by Steve Szilagyi

Having invisible friends is not necessarily a bad thing. What matters is how you handle it. You could, like the engineer Emmanuel Swedenborg or the poet William Blake, spin whole theologies out of your visions. Or you could try and ignore your invisible companions, like the philosopher Jean Paul Sartre, and hope they’ll go away (they won’t. Not for a while at least). Here we’ll see that the best thing to do is to learn to live with the darn things. That’s how Calvin Stowe, the husband of American author Harriet Beecher Stowe, handled his teeming world of invisible companions, setting an example of savoir faire from which we can all take heart.

For much of his young life, Calvin Stowe believed that the Bible sanctioned slavery. He was in a good position to know this, being among the most erudite biblical scholars of his day and able to read scripture in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and Latin. He knew every square inch of holy writ the way a bored student knows the top of his desk. And as far as he could see the Bible was okay with human bondage. Then, in 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act, a law that required Northern citizens to help capture runaway slaves. Sickened by this mad injustice, Stowe flipped his beliefs, and where he once saw scripture justifying slavery, he now saw its opposite. In a letter to his wife, he wrote:

“Hattie, if I could use a pen as you can, I would write something that would make this whole nation feel what an accursed thing slavery is.”

Harriet, then a modestly successful author, responded by writing the powerful anti-slavery novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin – which whipped up sentiments leading to the American Civil War, played a key role in the abolition of slavery and indirectly led to the deaths of some 600,000 people. Read more »

by Anton Cebalo

Writer Joseph Roth noted that the period after World War I thrived on “the ability to forget quickly and emphatically.” This was just as true for people. People who had great, popular dreams about the future before the war were thrown into obscurity afterward. One such person was author and lawyer Paul Otlet.

Otlet was definitely an idealist. In 1910, him and lawyer Henri La Fontaine sought to create a “city of knowledge” which they called Mendaneum. Housed in Brussels, Belgium, it would store and categorize all the world’s information into nine categories with tens of thousands of subdivisions. Otlet hoped that someday it would be accessible in the comfort of one’s home.

In what eerily resembles today’s internet, he wrote:

Everything in the universe, and everything of man, would be registered at a distance as it was produced. In this way a moving image of the world will be established, a true mirror of [its] memory. From a distance, everyone will be able to read text, enlarged and limited to the desired subject, projected on an individual screen. In this way, everyone from his armchair will be able to contemplate creation, in whole or in certain parts.

The idea began in 1895 by developing what is arguably the world’s first “search engine.” Rather than organize information by books, cards would mark bits of information which would be easily indexable. Users could “search” by asking questions to assistants (for a fee) and then be given query responses of up to fifty.

The entire bibliography of searchable information eventually consisted of over fifteen million entries. However, being all on paper, it was tedious to transport and largely stayed put in Brussels. Even worse, the labor took a painstakingly long amount of time. Workers would sometimes take days to complete just one query.

Otlet’s approach is considered one of the first, workable network-based knowledge systems. It was thought it could someday approach something of a “global brain.” The idea also pioneered the hyperlink—and Otlet went even further, envisioning bonds between documents by how they conceptually relate to one another and their disagreements. Not even today’s internet has fully realized this kind of semantic web yet. Read more »

by TJ Price

It’s been one year since I’ve been writing this monthly column here at 3 Quarks Daily. I think the temptation on such an occasion is to look backward—for evidence to support this, we have phenomena like the “clip show,” the “greatest hits,” the summation at the end of the textbook’s chapter. Further—the milestone and the benchmark; the rest area; the place where one sits down for a moment to catch one’s breath on the hike. Where there is usually a vista over which one may see the distance traveled, but from a new perspective—altered not only by altitude but also by time. That moment on the trail when the sun is going down and one makes camp to take stock of the road behind; the leagues between “It’s dangerous to go alone! Take this.” and “Our Princess is in another castle!” Odysseus; the Lotus-Eaters.

On and on and on.

One does this not only to reminisce, but also to pass the time as one’s body catches up with one’s soul, which has long-since struck out ahead of the body; a fleet-footed Ariel, scouting, doing reconnaissance, it has waited impatiently at this station for the body to catch up. It lazes in the tree branches, chews thoughtfully on long blades of grass. From time to time, it soars heavenward and looks down on the body as it, too, looks out on the past. The body is patient, but plagued by reminders of its fallibility, of its inherent weakness. (This type of pain—fatigue, discomfort—is something the body eventually only vaguely remembers; but the type of pain that the soul feels, neither can ever forget.)

