"I'm a professor! Why won't anyone listen to me?"
When Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic nomination for Michigan Senate in a nail-biter, there was some talk about this actually being a disappointing outcome for the insurgent left given late polling that suggested El-Sayed running away with the race. This struck me as basically centrist cope -- one doesn't get to claim a moral victory of losing more narrowly than expected when you outspent your…
Every once in awhile, I fall into a deep, existential panic over the concept of moral luck . Moral luck, per the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "occurs when an agent can be correctly treated as an object of moral judgment despite the fact that a significant aspect of what she is assessed for depends on factors beyond her control." It presses against a very common intuition, which is that we…
In a rematch of their 2024 contest, Democratic Rep. Wesley Bell prevailed over former Rep. Cori Bush, whom Bell ousted in his own primary challenge last cycle. While Bell won the 2024 race by approximately 5 points, he's expanded his lead to over 20 this time around . But I actually want to flag a tertiary point. When looking for a news report on the race and its outcome, I happened to click on…
A few years ago, I flagged a fun phenomenon afflicting WNBA superstar Caitlin Clark . You see, as a White superstar in a league with many Black players, racist idiots really wanted Caitlin Clark to be racist. And when she declined, they got very mad at her. This week, as teammate Sophie Cunningham more explicitly positioned herself as the darling of the right-wing grievance crowd , the knives are…
On Thursday, a large influx of migrants (reportedly 60,000) crossed from Morocco into Ceuta, a Spanish exclave on the mainland African coast. This has led to a lot of far-right chirping and no small number of conspiracy theories . And where there are conspiracy theories, well, you know what's going to follow -- it's a Zionist plot, done to "punish" Spain for its pro-Palestine advocacy. At first it…
One of Zohran Mamdani's signature policy initiatives just launched -- a tax on pied-à-terres. The tax would apply to second homes (i.e., those not occupied as a primary residence) worth over $1 million . I won't claim to be a housing (or tax) policy expert, but this seems perfectly reasonable to me. Admittedly, given the cost of NYC real estate a one million dollar home maybe isn't as opulent as…
This year, animal rights activists in Oregon tried to get a petition on the ballot that would extend the state's animal cruelty laws to all animals , including those in the wild or being farmed for agriculture. That description may or may not seem extreme, but the practical upshots are absolutely extreme: a total ban on hunting and fishing, a ban on livestock slaughter, a ban on most forms of…
As some of you know, my recent hobby-obsession is art collecting . And while I don't limit myself to one particular medium, to the extent I have a concentration, it's on prints. Being the self-reflective sort, I wondered why editioned prints in particular appeal to me so much. The standard "pitch" for prints is that they are a cheaper and more accessible point of entry into the fine art world than…
The other day, I put up a skeet complaining about the faction of progressive commentators who were mad at Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear for not just declaring Mitch McConnell dead and calling a special election to replace him. Their complaints generally took on the theme of aggrievement at Democrats who don't "fight" and a concurrent demand that Beshear "do something" rather than just sit around…
In a recent blog post, Nachum Kaplan claims that the shift in Israel's security orientation post-10/7 stems from its rejection of "the West's most dangerous illusions." It begins as follows: October 7th was a catastrophic security failure for Israel and an intellectual demolition. In a matter of hours, assumptions that had governed Israeli strategy for decades were exposed as manifestly…
A small independent movie theater near me with a reputation for witty marquees put up the following display to advertise Christopher Nolan's "The Odyssey" : Before there were the Jews ... there was The Odyssey. This set off a lot of consternation. All the local papers have stories on it. It was included in an all-congregant email sent by my Rabbi, alongside other concerning events such as a Jewish…
Nathaniel has been sent home from daycare again, with suspected hand foot and mouth disease (aka coxsackie). As you may recall , he had this back in January. As you may also recall, I also had this back in January, with much more severe symptoms. The timing is ... interesting. My parents were here to visit and literally left this morning. In fact, they were still at PDX airport when we got the…
