For a fleeting moment, Theranos was huge and Elizabeth Holmes, the rare female Silicon Valley entrepreneur, was flying high. Too high, as it turned out.

Ms. Holmes’s case has been held up as a parable of Silicon Valley’s swashbuckling “fake it till you make it” culture, which has helped propel the region’s start-ups to unfathomable riches and economic power. That same spirit has also allowed grifters and unethical hustlers to flourish, often with little consequence, raising questions about Silicon Valley’s tightening grip on society.

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Did Syracuse University do the right thing when outraged demands for cancellation spread over the mind-numbingly idiotic twit by its “queer genderflux androgynous Black woman, an abolitionist, a lover of all Black people, and an Assistant Professor at Syracuse University in the Department of Political Science,” Jenn Jackson? At Volokh Conspiracy, Princeton prof Keith Whittington tries to provide the positive incentive by arguing it did.

Her tweet generated some backlash. The university responded as universities should in such cases—by defending free speech and avoiding any temptation to praise or condemn the professorial speech in question.

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For all the drama, lawprof Howard Wasserman has been dissecting what he calls the “procedural puzzles” that confront the pre-emptive efforts to enjoin Texas’ abortion law, SB8. For the non- and unduly passionate lawyers, this all seems silly, as such details ignore the only real legal issue, that the law is unconstitutional and so something must be done. But what, by whom and against whom? This is where the United States steps into the fray.

The Justice Department argued in its emergency motion that the state adopted the law, known as Senate Bill 8, “to prevent women from exercising their constitutional rights,” reiterating an argument the department made last week when it sued Texas to prohibit enforcement of the contentious new legislation.

“It is settled constitutional law that ‘a state may not prohibit any woman from making the ultimate decision to terminate her pregnancy before viability,’” the department said in the lawsuit. “But Texas has done just that.”

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Nick Grossman isn’t prone to hysteria, so his dot connection at Arc Digital was concerning. But then, Nick also isn’t a lawyer and sees law through the same eyes as most people, devoid of nuance, the rationale for the rules and an understanding of how and why we got where we are and we stay where we are. Or not.

He began, as so many do these days, with the Supreme Court’s shadow docket decision in Whole Woman’s Health v. Jackson, the Texas SB 8 case, denying injunctive relief, relief which I argued should have been granted despite the structural problems with the parties and the limits of equitable remedies. But Nick didn’t see any of that. Continue reading →

The introduction to the interview in The Nation gives some scary numbers.

The New York Times published an opinion piece that illustrated an uncomfortable fact: The vast majority of American authors published after World War II have been white. This should not be a surprise to most people who pay any attention to contemporary literature, but the voluminous data included in the piece proved shocking even to the worst of pessimists. Continue reading →

After writing on this date about 9/11 for years, I decided to stop. I had said all I had to say. Then last year, I saw something different, that the time that elapsed since 9/11 had been long enough that it was no longer about personal experience but something to be read about in history books and magazines. A generation now exists for which 9/11 is outside their lived experience. It’s a story, as Pearl Harbor was for my generation, something we knew all about but wasn’t our reality as it was my parents.

Last year, I wondered whether 9/11 would be a historical footnote or a tool. The answer is developing. Continue reading →

It’s come to my attention Harry Anderson passed two years ago at his home in Asheville, North Carolina, in 2018. His passing didn’t get enough attention, which is damn near a criminal offense in my book.

So today we’re going to celebrate the life of a goddamn comedy genius. Continue reading →

The ability to conjugate the verb “to be” was once considered to be a minimal sign of an educated person. Replacing it with a more active or appropriate verb was indicative of a better education. These were the rhetorical skills that would enable people to succeed in America, to become all they hoped to become in their lives. And if you could not use words properly, pronounce words correctly, distinguish between similar words so as to select the one that means what you intend it to mean, well, it would not serve you well. Continue reading →

If it’s been unclear up to now, I abhor arguments grounded in claims of morality. This isn’t because I have no morals, or have anything against people who do, but that it’s not an argument except at its fringes. If something is so wrong that it’s universally considered immoral, then there would be no need saying so or arguing it.

After all, it would be so obvious as to not need to be said. So if you have to say it, chances are very strong that it’s not obvious or universally accepted, but merely one person’s idiosyncratic version of morality. That doesn’t make it wrong, but it does make it unavailing as an argument. No one needs to be informed of your version of morality when they have their own, thank you very much. Continue reading →