Journalists From The United States

"Some of these things seem as if it’s a lot of hard work, and it is. But it’s to an end—toward a richer, deeper understanding of a phenomenon that I was seeking to bring to life…The term narrative comes from Greek for the word knowing. And I think that that’s a powerful message because it means you cannot tell a story until you know the story."

"On the one hand, Wilkerson is very concerned about dehumanizing any group because it is then easy to harm individuals within that group solely because of them belonging to it. But she needs to know that her work plays into the hands of those very forces that are dehumanizing Hindus. This is happening rapidly and turning Hindus into a defenseless people that do not deserve to be treated fairly because of allegations that they are predators and oppressors. She disapproves of people becoming slaves to group think and yet, group thinking against Hinduism is precisely what her work is causing. She is also against the use of oppression to assert control but does not address that the academic harassment of Hindus on campuses is actually a form of that very oppression."

"(I recommend over and over again:) The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson. I am far from the first to recommend this book but that is because it’s so extraordinary. A pure masterclass of narrative nonfiction that exists at the pinnacle of the genre. It is the book that a historical phenomenon as important as The Great Migration deserves."

"As a bisexual woman (who, as it happens, is faithfully married to a man and therefore living a “straight” life) I feel it is important to include homosexual or bisexual characters in my work. I am living proof that such things are not “choices,” but innate…"

"I think labels are generally used to benefit those who invented them, and those who invent them tend not to be those upon whom they are foisted. That said, labels can be tools of empowerment or marginalization, depending on who is using them and why…"

"The biggest driving force in my life has been justice — and by that I don’t mean revenge. I mean fairness for all kinds of people. I think it comes in part from being the daughter of an immigrant who was grossly underestimated for most of his career and life, and the sort of despair you feel watching that happen, the sense that things aren’t fair from a very early age…"

"Never sat down and thought: “I’m going to create a new genre.” I just sat down and wrote a book that I wanted to read but couldn’t find. In retrospect, I don’t think it’s a new genre; it’s just a novel. There’s an unfortunate tendency in the publishing industry to view ethnicity as a genre and only for certain people. So if you are a minority, your race or ethnicity becomes your genre. Or if you are a woman, your sex becomes your genre. “Women’s fiction”: What does that even mean? Would we ever dare say “commercial men’s fiction”? I think these are marketing terms."

"There are writers in commercial women’s fiction who get really worked up, and they blog about [the label] and rail against the establishment. I can empathize and understand that frustration, but at the same time, it’s a waste of energy. I look at what the readers and writers of the romance genre have done in creating a parallel universe where they sell millions of books to readers who know these writers are good. They don’t need the stamp of approval. And what I love about my readers is that they are far more sophisticated, in my opinion, than most literary critics, and far less insecure. At the end of the day, people are reading my books and communicating directly with me, thanks to technology."

"Memory, about the futile struggle to remember. It’s a eulogy to all the people who flee the terrible conditions in their home countries, desperately hoping for a better life here, and never make it."

"Cuba is at the heart of my fiction, even when it’s just an echo, like in “Kimberle.” I don’t think a day goes by that I don’t remember in some conscious way that I’m Cuban. But my relationship with Cuba changes as time goes by, not just because of changes in Cuba but because of changes in my own life. When my son was born almost six years ago, it totally altered everything. For example, instead of going to Cuba, I spent a great deal more time in Miami, because that’s where my mom lived, and I really wanted my son and my mom to have a relationship…"

"What I’m most obsessed with is the tension between the private and the public self. In Cuba, we call it a “doble moraleja” but in reality, it’s more than that. It’s like people have two completely different realities. That’s very hard. Everyone says that it’s a political situation, but in reality it totally affects your life in every way. You start to become complicit in things that are quite terrible…"

"In many ways, McPherson is a photo-negative of the self-proclaimed “climate skeptics” who reject the conclusions of climate science. He may be advocating the opposite conclusion, but he argues his case in the same way. The skeptics often quote snippets of science that, on full examination, don’t actually support their claims, and this is McPherson’s modus operandi. The skeptics dismiss science they don’t like by saying that climate researchers lie to keep the grant money coming; McPherson dismisses inconvenient science by claiming that scientists are downplaying risks because they’re too cowardly to speak the truth and flout our corporate overlords. Both malign the IPCC as “political” and therefore not objective. And both will cite nearly any claim that supports their views, regardless of source— putting evidence-free opinions on par with scientific research."

"McPherson’s case basically boils down to arguing that feedbacks like large methane releases will soon kick in, causing a rapid spike in global warming that will lead to global extinctions. One of his primary pieces of supporting evidence is that Earth System Sensitivity – which describes how sensitive the climate is to the increased greenhouse effect over millennia – is higher than the shorter-term climate sensitivity."

