Author: Lance Garrison
To the Editor:Re “After Arrests at Columbia, Students Face More Fallout” (news article, April 21):As parents of students suspended by Columbia University and Barnard College, we write to express our outrage.After deploying the New York Police Department on Columbia’s campus to shut down what Chief of Patrol John Chell characterized as a “peaceful” protest (as reported in The Columbia Daily Spectator), Columbia and Barnard have suspended over 100 students, a great many of whom have been summarily evicted from their dorms and barred from dining halls without a formal investigation or hearing.Among the evicted are lower-income students, students of color,…
“You know, if someone had said to me a few years ago, ‘there’s going to be a time in your existence in New York City where you’re going to see a roach and you’re not going to run for the toilet paper, and you’re not going to run for a flyswatter, you’re not going to run to pummel it with the back of a dustpan or broom. You’re going to actually crush it with your bare hand.’ And I would say, ‘that’s absolutely ridiculous. I will never be driven to that.’” “I hit them. I give them a jab. I…
Produced by ‘The Ezra Klein Show’In our recent series on artificial intelligence, I kept returning to a thought: This technology might be able to churn out content faster than we can, but we still need a human mind to sift through the dross and figure out what’s good. In other words, A.I. is going to turn more of us into editors.But editing is a peculiar skill. It’s hard to test for, or teach, or even describe. But it’s the crucial step in the creative process that takes work that’s decent and can turn it into something great.[You can listen to…
About a year ago, when Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, indicted former President Donald Trump, I was critical of the case and called it an embarrassment. I thought an array of legal problems would and should lead to long delays in federal courts.After listening to Monday’s opening statement by prosecutors, I still think the Manhattan D.A. has made a historic mistake. Their vague allegation about “a criminal scheme to corrupt the 2016 presidential election” has me more concerned than ever about their unprecedented use of state law and their persistent avoidance of specifying an election crime or a valid…
Imagine that during a Supreme Court argument, protesters angry about the case storm the court building. The mob breaks doors and windows and assaults security officers while forcing its way into the chamber. Some shout that they want to hang the chief justice. The justices and attorneys are forced to flee for their lives. It’s several hours before law enforcement secures the building and the argument can resume.Has the court proceeding been obstructed or impeded? That doesn’t seem like a difficult question. But that’s essentially what the Supreme Court heard debated in arguments last week in Fischer v. United States,…
In the 1970s, the filmmakers Claudia Weill and Eli Noyes interviewed New Yorkers across the city about their unwanted roommates: roaches.
Last summer, for example, in the midst of a dangerous heat wave that put thousands of lives at risk, Gov. Greg Abbott of Texas signed a law nullifying local rules requiring water breaks for outdoor workers. The law targeted provisions passed by officials in Austin and Dallas that gave construction workers a 10-minute break every four hours. “For too long, progressive municipal officials and agencies have made Texas small businesses jump through contradictory and confusing hoops,” said Dustin Burrows, the Republican state representative who introduced the bill. Burrows, it should be noted, is a small-business owner himself.More recent is a…
This spring is the 400th anniversary of the founding of New York — or, to be precise, of the Dutch colony that became New York once the English took it over. It’s a noteworthy milestone. That settlement gave rise to a city unencumbered by old ways and powered by pluralism and capitalism: the first modern city, you might say.Don’t feel bad, though, if you were unaware of the birthday. Organizers of commemorative events have themselves been in a quandary about how to observe it — a quandary that has become familiar in recent years. Yes, New Netherland, the Dutch colony,…
More and more people, including Pope Francis, are asking Ukraine to drop its defense and sit at the negotiation table with Russia. Citing the stalemate on the battlefield and Russia’s superior resources, they urge Ukraine’s leadership to consider a deal. What exactly that would involve is largely left unsaid. But it would clearly involve freezing the conflict, resigning Ukraine’s occupied territory to Russia in exchange for an end to the fighting.My country, Moldova, knows all about that kind of bargain. A small western neighbor of Ukraine, Moldova experienced Russia’s first post-Soviet war of aggression, which ended with a cease-fire agreement…
Before there was Elon Musk, there was William Crapo Durant. Billy Durant, as he was known, built one of the world’s biggest makers of horse-drawn carriages, bought control of Buick, co-founded General Motors, was forced out of General Motors, co-founded Chevrolet, regained control of General Motors, speculated on stocks, lost control of General Motors a second time, started Durant Motors, went bankrupt in the Depression, opened a bowling alley, suffered a stroke and died penniless in 1947.It’s highly unlikely that Musk, one of the world’s richest people, will die penniless, but in other respects he and Durant have a lot…