Anthony Scaramucci famously played a comic role in the first year of Donald Trump’s presidency in a scene that had him enter stage right and exit stage left in record time. There have been many actors for secondary roles in the White House who have done the same thing, but...
Mexico’s economy has for at least a century functioned according to the mordida system, often described simply as “the way of getting things done.” The word “mordida” literally means “bite,” but as part of a functioning system, it simply means “bribe.” In some ways, it’s closer to the practice of...
Demographic experts increasingly agree that the extraordinary trend of population growth that took place over the past 200 years has already changed course. Darrell Bricker and John Ibbitson, the authors of the book “Empty Planet,” suggest that a complete reversal of the trend may be at hand. Writing for Foreign...
Business Insider attempts to make sense of the deep divide within the Democratic Party in the US that leaves those who identify as Democrats in a major metaphysical quandary, wondering not just about their identity but whether they have a claim to exist. In so doing, it demonstrates a problem...
Julie Turkewitz, writing for The New York Times, reveals the existence of an innovative sector of the economy represented by “a new group of real estate developers investing in the nation’s central prairies and Western foothills: doomsday capitalists.” Their business consists of following the wisdom of Dr. Strangelove in Stanley...
During the last two years of Bill Clinton’s presidency, the news media focused on one story: the Monica Lewinsky scandal. The developing and probably lingering story that may dominate the news cycle for the remaining 18 months of Donald Trump’s first presidential term may turn out to be another sex...
Author and editorialist Alan Weisman has reviewed Bill McKibben’s most recent book on the environment, “Falter: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out?” McKibben, an author-turned-activist, has been leading the campaign at 350.org to combat the resistance of oil companies to addressing the issue of climate change. In...
The HuffPost explores the question of whether, as Donald Trump and others have claimed, video games are responsible for the frequent mass killings in the US. We learn that Trevor Noah, a late-night television comedian, “introduced ‘The Legislator: License To Bill’ ― in which players try to pass firearms legislation...
In the runup to the 2018 midterm elections, US President Donald Trump insisted that what was happening at the border should be thought of as an invasion. Hesitating between employing a metaphor or a simile, Trump said, “Some people call it an ‘invasion.’ It’s like an invasion. They have violently...
After US President Donald Trump, in his tug of war with China over trade, formally accused Beijing of currency manipulation, the Chinese shot back with this message: “Today some in America are obsessed with American privilege to the point of destroying international rules and the international system … These Americans...