"On September 17 of this year we bottom out at... about 4.7 million km2 of ice floating on the Arctic ocean... [T]he forecast has been below the actual data... So this is great news and... I recommend that you track it... because it will give you a good idea [of] when an ice-free Arctic Ocean will occur, and therefore when we are likely to lose habitat for most, if not all species on Earth."

"Henry Gee is a paleontologist, evolutionary biologist and senior editor at Nature, and he concluded on November 30, 2021 in a paper in Scientific American... in the final line, "If we are going to write about human extinction, we'd better start writing now" and the title... is "Humans Are Doomed to Go Extinct." That's very inconvenient!"

"Accrding the the 6-month ensemble forecast created by the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School, and ice-free Arctic Ocean will not occur this year. ...[T]his was the same group of professors who incorrectly projected an ice-free Arctic Ocean to occur in 2016, plus or minus 3 years. So they are being very conservative."

"The aerosol masking effect results from industrial activity, as does planetary warming, so this is an interesting Catch-22. Planetary warming results from es that trap heat, So once the radiation gets through the atmosphere it can warm the soil, and the buildings, and thus the effect, and the planet in general... [G]reenhouse gases trap that heat so that about 30% of it held in the atmosphere... Without the greenhouse effect we wouldn't have life on earth, but... we are well beyond the point at which we can stop... the negative consequences. [Overhead: Tiny particles known as aerosols reflect incoming sunlight back into space before the radiation can warm the planet.] According to professor , which most of us know as being one of the founders of understanding climate change, the aerosols fall out of the atmosphere in about five days."

"I've been accused of many things, extremist included. I'm merely connecting a few dots based on the work of other scientists. In a culture characterised by willful ignorance and the inability to think critically, these accusations are to be expected."

"The cooling resulting from contemporary aerosol masking in total right now is 55% globally, including a lot of that [Overhead: 133%] being on land. This is from... an open access peer reviewed journal... Nature Communications..."

"2012: "likely" extinction of humanity by 2030 due to climate-change, and mass die-off by 2020 "for those living in the interior of a large continent""

"2018: based on "projections" of climate-change and species loss, "Specifically, I predict that there will be no humans on Earth by 2026"."

"2007: permanent blackouts in cities starting in 2012 due to ;"

"Other scientists are specialists. They focus on a narrow topic. They do not consider the entire Earth system in their work..."

"Climate change and its impacts are here. Expect superstorms, extreme heat, high humidity, and increased spread of deadly diseases. Plants and non-human animals will die in ever-larger numbers. Civilisation will fail, leading to greatly exacerbated impacts."

"I'm a teacher. I relay evidence. I cite science. I'm not relying on a belief system."

"Judaism is inherently tolerant of how any individual pursues Tikun Olam making it not merely an obligation but an opportunity for expression. I found my voice in journalism."

"Trump's skin is so thin it's a wonder his organs don't fall out."

"Several members of Tyrangiel's staff at Bloomberg describe him as a man who never raises his voice; never berates anybody, even when it's deserved, and never makes people feel anxious on deadline."

"[A] nationalism moderated by liberalism can serve other countries well. When it comes to the United States, however, we should recognize nationalism for what it really is: un-American."

"There used to be a sign (which, for all I know, is still there) somewhere in the C.I.A.'s headquarters that read, "Every day is Sept. 12." It was placed there to remind the agency's staffers that what they felt right after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001."

"Conservatives used to believe in the overwhelming benefits of immigration. Most nationalists want to restrict even legal immigration. Conservatives used to believe that America should always speak and sometimes act in defense of freedom-seekers everywhere. Nationalists strike the bargain that America will mind its own business if others mind theirs. Conservatives used to oppose identity politics for being hostile to individual freedom. Nationalism is the superimposition of one form of identity politics over various others."

"[T]he American example. Novus ordo seclorum: We are a new order of the ages, not just a copy of the old states of Europe writ large. Unlike most other nations, we have opened our doors to human capital wherever it comes from (and hence attracted a greater share of it); and adopted good ideas irrespective of who first had them (and hence developed or commercialized them more successfully); and found ways to smooth, adapt and enjoy cultural differences (and hence rendered them generally benign). Nationalists only want to sharpen or weaponize those differences. To what end?"

"Dictatorships fall not only when they have implacable opponents but also exemplary victims: Steve Biko in South Africa, Benigno Aquino in the Philippines, Jerzy Popieluszko in Poland. Through their deaths, they awakened the living to the conviction that it was the regime that should die instead."

"Why care about social formalities, modes of dress, niceties of speech, qualities of restraint? Not simply because manners make the man, although they do, but because manners also shape political cultures."

