Daily Archives: December 28, 2023

Foreign Policy, Government, Magazines, Politics, Previews, Reviews

Preview: Foreign Policy Magazine – Winter 2024

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Foreign Policy Magazine – December 28, 2023: The new issue features ‘The Year The World Votes’ – Elections have consequences. What will happen when nearly half of the global population heads to the polls?

The Promise and Peril of Geopolitics

The world’s most dismal science could make Eurasia safe for illiberalism and predation—or protect it from those forces.

By Hal Brands, a professor of global affairs at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

An illustration shows a stylized globe with a crack through it. A hand with a wrench tightens the screw atop the globe.

Alexander Dugin is a bit of a madman. The Russian intellectual made headlines in the West in 2022, when his daughter was killed, apparently by Ukrainian operatives, in a Moscow car bombing likely meant for Dugin himself. Dugin would have been targeted because of his unapologetic, yearslong advocacy for a genocidal war of conquest in Ukraine. “Kill! Kill! Kill!” he screeched after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s first invasion of that country in 2014, adding: “This is my opinion as a professor.” Even at his daughter’s funeral, Dugin stayed on message. Among her first words as an infant, he claimed, were “our empire.”

Architecture, Home Design, Homes, Tours, Videos

Tour: Frank Lloyd Wright-Inspired Home In New York

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Architectural Digest (December 28, 2023) – Today AD travels 2 hours north of New York City to tour 46 Ledgerock Lane, an immense 10-acre home perched on the Hudson River.

Inspired by the work of legendary architect Frank Lloyd Wright, the property is lined with five kinds of wood, and countless types of stone, while legions of windows offer uninterrupted views of the river beyond.

One of only a handful of properties built on the Hudson River, the house is a rarity since the law now prohibits building new homes less than 100 ft from the riverbank.

Analysis, Politics, Previews, Reviews, Stories, Technology, Videos

Previews: The Top Five Stories To Watch In 2024

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The Economist (December 28, 2023) – What are the stories set to shape 2024? From the biggest election year in history, to how to control AI and even taxis that fly, The Economist offers its annual look at the world ahead.

Video timeline: 00:00 – The World Ahead 2024 00:33 – Vital votes 03:34 – Taxis take off 07:10 – AI rules 10:19 – Industry cleans up? 13:48 – BRICS build

Books, Literature, Magazines, Previews, Reviews, Stories

The New York Review Of Books – January 18, 2024

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The New York Review of Books (December 28, 2023) – The latest issue features Ben Tarnoff on Elon Musk, Julian Bell on Peter Paul Rubens, Fintan O’Toole on the American gerontocracy, Anjum Hasan on recent Sri Lankan fiction, Matthew Desmond on America’s Covid-era experiment with a social safety net, Francine Prose on a vampiric celluloid Pinochet, James Gleick on the science of free will, Frances Wilson on Tove Jansson and the Moomintrolls, Álvaro Enrique on indigenous Americans in Europe, Katie Trumpener on Alexander Kluge, two poems by Jack Underwood, and more.

The Fate of Free Will

By James Gleick

In Free Agents, Kevin Mitchell makes a scientific case for the existence of human agency.

Free Agents: How Evolution Gave Us Free Will by Kevin J. Mitchell

Nobody was holding a gun to your head when you started reading this. You made a choice. Surely it felt that way, at least. A sense of agency—of control over our actions, of continual decision-making—is part of the experience of being human, moment by moment and day by day. True, we sometimes just drift, like robots or zombies, but at other times we gird our loins and exert our will. David Hume defined will nearly three centuries ago as “the internal impression we feel and are conscious of, when we knowingly give rise to any new motion of our body, or new perception of our mind.” The feeling was universal then and it’s universal now.

Tools to End the Poverty Pandemic

Why have Americans not fought to sustain the unprecedented Covid-era expansion of aid to children, renters, and gig workers?

By Matthew Desmond

The Pandemic Paradox: How the Covid Crisis Made Americans More Financially Secure by Scott Fulford

The Viral Underclass: The Human Toll When Inequality and Disease Collide by Steven W. Thrasher

Poverty in the Pandemic: Policy Lessons from Covid-19 by Zachary Parolin

News, Newspapers, Views

The New York Times — Thursday, Dec 28, 2023

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Skepticism Grows Over Israel’s Ability to Dismantle Hamas

An Israeli artillery unit in October near Netivot, Israel, firing toward Gaza.

Israel has vowed time and again to eliminate the group responsible for the brutal Oct. 7 attack, but critics increasingly see that goal as unrealistic or even impossible.

Nearly Two Million Crowd Into Gaza’s South as Fighting Intensifies

As Israel’s ground campaign broadens in southern Gaza, thousands more people are pouring into areas that are struggling to offer shelter or security.

Michigan Supreme Court Decides Trump Can Stay on Ballot

After Colorado’s top court ruled that the former president was disqualified for engaging in insurrection, justices in Michigan considered a similar challenge.

Chinese Spy Agency Rising to Challenge the C.I.A.

The ambitious Ministry of State Security is deploying A.I. and other advanced technology to go toe-to-toe with the United States, even as the two nations try to pilfer each other’s scientific secrets.