~ Today’s Water Cooler: Politics, syndemics; Anti-Trump oppo barrage; Kamala’s town hall; Ohio pension funds sue Boeing, strike continues ~
Thursday, November 20, 2025
Voters Fret High Medical Bills Are Being Ignored by Presidential Rivals
“We’re all human beings here. We’re all people just trying to make it.”
‘Hate and Lust for Vengeance Are Passed Like Poison from One Generation to the Next’
Vengeance is coming home.
The Economics of Medicine: Personal Reflections
More examples of how medicine, at least as practiced in the US, is going off the rails.
2:00PM Water Cooler 10/23/2024
~ Today’s Water Cooler: Politics, Syndemics; 2024 Opinion-havers opine, two weeks out; Trump media blitz (Rogan; Carlson); Kamala and Biden’s decline (her view vs. the donor’s view); Boeing satellite explodes; Ortberg seeks culture change ~
The Great Game of Logistics
Logistics corridors play an increasing role in the New Cold War. Do workers lose no matter who wins?
Heterodox Approaches Will Provide Answers to the Multiple Cascading Crises of Our Future
The old normal is rigid and destructive to humans and the planet. Heterodox ideas offer some hope, but will they be sufficient?
Big and Small Businesses Are Nothing Like Each Other
An important yet oft-ignored point: big and small businesses are wildly different, and that matters from a policy perspective.
The Dark Side of AI-Powered Synthetic Biology
Another warning about the dangers of AI-supercharged synthetic biology.
My Life So Far in Writing Bits and Bytes (Partly, at Least)
How I learned to finish what I started.
2:00PM Water Cooler 10/22/2024
~ Today’s Water Cooler: Politics, syndemics; Trump and the Blob; Kamala’s beliefs, if any, unknown, perhaps not knowable; Wall Street iffy on contract agreement; restructuring begins?
The Medici’s Quiet Coup: How the Wealthy Bend Politics without Shifting Institutions
This column studies the circumstances under which a relatively open political system can be corrupted by its confrontation with concentrated wealth.