"[T]he United States is not “much of the world.” We are a sovereign state, not a nation-state. Unlike, say, Denmark, we have no official language and no state religion. Our identity is oriented toward the future, not the past. We do have birthright citizenship — though that, curiously, is something many of today’s national conservatives want to abolish. Our national borders have changed repeatedly and may change again.America is the country under whose banner the descendants of slaves give military orders to the descendants of slave owners and stand guard alongside the children of immigrants from Greece and Mexico in places like Panmunjom. It’s where the biological son of a Syrian immigrant created our first trillion-dollar company. It’s where Jews celebrate Christmas by going out for Chinese food.All this is the essence of America’s exceptionalism. It does not require open borders, rule by U.N. mandarins, obeisance to progressive pieties or any of the other ostensible predations of “globalism” that conservative nationalism claims to oppose."

"What can Oct. 8 Jews do? We can stop being embarrassed, equivocal or defensive about Zionism, which is, after all, one of the world’s most successful movements of national liberation. We can call out anti-Zionism for what it is: a rebranded version of antisemitism, based on the same set of libels and conspiracy theories."

"Any social democrat, no matter their intentions, will always find it easier to move to the right than to the left. ON one side lie guarantees of stability from powerful interests, on the other capital strikes and stubborn resistance."

"[N]ationalism does require the mainstream conservative movement to jettison its best principles. Three in particular stand out."

"This is a presidency whose defining feature isn’t ideology, much less policy. It’s neurosis."

"It's obvious that things are changing. When I was in high school and told people I was a socialist, they looked at me as if I were crazy. When I tell people I'm a socialist today, they just nod and go about their day - not a hint of revulsion."

"Psychologists have studied the dynamics of what advertisers call “fear appeals,” and they have found that while fear is very good at getting our attention, it’s not very good at keeping it. For that, the scary stuff must be followed by solutions that are small enough to be practical but large enough to be meaningful."

"When Godwin was 14, writes Richard Holmes in The Age of Wonder, her father took her to hear lectures by the renowned chemist Humphry Davy. Davy envisioned a future when humans would “interrogate Nature with Power,” words later echoed by the fictional Professor Waldman, who tells young Victor Frankenstein that the “modern masters … have acquired new and unlimited Powers: they can command the thunders of heaven, mimic the earthquake, and even mock the invisible world with its own shadow.” Some of Davy’s experiments with electricity inspired the proponents of Vitalism, who believed in the existence of an invisible life force—one that could, perhaps, be tamed and put to monstrous use by “modern masters.” Both Mary Godwin and Percy Shelley followed the vociferous public debate over Vitalism, and Frankenstein was a direct response to it."

"Our implementation of this historic MOU reflects the enduring and unshakable commitment of the President, this Administration, and the American people to Israel’s security. The MOU was negotiated under the previous Administration, reflecting the bi-partisan nature of this commitment. Israel is a valuable and capable ally to the United States that today faces dangerously escalating regional threats, first and foremost from the Iranian regime’s sponsorship of terrorist groups seeking to attack not only Israel but also American interests."

"George Johnson's Santa Fe office is packed floor to ceiling with century-old electrical paraphernalia — cathode-ray tubes, high-voltage spark coils, glass cylinders of hydrogen and helium, cascades of wires. They're the relics of an eBay odyssey he undertook to re-create a 1909 experiment by Robert Millikan measuring the charge on a single electron."

"What a chronicler can do, if not share the pain, is observe and ponder and explicate, and Johnson delivers. He busts myths and clarifies realities about what seems to cause, or to help prevent, cancer."

"Build a quantum computer and problems long dismissed as hopeless would melt away. Imagine tapping a fundamental force of nature, not for the purpose of moving around matter but for moving around numbers—explosions of information. Quantum computing would be to ordinary computing what nuclear energy is to fire."

"Even if you invoke vast geologic time, the series of fortuitous mutations leading to an eye, a kidney, or a brain seem too good to be true."

"I shouldn't be fooled, some of his old colleagues told me, by the newer, mellower Murray. As I explored his past, I found that his reputation as an intellectual show-off was well earned. He had long been interested in almost everything—classical history, archaeology, linguistics, wildlife ecology, ornithology, numismatics, French and Chinese cuisine—and he was always ready to lure people into conversations where he could display the depth of his knowledge and, it sometimes seemed, the shallowness of their own. The breadth of his learning had become legendary."

"While Robert Welch opposed the United Nations for supposedly encouraging obeisance to the one-world conspiracy, McIntire's fundamentalists saw it as a "house of red Babel.""

"As one looks back across the shambles of the intervening decades, it is hard not to envy them: the fierce young Reed making his prose into a lyric of revolt, the handsome young Eastman mediating among a raucus of opinions, the cherubic Art Young drawing his revolutionary cartoons with the other worldly aplomb of a Bronson Alcott. History cannot be recalled, but in this instance at least, nostalgia seems a part of realism. For who among us, if enabled by some feat of imagination, would not change places with the men of The Masses in their days of glory?"