I’m not a product of the digital world that everyone under thirty seems to take for granted. When I started watching television, we had seven channels. Three of them had bad reception some of the time, and the other four had bad reception most of the time. There was no remote control and the . . . . Continue Reading »
Charlie Cooke has a good article about the madhouse that is MSNBC. Hardball with Chris Matthews used to a be an interesting show. In earlier incarnations of the show, Matthews was a unapologetic but slightly idiosyncratic liberal host who was not entirely a cheerleader for the liberal side. He had . . . . Continue Reading »
Nancy Pelosi was just as bad as you’ve heard on Meet The Press . There was her determined denial of the obvious (that Obamacare had led to the cancellation of insurance policies for millions). There was her declaration of utter ruthlessness in pursuit of the passage of Obamacare (“If we . . . . Continue Reading »
Why is Dr. Who’s time-traveler ship, the Tardis, shaped like a British police box? Jill Lepore answers in a New Yorker piece marking the fiftieth anniversary of the TV show’s first episode. In fact, there were several answers. One was faux-scientific: “The outside appearance of . . . . Continue Reading »
Focus , says author Daniel Goleman, is “utter receptivity to whatever floats into the mind.” And it’s the state of mind that facilitates our most creative thoughts., As Nicholas Carr explains in his NYTBR review, focus goes beyond “‘orienting,' in which we . . . . Continue Reading »
Computers can beat people at chess, but the most powerful intelligence doesn’t come from “thinking machines” on their own, but from a symbiotic interaction between computers and people. In Smarter Than You Think: How Technology is Changing Our Minds for the Better , Clive Thompson . . . . Continue Reading »
The shutdown/debt ceiling fight is just too depressing a subject to keep up a running commentary. It was an unwise fight, but the Republican establishment that is saying “I told you so” to the defunders is, in its own way, just as delusional as the people who thought the threat of a . . . . Continue Reading »
One of the really irritating narratives to come out of the shutdown/debt ceiling debate is the idea that the shutdown drowned out coverage of the incompetence of the Obamacare exchanges. Funny, but the excellent Fox News program Special Report with Bret Baier managed to cover both stories. The . . . . Continue Reading »
1. I have no idea how the continuing resolution/defund Obamacare/delay Obamacare maneuvering are going to play out. 2. President Obama just isn’t that popular. He is closer to unpopular. His RCP job approval average is down to 43.5% even though the economy continues to grow slowly and the . . . . Continue Reading »
We give ourselves to BIG DATA with every trackable transaction and communication. ” Corporate competition to accumulate information about consumers is intensifying even as concerns about government surveillance grow, pushing down the market price for intimate personal details to fractions of . . . . Continue Reading »
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
