Author: JKL
“On the One Hand…”
The Perils and Possibilities of AI President Truman used to joke about how his economic advisors were always telling him, “on the one hand this… but on the other hand that.” What I need, he said, “is a one-handed economist.” It’s a good line. But he knew some issues are too complex, too uncertain, and…
Extremism, Not the Left or Right, Is The Problem
Why democracy depends on staying out of the gutter On June 14, 2025, elected officials in Minnesota were shot in their homes as they slept. The facts were unclear but that didn’t stop the certainty. Within hours, a familiar pattern emerged: prominent voices on the political right rushed to blame the political left and attack…
Don’t Let the Bastards Grind You Down
Echoes from the Second World War It was the second-to-last episode of The Handmaid’s Tale that got me thinking about all this. June (Elisabeth Moss), bruised but unbroken, shouts to the crowd before she is about to be hanged from a crane: “Don’t let the bastards grind you down!” A line of defiance. A curse…
First They Came for the Transgender
On May 6, 2025, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6–3 to allow President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender military service to go into effect. Legal challenges are still working their way through the courts, and the Court may revisit the case, but for now, the ruling stands. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered the Pentagon…
After the Bunker: What We Know, and Why It Matters
Over the last eleven posts, I have retraced the final eleven days of Adolf Hitler’s life—from his 56th birthday in a burning Berlin to his final breath in a concrete bunker. We followed him and the people around him through paranoia, betrayal, fantasy, and finally, suicide. It’s a grim story, and a real one, built…