The Oracle Speaks

Posted on by under Big Data, Health Care Series, Palestine, Trump 2

OK, so let’s get this straight. TikTok had to be sold because given its Chinese ownership, it was a danger to our privacy, and on top of that, a danger to national security. But no worries, because according to business guru and data analyst Donald Trump, all-American Oracle had the technical capacity to “handle” the TikTok acquisition and handle TikTok itself. Nothing that a $100 billion Trump-inspired AI initiative couldn’t solve.

Meanwhile, back in 2022, Oracle acquired Cerner, the healthcare data company. It has now managed, as of just a few weeks ago, to get precisely its Cerner data hacked. So while Oracle could, at least in Donald Trump’s mind, handle TikTok, it couldn’t, in fact, manage to handle Cerner.

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Journey of a Thousand Miles

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, character based voting, moralism, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine, Trump 2

“A journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step.”
–Lao Tzu (supposedly)

From my March 22 post on recent events at Columbia:

What’s not a question is that strategic planners who couldn’t see this coming do not deserve to be employed. In a just world, these overpaid, over-hyped, preening incompetents would be thrown unceremoniously out of their plush offices directly into the streets of Morningside Heights.

From The New York Times, less than a week later: Continue reading →

Those Corpses in Yemen

Posted on by under Uncategorized

Just to state the painfully obvious: The “Signalgate” controversy broke this past Monday, March 24th. It’s now Friday, so five full days have gone by since it began. In five days, I think it’s safe to say that 99.44% of mainstream discussion on this controversy has focused on the Trump Administration’s inappropriately having used Signal to discuss war plans, stupidly having mistakenly put Jeffrey Goldberg on the chat, and then immorally having lied about it. Not even 1% of the remainder has focused on any deeper question of moral substance: Why are we bombing Yemen? Is it justifiable to do so? Continue reading →

First World Problems

Posted on by under activism, Trump 2

I was at a migrant defense demonstration Thursday evening in Elizabeth, a small city in northern New Jersey. The man pictured below spoke to the crowd; unfortunately I didn’t catch his name.* He told the story of how he was detained by ICE for four years, shuttled around detention facilities and jails in Essex and Bergen Counties. His “crime”? Being undocumented. No country recognizes his existence or identity, and none will take him in. Continue reading →

Hegseth and the Houthis

Posted on by under Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine, Trump 2

As usual in American politics, everyone’s talking the Hegseth and the Houthis story to death, but almost no one’s focused on the right part of it. The story, of course, is that Hegseth and Co had planned to bomb Yemen, and did. They discussed their war plans on the Signal app, but accidentally put Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of The Atlantic, on the chat. That was a gigantic breach of protocol, but Hegseth et al didn’t notice Goldberg’s presence. A big national controversy has now arisen about what to do. Investigate Hegseth? Force him to resign? Prosecute him? Continue reading →

Gaza: Tod Macht Frei

Posted on by under activism, moralism, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

Some friends of mine associated with Jewish Voice for Peace of North Jersey (along with Peace Action and Pax Christi) have taken out a paid ad in the Star-Ledger this morning (Newark, New Jersey), condemning Israel’s violation of the ceasefire agreement signed January 17th (see below, under the fold). You might not, by reading legacy (“mainstream”) media, have grasped the blatantly obvious fact that Israel had violated the ceasefire, but if you hadn’t, here’s a primer by Jonah Valdez at The Intercept. Continue reading →

In Your Darkness, We Shall See the Darkness

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, Hayek, libertarianism, moralism, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine, Trump 2

Columbia’s Capitulation
In Lumine Tuo Videbimus Lumen
–“In Your Light, We Shall See the Light,” Columbia University’s motto

Of all the pathetic abdications of moral responsibility and expressions of cowardice I managed to see during the quarter century I spent in academia, few approximate Columbia University’s abject surrender to the Trump Administration the other day. I won’t bother belaboring the details, which you can read almost anywhere. As former Columbia law professor Katherine Franke aptly put it, this is a case in which the victim of a ransom note has not just capitulated to the demands of the ransomers but given them what they hadn’t asked for, in return for less than nothing. But if you stand back from the welter of detail, there are a few lessons here worth learning, and worth articulating. Continue reading →

In Defense of Mahmoud Khalil

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, Election 2024, Fatwas, General announcements, moralism, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine, Trump 2, Uncategorized

Letter from a Palestinian Political Prisoner in Louisiana March 18, 2025

My name is Mahmoud Khalil and I am a political prisoner. I am writing to you from a detention facility in Louisiana where I wake to cold mornings and spend long days bearing witness to the quiet injustices underway against a great many people precluded from the protections of the law. Continue reading →

Death Camps and Torture Chambers

Posted on by under activism, cancel culture, ethics, moralism, Notes on the Anti-War Movement, Palestine

An Addendum on Institutional Neutrality
I wanted to add a sort of postscript to my March 17 post on institutional neutrality, meant to clarify an inference that is slightly (but only slightly) more complicated than I made it in the original post. The post was already somewhat long, and I didn’t want to burden it with over-complications by addressing every possible objection, or chasing down every twist and turn in the argument. But I also don’t want to burden it with misunderstandings.

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