannette Cooperman

To be pillowed, the Urban Dictionary tells us, is to be so exhausted you feel giddy, a little drunk.

Uncategorized | Dispatches

War, and What It is Good For

By Benjamin Cooper

The true profit in War is MacMillan’s subdued discussion of how war has disrupted ideas such as history, peace, and reason. The subtitle, however, suggests it will be something different.

Arts & Letters | Reviews

Good Morning, Belarus

By Richard Chapman

Belarus finally declared independence in 1990 but it was a republic ruled by Vladimir Putin’s puppet president, Alexander Lukashenko—the last of the old-school ironfisted dictators, whose reign continues to this day. For me that day in 2002 was the beginning of a mashup of Fear and Loathing in Minsk meets Planes, Trains and Oxcarts as I got a guided tour of the no man’s land just across the Pripyat River from the decaying, hulking skeleton of the Chernobyl Reactor Dome.

Essays

An Index to the Index

By Jeannette Cooperman

There is much I never knew in Index, "A History of the, whose subhead promises “A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age.” First, I never realized how jokey indexes could be, or how easily they could pop an overblown ego.

Uncategorized | Dispatches

Skip to content