Big-tech’s Deeper Encroachment into American Lives
Peter Eavis and Steve Lohr of the New York Times examine how COVID-19 has been the ultimate catalyst for big-tech’s surge in wealth and influence in ways unseen in decades: The Coronavirus pandemic has lifted bit-tech to new heights, putting the industry in a position to dominate American business in a way unseen since the […]
Reverse Migration to Indian Villages
The COVID-19 pandemic has sparked off reverse migration from India cities to villages, describes Anjana Pasricha of Voice of America (VOA): After cities were shuttered in late March and millions lost jobs, many faced the prospect of hunger as they were confined to small rooms during a stringent lockdown, while others made arduous journeys of […]
Hillary Clinton: Good Message, Terrible Messenger
Damon Linker wonders if Hillary Clinton’s speech at the 2020 Democratic National Convention’s will prove to be helpful: But if Clinton’s audience was swing voters, independents, and Republicans disenchanted with Donald Trump—and this has clearly been the intended audience of this DNC through the first two nights—then it’s hard to see how Clinton’s remarks could […]
What Kamala Harris Means for Wall Street and Silicon Valley
The New York Times’s “DealBook” discusses how vice-presidential candidate Kamala Harris have strengthened support for Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden: Wall Street is happy about the signal it sends. Ms. Harris was the moderate choice among more left-leaning candidates who may have taken a tougher line on finance firms…. Silicon Valley is happy about seeing […]
Singapore Airlines Faces Hard Choices
The COVID-19 pandemic has been a debilitating storm for Singapore Airlines, notes Ven Sreenivasan in the Straits Times: With borders closed, countries going into lockdowns and travellers hunkered down at home, the airline group’s passenger carriage has plunged by 99.5 per cent. The SIA group carried just 38,000 passengers in the three months to June […]
Supreme Court Nominee Amy Barrett and Her Adopted Children
Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett faced numerous attacks from Democratic lawmakers and media, especially regarding her family adopting two of her seven children, Vivian and John Peter, from Haiti. The Wall Street Journal’s readers comment: Ibram X. Kendi and Ruth Ben-Ghiat between them assert that Judge Amy Coney Barrett and her husband adopted black […]
What to Expect When Kamala Harris Debates Mike Pence
Comparing Tim Kaine’s debate with Mike Pence in 2016, the Wall Street Journal notes that Pence is not to be underestimated, What one observer called Mr. Kaine’s “over-caffeinated” style, the Times article suggested, had backfired against Mr. Pence’s Hoosier imperturbability. “Commentators and critics said Mr. Pence successfully played defense for 90 minutes, dodging, denying and […]
Question Your Inherited Unthinking Habits
Don’t just do things the same way because that is how you’ve always done it, or that’s how somebody showed us. Author Tim Ferris reflects on this when questioning if the savings from using single-ply toilet paper (a thriftiness habit he inherited) offset the nuisance: Optimizing for frugality is old software that’s been running in […]
Escapism from the Cold Unkindness of Mankind
Sereno Sky writes in Lonely Traveller (2014,) Some of us are what they call ‘escapists.’ We like to disappear from hurtful situations, from things that haunt us, from pain. We flee out of sight into our own little world or to the purity and warmth of nature, where we find a measure of safety from […]
Tesla and Elon Musk’s Meltdown
By David Gelles, et al. write in the New York Times, In the interview on Thursday, Mr. Musk alternated between laughter and tears. He said he had been working up to 120 hours a week recently—echoing the reason he cited in a recent public apology to an analyst whom he had berated. In the interview, […]