George Case's Blog, page 3

The most dismaying thing about Donald Trump, when you think about it, is not the man himself but the popularity that has put him into high office. There have already been a lot of right-wing nutjobs (Lyndon LaRouche, David Duke, Pat Buchanan, David Icke), media provocateurs (Michael Moore, Bill Maher), and reality-TV stars you might […]

[Those of us who work with words have a natural affinity for wordplay.  Just as a carpenter can see a piece of fine furniture lurking in a block of maple, or a mathematician can see an elegant equation in a random jumble of numbers, so can the literary see puns and allusion hidden within the […]

I’m no scientist, but the idea of man-made climate change has always seemed pretty plausible to me. Pollutants generated by modern industrial society have been pumped into the planetary environment at such a rate for over one hundred years that something has to give; rivers, lakes, oceans and skies are the elements which “make” our […]

One of the most recurring themes in pop musicology – a myth which critics have long debunked yet which they seem forever bound to debunk again – is the dubious talent of the Beatles’ drummer Ringo Starr.  From the quartet’s rise to fame and their spectacular career in the 1960s, and throughout their posthumous life […]

Defending Liberal Values in Illiberal Times [60-minute read / Formerly a stand-alone page on this blog] An eternal movement:  critical thought, at first subversive, turns against itself and becomes a new conformism, but one that is sanctified by its former rebellion. Pascal Bruckner,  The Tyranny of Guilt:  An Essay on Western Masochism This essay will be […]

A prediction: before the end of this century, Christmas as we know it in 2024, and as we’ve known it for over one hundred years, will no longer be celebrated. Today Christmas is a national holiday in countries around the planet, observed by vast numbers of the earth’s people, and a central event of sacred […]

The Hamas attack against Israel on October 7 2023, Israel’s retaliation against Hamas-controlled Palestine, and the wave of demonstrations expressing opposition to or support for one or other side in the ongoing conflict, have made the subject of anti-Semitism newly relevant.  A form of bigotry dating from the rise of Christianity and scarring the histories […]

Why reconnecting through social media isn't always as good as staying apart:

Long foreseen, the downfall of America has finally arrived.