Author: Lance Garrison
Flipping back and forth between wins and losses in Hollywood and Iowa, I couldn’t help thinking that Trump was at the wrong celebration.
Universities have always been a home for the world’s great arguments. Professors and students are supposed to debate the issues of the moment, gaining understanding of the other side’s views, refining and strengthening their positions, and learning how to solve problems. Argument thrives in a culture of openness, and maintaining that culture ought to be paramount for universities, as well as any institution that wants to shape public policy or debate.There are many ways to stifle a culture of openness; in recent years, both the far left and the far right have shown a willingness to win arguments by silencing…
My old pal Bill Beard was as complicated as America, as creative, as loving and sometimes as troubled.As I sat by Bill’s deathbed recently, we reminisced about searching in the woods as boys for Bigfoot. (It’s just as well, we decided, that we never caught one.) We spoke of long-ago crushes, of his prison time, of his love for his wife. Gingerly, we discussed the young woman he had brutalized.When we were boys, Bill tried to teach me how to fix cars; he wasn’t so successful at that. But with the bumpy course of his life, he taught me how…
This meant that no matter what Trump tweeted or what corrupt things he tried to do, for much of his presidency, establishment and business-class Republicans felt as if they were — to some degree, at least — in charge of the American government, getting exactly the judges they wanted, arming Ukraine and supporting Israel, passing a very traditional Republican tax cut. (And if they didn’t get sweeping spending cuts or dramatic entitlement reform, well, they didn’t get those with George W. Bush or Ronald Reagan, either.) Throughout, Trump’s general haplessness eased their fears about his authoritarianism, helping convince them that…
Angela Aneiros, an assistant professor at Gonzaga University School of Law in Spokane, Wash., can’t get enough of Elon Musk.“For better or worse, he’s like the gift that keeps on giving to corporate law professors. Because there’s just so much. It actually helps me teach the material. The students relate to Musk and I can say to them, ‘Here’s the perfect example of what not to do.’”The latest perfect example is what Musk wrote on Monday on X, which he owns. He said he is “uncomfortable” working to make Tesla into a leader in artificial intelligence and robotics unless he…
The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, is largely an opportunity for the powerful to mingle with the even more powerful. For the most part, I’ve spent my time here listening to government leaders — Iran’s foreign minister struck me as an exceptionally talented dissembler — and schmoozing with business leaders, think tankers and officials at Davos’s famous private dinners and after-parties.But the most moving stories I heard this week came from some of the least powerful people here.“I open my eyes and feel my throat close,” Rachel Goldberg told me, describing her mornings over the…
Israel has been at war with Hamas for over 100 days and still has over 100 hostages to recover, but Netanyahu’s No. 1 focus is Netanyahu.
Jan. 19, 2024 – The familiar symptoms are back again – a runny nose, coughing, aches, congestion, and maybe a fever. When the at-home COVID-19 test comes back negative, you head to the doctor to see if they can figure out what you’ve caught. At the doctor, though, the typical COVID and flu tests also come back negative. It could seem like a new mysterious respiratory illness is making the rounds.Instead, several typical respiratory viruses seem to be peaking at once. Doctors are reporting high levels of COVID, the flu, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), as well as other “flu-like…
A somewhat obscure text, about 2,000 years old, has been my unlikely teacher and guide for the past many years, and my north star these last several months, as so many of us have felt as if we’ve been drowning in an ocean of sorrow and helplessness.Buried deep within the Mishnah, a Jewish legal compendium from around the third century, is an ancient practice reflecting a deep understanding of the human psyche and spirit: When your heart is broken, when the specter of death visits your family, when you feel lost and alone and inclined to retreat, you show up.…
To the Editor:In “How to Fix America’s Immigration Crisis” (Opinion guest essay, Jan. 14), Steven Rattner and Maureen White argue: “We need to come to a national consensus on how many immigrants we want to accept and the bases for determining who is chosen. That includes balancing the two principal objectives of immigration policy: to meet our legal and moral humanitarian obligations to persecuted individuals and to bolster our work force.”These two objectives need not be at odds. Pathways for displaced people who have skills needed by U.S. employers can benefit displaced people, employers and the communities that welcome new…