Just unleashing a bit more of the kraken here.

More information has emerged about the newspaper publisher who opposed Nikole Hannah-Jones.  This is a useful backgrounder for her decision to turn down UNC's offer and go to Howard.  Her opponent doesn’t sound like he’s actually interested in “objectivity” or “balance.”

Mary Beard’s interview is full of unsurprises, much like Mary Beard.  The LRB version of classics.

Using gut bacteria, scientists have been able to argue—maybe convincingly?—that humans populated the Americas about 12,000 years ago.  “a tiny population of H. pylori colonised the Americas in a single migration event approximately 12,000 years ago.”

Very good on how hard it is to quit Twitter.  Beyond the anecdotal, does it say much?  I don’t think so.

Nice piece about Albert Hirschman, still under-appreciated thinker.  I think the essay gets wrong some of the philosophical depth of The Passions and the Interests, though.

“The things that should not have happened in a normal society happened,” he says. A philosopher in Hong Kong now visits his old students in jail.

Useful summary of some concerns, though weirdly, umm, parochial as to the interaction of Catholic thought with non-Catholic thought (and also imperialism, racism, and anti-semitism, none of which are particularly non-Catholic) in the twentieth century: “today’s version of Catholic anti-liberalism is not the same as that which prompted Catholics to vote for the Fascists in Italy or the Nazis in Germany. Until the mid-twentieth century, Catholic anti-liberalism assumed that anti-republicanism and opposition to democracy and popular sovereignty—and, of course, to communism—were the only possible Catholic positions. Today’s version stems from the disappointments of the last few decades, and has challenged assumptions typical of the period between Vatican II and the beginning of the twenty-first century.…the failure of Catholics to make the case for democracy, and their dream for a return to the “golden age” of medieval Christendom, were key factors in the rise of authoritarian regimes in the twentieth century.”