I’m reaching that age when one’s body starts to fall apart. It could happen any day — that first stroke, that first cancer diagnosis. I can’t pretend that it’s not going to happen. I’m so blessed that it hasn’t happened yet. As a result, I am savoring every moment of happiness. My family is a […]
Author: whatimnothearing
A HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE ON THE ELECTION
For most of the history of mankind, and in many countries today, the leader has usually led a luxurious life of debauchery and corruption, oblivious to the needs of his people. Yes, absolute power corrupts absolutely. But for millennia, the People accepted that system as inevitable, so they accepted the status quo and even loved […]
TRUMP’S PEOPLE
Jan. 06 rioters. Pathetic Halloween costumes. Trump’s closing argument was made in Madison Square Garden, directed to a mostly male audience. It was vulgar; it was angry; it was politically incorrect. On CNN, David Axelrod claimed that Trump was closing his campaign poorly, that he should be focusing on the economy and solid issues. I […]
RELIGIOUS SCRIPTURES — WHAT GOOD ARE THEY?
Noah’s Ark — the more you think about it, the more you realize how impossible it is. Do religious scriptures have any meaning at all? More and more, I come to see the answer as negative. Let’s start with the Bible, which is chock full of contradictions. Perhaps the most important one is also perhaps the […]
JD VANCE, PRESIDENT?
What would JD Vance do if he were President (quite a likely possibility, I’d say, given Trump’s age and recent dementia)? No one knows, because no one knows what he thinks or believes. He is a total chameleon, who says whatever he thinks Trump wants him to say. He has no ideological core — neither […]
THOSE GOOD-OL’ DAYS OF COVID
The United States boasts one of the strongest economies in the world, with a 2.4% inflation rate and a 4.2% unemployment rate. Yet most Americans think the US economy is doing poorly, and they point to the high price of groceries. What is going on here? I have my own scenario, which I’m not hearing […]
THE RETURN OF POST-MODERNISM
If truth is beauty, does truth lie in the eyes of the beholder? Around 30 years ago, post-modernism was the darling of the intellectual set. I tried to read the main authors — Derrida, Lyotard, Foucault, Habermas — but found them impossibly pompous and dense. The best I could make out was that their message […]
TRUMP TARIFFS AND THE SMOOT-HAWLEY TARIFF OF 1930
Trump speaks as though does he not understand tariffs. He claims that putting a tariff on Chinese goods means that the Chinese will pay the US billions of dollars in tariffs. That’s not how tariffs work: 2. If the importer pays the tariff, he will immediately pass the increase on to the consumer. That is […]
WE SHOULD MOCK TRUMP’S LIES
I posted a joking spoof of Trump’s outrageous lie that illegal Haitians in Springfield, Ohio were eating (White) people’s pets. I was called out on this over Facebook, on grounds that I was escalating Trump’s lies into the public domain, that responding to lies only ‘perpetuates the myth’. After all, this plays right into J.D.Vance’s […]
USE (OR NOT) OF ENGLISH IN FOR-PROFIT UNIVERSITIES
I have already written about some of the evils of for-profit universities in Cambodia and elsewhere. Today I want to focus on the use (or lack thereof) of English in those universities. First, a little background on Cambodia, and many similar countries. The only requirement for university admission is a pass on the public grade-12 […]