And so we enter the way station, manned by they who rebel from Beckett’s old pronouncement; they who can’t go on but also who do not go on, those condemned to the moment between Just Having Arrived and Ready to Go. Sad-faced and shuffling, they hand out the tickets at the counter for those departing, but never depart themselves (for though purgatory is empty, it must never be empty).

—{ In my childhood, I once wrote a poem about barbershops called “way station.” I will not include it here, suffice to say it included a simile regarding the sweetly silver shearing of the scissors like birds so close to my ear; snipping and singing, snipping and singing. I remember it was a poem about contentment, involving some imagery about the other men waiting, leafing through magazines. A reference to Ol’ Blue Eyes playing on the speakers, a vocal blooming of regret; the astringent tang of witch hazel in the air. The stinging sensation on the nape of my neck and the first cool spring zephyr over my scalp, a strap of bells still chiming behind me on the exit. }—

And so, the look back (Orpheus craning his neck around again; Lot’s wife tasting the tang of a sharply brackish breeze); the publishing of the yearbook; the commemoration and anniversary. A line, bent by the pressure of time, becomes a circle, joining itself again to repeat the same track. It is either this, or, bent by an entirely different force—the quickening dread one feels upon seeing one’s beginnings on the horizon—a line becomes a spiral. Read more »

Two construction cranes in Brixen, South Tyrol.

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by Thomas Fernandes

This series began with the desire to share a more diverse and lifelike account of biodiversity than the more mediatized utilitarian framing used in reporting, awareness campaigns, or pleas for conservation. This position is far from unique; the philosopher Arne Naess articulated the  deep ecology movement more than 30 years ago, in which the first two principles are:

1. The well-being and flourishing of human and nonhuman life on Earth have value in themselves. These inherent values are independent of the usefulness of the nonhuman world for human purposes.
2. Richness and diversity of life-forms are also values in themselves.

Valuing life for its own sake is something few would oppose in principle. Yet the reality of this value is tested only when choices must be made, at which points commitment to abstract principles often dissolves first. But these principles don’t have to remain abstract. Writing these essays made me care more about biodiversity than when I started. Not through moral argument, but through familiarity. Learning about vultures did more to make me care about their extinction than any reasonable arguments. Closeness came from spending time in their world, not from being told they matter. It is hard to care for the alien.

Yet valuing life for its sake does not mean it does not have value for us. Yes, ecological value, but also in enabling a change in perspective. We get stuck in perceptual ruts so deep we cannot imagine alternatives. We assume our way of seeing is simply how things are.

This is the core of Donald Hoffman’s Interface Theory of Perception, in which he challenges the idea that perception reconstructs the objective properties of the world as they really are. Instead, he argues that perception actively constructs the perceptual world of an organism. What we experience are not faithful renderings of reality, but species-specific solutions shaped by evolution. Read more »

by Brooks Riley

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by Peter Topolewski

Most of us haven’t smoked or snorted crystal meth. Not in meaningful quantities. Same goes for heroin and fentanyl.

But by now, no matter where we live, most of us have stepped over or around someone who has. Someone who is, if not dead, smoking or snorting or shooting up again right now. Or is desperate to.

Probably, as we walked by—giving the meth user his space, wondering if we check that the facedown fentanyl user is breathing—we thought we couldn’t relate to that person, that predicament. Not to the tipped over bag of worldly possessions. Not to the permanent hunch, the swollen ankles, the open sores.

With a little effort, though, we could relate. For whom among us hasn’t smoked dope? Or popped pills, or chewed mushrooms, or dropped acid, or drank too much booze? We know, in a way, a little something about chasing a feeling, getting a rush, smoothing the edges, escaping ourselves and our predicaments.

Turns out each of us have more in common with people severely addicted to drugs than not. Read more »

by Bill Murray

An era of worldwide illiberal governance approaches. If the Trump administration has its way, future illiberal leaders will face fewer opponents. Aspiring autocrats will lose the constraint of the United States as a potential opponent. Autocracy will spread.

We speculated for years about how the unipolar moment would end. With the rise of China, would the United States fall into a Thucydides Trap? Would it stretch itself too thin? Would we fall victim to “imperial overstretch?”

How would the United States handle the rise of the rest? The debate was usually about what the US would do to keep things steady – to maintain equilibrium. No one saw the US as the disruptor. But as it turns out, it’s the chief enforcer who is changing the script.

