Since Friday multiple people sent me this story, National parks cut free entry for MLK Day, add Trump’s birthday. I shared it on social media with a post explaining that I am not at all disturbed by this development and see that it could mark a turning point.
Browsing: Opinions
Authentic ignorance” is not mere lack of knowledge — it is the arrogant refusal to learn, combined with the reckless confidence to lead a nation while knowing nothing of consequence. When this condition infects an ordinary mind, it produces confusion. When it infects a President, it produces catastrophe. And yet, a chilling parallel emerges: Artificial Intelligence, if not regulated, will become even more dangerous than authentic ignorance — because it can replicate misinformation on a scale, without conscience, limits, or accountability.
That was the opening image delivered by the Pentagon in early September: a tightly edited video of a U.S. military aircraft obliterating an alleged drug-smuggling boat in the Caribbean. It was released with cinematic timing, framed as a bold success in the Trump administration’s newly intensified campaign against “narco-terrorists.” But the more Americans have learned about what followed, the killing of two dazed, shipwrecked survivors in a second strike, the more the narrative has begun to disintegrate.
The Right Fight
– The headlines this month about White men, college admissions, and the fallout from ending affirmative action startled a lot of people. Stories of declining enrollment and shrinking opportunity for young White men were treated as if they had materialized out of nowhere.
Football season is winding down and in the coming weeks bowl games and college football playoffs will begin. In some respects, football is a year-round sport. The playing stops but the recruiting of prospective college student-athletes never does.
For those of us who have not forgotten the regime changes, interventions, and “limited engagements” that never stay limited, it is obvious that the United States is drifting toward a dangerous precipice in Venezuela. The November 24th decision to designate Cartel de los Soles as a Foreign Terrorist Organization is not a routine sanctions update. It is a major escalation.
In U.S. political talk, Iraq is often treated as a “finished chapter.” The invasion is history, the occupation is history, and even the war against ISIS is presented as something largely completed. Yet in 2025, Iraqis are still living with the consequences of decisions made in Washington, and U.S. power in their country is not disappearing – it is simply changing shape.
One of the inconveniences in my life these days is called gout, a condition – in my right knee – that absolutely lives up to the negativity of its name. Ongoing ouch. Careful, careful. I’ve had it on and off for a couple of years now, and recently it started getting worse. Indeed, getting around with the help of a cane – whom I had named Citizen Cane – no longer felt sufficiently safe. I started using a walker.
These words, spoken by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson at the opening of the Nuremberg Military Tribunal of Nazi war criminals, might give pause to White House and Pentagon strategists who appear anxious to launch a U.S. war on Venezuela, if only they had a fear of violating international law.