Blog Posts

Rhetorical choices define our options in life. What you see conceptually is, in a sense, what you can aim at in terms of strategic behavioral choices. And so, in this era of so-called “Critical Race Theory,” I say we lay bare the choices the theorists are making. It’s...

I’ve been strung out and ornery for the past eighteen months. It started with pandemic and a shutdown of the economy, and the shuttering of the courts. All at once, a thriving law practice and all the controversy a contrarian could want came to a grinding standstill.
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It was obvious to me one year ago that the pandemic would yield a time of extraordinary social tumult. Indeed, just over one year ago, I wrote in these pages about the general strike theory of the pandemic, how the viral contagion would be turned into an occasion to try to recast the...

Herewith a tutorial to those perplexed about how to navigate in this brave new world of racial sensitivity. Today’s lesson is in critical race theory. In other words, here is how you can deconstruct symbols used in everyday life to uncover signs of structural racism.
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The cancer attacking the fabric of American political life is not Marjorie Taylor Greene. It runs far deeper than that. There is a broader crisis of legitimacy in the land. Congresswoman Greene, like former president Donald Trump, is a symptom, not the cause. Ad hominem attacks on both...

Suppose you were suddenly accused of sexual assault. Your accuser claims that one night, a dozen or more years ago, you crossed a line. You’re arrested, and now publicly accused of rape. In an instant, your reputation is destroyed.
Assume for the moment you...

I can’t say I’ve found much to like about this pandemic. Today marks the seventh month that I’ve worked from home, hardly venturing out at all. I still have in my wallet the same $413 I had when I stepped off an airplane on March 13 and drove home to quarantine.
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I had planned to have this read for me on Saturday at the rally to preserve the Columbus statue on Wooster Square in New Haven. But it turns out New Haven may tear the statue down over night, or early tomorrow morning, to make the rally moot. Event organizers have given me permission to publish it...

Machine learning transforms computers from tools performing rote operations to devices sharing attributes we associate with human creativity, such as finding novel solutions to problems. Computers have bested top competitors at chess and Go, and they have beaten champions at Jeopardy....

In the last piece of this series on Dystopian Jitters, I wrote about how the COVID-19 pandemic has been used to foster tolerance of mass surveillance. (See, Mass Surveillance and COVID-19 – Dystopian Jitters, I) Given the imperative to survive, most everyone is willing to...