The premise of this piece is simple, the combination of two uncontroversial ideas. But the implications for understanding our time and perhaps others are magnificent. The clarity this union provides is a rope that people who want to reach for a better world cannot do without. The first thread is a juridical doctrine in First Amendment ...

The will never be a perfect science because every observer participates to some extent. Even the people watching from an airplane are observed by those watched. Economics is limited in its predictive capacity precisely because those observed and modeled are also observing, changing their values and thus their behavior accordingly. It i...

What to even say?

There are only three facts relevant to the aerial crash on January 29. 2025: • In the preceding 15 years, two (2) people died in US airline crashes. • The air traffic controller, along with every Federal air traffic controller in the county during the prior workday received an email encouraging them to resign. • Helicopter traffic had ...

What I fear from others is nothing more than I would do What I hate about others is nothing more than myself cast upon a silhouette The price of sin is knowing sin: what I have done may be done to me Time makes it seem divisible when in fact sin is one as love is one They say God helps those who wish to escape How else could love infil...

People from Harvard and Stanford are not necessarily smarter. They are more likely to be attentive to how they appear. People from Harvard and Stanford are no lt likely to work harder. But they are more likely to be neurotic. As for Yale people, they only talk to each other, so nobody knows.

It was not an obvious choice for me between the two candidates. Democratic countries supposedly become increasingly secular as time passes, but choosing either candidate in this race presupposed a faith more often ascribed to religion. One candidate's campaign is practically indistinguishable from a high school student council race. Th...

I had one question for you That you wouldn’t have answered anyway I thought about framing it as An answer I wanted on good authority Until I realized I don’t respect you at all You’re still tantalus like the rest of us A reptile more and more flaccid And asking you Would pass you ballast I wouldn’t get back

if you are too careful you will never learn that your judgments point inward not out

“Love” has been appropriated by everyone But who knows it Without using the word?

version 1 (general): i am most grateful to report that I am not immune to folly if judgment makes you better let judgment come version 2 (if you must know): i am most grateful to report I am not immune to folly no mere bodkin venerates that grievous fault as warp to woof my keeper is home needlepointing Christmas stockings, so carefull...

i was thinking why your pants are in my pile and one of my two pairs of jeans is in the wash when the door slammed behind you. the other was under a crate for dogs blocking the closet and i had to hurl packages from Hillhouse Home across the room, started rifling through the syrup-filled kitchen trash downstairs when you stole out the ...

St. Louis is the kind of place where people still buy Buicks new. Where they trick out Malibus, tinting the windows and driving them into the ground. You can always find parking in St. Louis. The downtown is like a tree chopped down and the municipalities blow and bustle as though you had only trimmed a hedge. There's breakdowns in St....

I recently saw a sassy T-shirt that read, "Without data, you're just another person with an opinion." I found this funny because with data, the person is still in the same situation. The further we drive along the road of data-centric culture, in fact, the more subjective data seems to become. Data scientists off the clock will readily...

men want what they cannot have women want what they can be sure of you think you're using sex sex uses us all we can't be sure of ourselves but we can be sure of others we can't have others but they can have us So: men get what they've been seeking and don't want it anymore women hold close consensus and, like all things, it dies to ch...

Most of us have had occasion to feel that deceased ancestors remain behind us, with us, or otherwise present in our lives. This conviction can visit at serendipitous moments or one can carry it for the remainder of their life. Microbiology offers a cogent lens on inheritance. Living things carry within them unique codes that express bo...

As we get older, our judgments of people form more of the basis for our interactions with them. This allows us to more comprehensively cooperate and organize in society, but it comes at profound cost. By the time we reach middle age, even a momentary unmediated perception of another is a rare and remarkable experience. We generally bri...

"What are you, chicken?" I remember hearing this a lot growing up. It could be in relation to moving firewood crawling with earwigs, searching the 200-year-old basement for the Christmas decorations, or swimming out to a mooring to make underwater repairs. It's a bit of a shock looking back on those times because I realize that fear wa...

Before going to school here I did no more than drive through once and stopped only because I got pulled over for speeding. That's sort of what I project as the general attitude and level of interest of the rest of the country in this state. So, as characterizations go, the details on Missouri are sketchy at best--there's not even a ste...

e.g., it's expensive being poor,

My wife and I attended a comedy show west of St. Louis on Friday night. It featured Heather McMahan, and she was much funnier than in her recently trending Netflix special, which focuses on bawdy and feminist but rather shallow humor. On second thought, maybe it's just a halo effect from her point-by-point explanation to all women in t...

Even as I argue on one hand that a blind drive towards disentangling individuals from social trappings comes with unremarked costs, it is clear that communications technology today attenuates autonomy. Economics tempts us to view the job market today as an extension of the job market 10, 50, or 100 years ago when in fact these are diff...

I have changed the title in this third part to avoid confusing what I am talking about with self-control. Although "self-regulation" appeals in that it challenges the anthem of individualism directly, there is no quantity of self-control that could replicate dare I say "organic" environmental mechanisms. (Parsing the dilemma confrontin...

About two years ago now, a friend who is really quite clever in other ways opined on faith in my home. "I think religion is great," said he. "I just don't know why you would pick one over another." His statement combined a patronizing attitude with such ignorance that I was initially at a loss. I repeated the question first. "You don't...

This quixotic quest to eradicate the supposed opponents of compassion is entirely circular. We all know that those attempting to rectify injustice are the most prone to commit wrongs. Intolerance begins at home, and it begins, not with hate but with indifference. Its root is nothing more than an assumption, the dauntless conviction in ...

The inverse of the cost of self-regulation is biologically evident. All organisms rely on cues from the environment to regulate internal metabolism and biochemistry. Circadian rhythms regulate sleep and waking states based on sunlight exposure. Migrating species such as monarch butterflies bank on magnetic signaling or unknown environm...

It is always a respite to return home. Body, mind, and spirit relax as one. The family patterns are familiar, even if we have outgrown them. The manners of our kin wash over us as assuredly as the smell of the vestibule. Doubtless, it takes years of social practice to habituate a family to itself, to say nothing of genetics. Social rhy...

"Two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly bythe love of self; the heavenly by the love of God," said Augustine. Power necessitates some blindness; otherwise it would not be power but love. The saying "love is blind" comes to mind but is never spoken by the lover or the beloved. It is a third party doting on the powerlessne...