I have a confession to make. I enjoy googling myself. Okay? I admit it. And as embarrassing as that admission is, I'm also going to really out myself as elderly and plea for help in using google. So lately, when I google myself -- "David Schraub", in quotes, limited to hits from the last week or month -- a lot of the recent hits are from Facebook and, less often, Instagram. The little snippet you…
Rabbi Seth Winberg, executive director of Hillel at Brandeis, has an interesting/infuriating essay up on JTA about the growing number of young Jews who express preference for a single, binational democratic state in Israel/Palestine . Winberg specifically is focusing on a subset of these Jews, those who are not true anti-Zionist believers but who remain supportive -- at least in concept -- of…
Long-timers may recall that periodic Project Runway chirping is a recurrent feature on this blog. The oldest post I was able to find about the show was yelling about Mondo's loss in Season 8 (of course it was), but I've seen every season and (I think) every spin-off, and started watching them live as of Season 5. Anyway, the first episode of Season 22 just dropped. It's the second season on…
(It's a TPBTJF double-header -- click here! ) Maine Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner has dropped out of the race following accusations of sexual assault by a former girlfriend . Probably. He said he will, but he also said he's waiting until the last possible day for completely inexplicable reasons . Such a stand up guy. Of course, nobody can blame any of Platner's backers for what went…
(It's a TPBTJF double-header -- click here! ) I've been watching some of the World Cup, though not every game. For example, I missed the Argentina/Egypt game -- unfortunate for me, since apparently it had a very exciting ending, with Argentina coming back from down 2-0 with three goals in the last fifteen minutes of the game to win. There also was a lot of complaining about the officiating in that…
New York City has put out a map of its "immigrant neighborhoods", and some people are complaining that Jewish neighborhoods aren't represented . These complaints, in turn, are generating a counternarrative expressing the irony of insisting on the foreignness of Jews when the Jews in these neighborhoods are, overwhelmingly, not immigrants . I'm going to try to fall in the middle on this. First,…
As you may have heard, former Chicago Mayor (and Obama White House Chief of Staff) Rahm Emanuel went to Israel and delivered a tough love address : lambasting "Greater Israel" and calling for an array of sanctions on Israeli politicians, businesses, and other figures who support violence against Palestinians or illegal West Bank settlements. To me, this matters only in terms of "which way the wind…
I don't have much to say about the latest Graham Platner allegations. Of course he should drop out. Of course he's being extra-selfish in trying to extort concessions from the state party in exchange for dropping out ( Rep .Sean Casten brings the heat ). "I'm not taking no for an answer until you let me impose my will on this process" is a hell of a hill for Platner to die on. — Sean Casten (…
July 4 seems like a good day to talk about hubris. You've all read those articles about men and hubris -- the absurd number of men who think they could take a tennis game off Serena Williams or could win a fight against a bear. I do not share that hubris. But I do have my own version of it. One manifestation is that I honestly believe I could hold my own in an interview with Isaac Chotiner…
Bruce Pearl, Auburn basketball coach and prominent Jewish Republican, has delivered an ultimatum unto Vice President J.D. Vance: cut ties with Tucker Carlson, or he won't support Vance's 2028 presidential bid . I don't know if Pearl will stick to his guns on this. I do feel quite confident that Vance will not oblige Pearl. Vance, if nothing else, sees which way the winds blow, and there is…
I'm going to describe a character archetype to you, found in many modern comedies. These characters have an extremely high opinion of themselves, but are generally incompetent. They are also typically portrayed as selfish and self-absorbed, though occasionally one will get a peek at a supposedly deep-seated vulnerability or "heart of gold" in extreme situations. Finally, and essentially, the…
I am back from Paris. It was very hot. And I need to vent. Before I do so, I want to stress that we had plenty of fun on this trip. When I told my mom I was invited to present at the Critical Theories of Antisemitism conference , she seized the opportunity to organize a whole family vacation around the trip, including my parents and my brother, sister-in-law, and their daughter (who's six months…
Greetings from Portland! That's not a sentence I wanted to write. If things had gone to plan today, Jill, Nathaniel and I would be en route to Paris right now. But a delay on our first flight meant we were going to miss our connection in Chicago, and from there the day devolved into three hours of camping in front of an American Airlines agent as she strove unsuccessfully to find us any…