Bandwagon Fans

Football is upon us Nothing beats the beginning of football season. We dispel the wretched heat and bring forth wondrous winter sports. Goodbye yard work, hello football! Every season begins with optimism—often irrational optimism—but optimism feels great regardless...

Malcolm Gladwell and Proof

Malcolm Gladwell and Truth Malcolm Gladwell knows how to ruffle feathers. He elicits strong opinions and most familiar with his work either love him or hate him. I enjoy his essays and recently began listening to his Revisionist History podcast. It’s pretty...

Thoughts on Mastodon

Note: The observations made in this post are from my experience as a fosstodon.org user over the past couple of months. I’m still figuring out Mastodon and this Fediverse stuff, and I realize that my observations may be specific to Fosstodon because some servers...

Don’t Fight for the Soul of the Party

An article in Politico written just before the 2022 election contrasts two sides of a fissure within the Democratic party, each determined to convince the party to adopt their strategy. On one side, we have the centrists who believe vocal progressives frighten away...

Political Rhetoric Done Right

Almost no one gets political rhetoric right. Candidates spend millions on polling, focus testing, A/B testing, and engaging in every other conceivable way to narrow rhetoric into quantifiable pieces, and yet very rarely does a politician have the ability to...

Socialism is a Dirty Word

For now, Democrats control the Presidency and both chambers of congress. Many progressives hoped to quickly pass ambitious legislation in 2021, but that didn’t happen. It probably won’t happen in 2022, either. There’s one thing standing in the way of passing...