The US is not riding the crest of some mass upwelling of worldwide ‘illiberal’ spirit. In leading the world toward a ‘spheres of influence’ (SOI) model, the Trump administration is making a considered choice, and it is tragic. Spheres of influence is a terrible idea for the United States.

It will squander the accumulated work of eighty years of American statecraft for no strategic gain. It will take down a framework that has on balance benefitted millions since World War II. *

Abandoning the rules-based international order would be a ham-fisted, unforced mistake. It would affirm the authoritarian models of the two other powers with whom the Trump administration proposes to split the world, and they wouldn’t even need to ask.

SOIs violate a principle which has stood (with obvious exceptions) since the mid-17th century. Rising from a series of agreements collectively known as the Peace of Westphalia (which ended the Thirty Years’ War), they codified the sovereignty of individual states and sought to tell meddling would-be hegemons to stop it and respect sovereign borders. Read more »

Alia Farid. From the series “Elsewhere”. Produced by Chisenhale Gallery, London. Commissioned by Chisenhale Gallery; Passerelle Centre d’art contemporain, Brest.

” … Whether working with Samawa weavers in Iraq, fountain fabricators in Kuwait, or young residents of the Chibayish marshlands, Farid says, ‘Much of the process is developing the craft together.’

Elsewhere (1 December 2023–4 February 2024), Alia Farid’s solo show at Chisenhale Gallery in London, was the first presentation of a research project tracing Arab and South Asian migration to Latin America and the Caribbean.

In this iteration, Farid focused on the Palestinian diaspora in Puerto Rico, where she grew up. Opening the show was Gastronomía platos (Tierra Santa)(2023), a screenprinted photograph showing a tray of dishes on a table in Tierra Santa, a Palestinian-owned restaurant in San Juan, framed in the gallery’s entrance.

Tierra Santa is depicted in one of the 16 hand-woven and embroidered rugs with earthy, red-scale tones that hang side by side, varying in length and width, in two parallel rows from the ceiling. Each rug draws on spaces defining Puerto Rico’s Palestinian communities, including a mosque in Fajardo with a silhouette that echoes Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa Mosque, forming a cityscape in the main gallery.”

More here, and here.

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by Carol A Westbrook

A few weeks ago, I was sitting in a downtown doctor’s office, interviewing a potential concierge physician to see if we were compatible. I had decided it was time to make some changes in my health care, and for good reason. I’m in my 70’s, I’m handicapped, and I’m a physician, specializing in internal medicine and medical oncology.  But it’s been years since I had any professional training or kept up to date. The few times I’ve ended up in an emergency room I felt insecure, I couldn’t remember how to read an EKG or a chest X-Ray!  It was time for me to get another set of eyes on my health care, and find someone I could trust to oversee it. I need a primary care physician, and I’d like her to be someone whose philosophy of medical practice was similar to mine.

I had my Uber drop me at 680 N Lake Shore Drive. It was an impressive building, part of the old Northwestern Medical School. There was a lovely set of granite stairs with bronze railings, and flanking these on either side were ramps. I unfolded my walker and headed up the handicapped ramps. It was a long walk, but I made it up to the front door.

“Back in the day,” as we like to say, we practiced primary care—that is to say, adult internal medicine—differently. During my residency training at the University of Chicago we looked upon our patients as people.  We knew each one—and their family—individually. The charts were reviewed before a clinic visit, and updated at the end of the encounter. We spent as much or as little time as needed.  If a new problem came up for one of my patients, all it took was a call to me to set the wheels in motion. Because of our familiarity with the clinical history, we were more prepared to deal with emergencies as they came up. If there was a problem outside of my area of expertise, I could easily arrange a referral or transfer to the appropriate speciality.  In this way, lines of communication remained open and we provided the best of care to our patients, without having to assign them to another doctor or nurse specialist at the end of the shift.

This is the way Primary Care medicine should  be practiced, but this model no longer exists, and the reason is straightforward—it is too expensive to provide this amount of time and individual attention for the number of patients that a primary care doctor is expected to see in the current medical climate. Read more »

“We have from the beginning of the Holocene, you know, the raising,
the creation of cities in the Tigris/Euphrates, we have created a world
in which we marginalize that which we don’t think serves us as well
as it could. We’ve turned nature into a thing.”
……………………………………—Barry Lopez, author, moral philosopher

Death of 832

by Eric Schenck

I’ve gotten high with my dad about 10 times. 

It’s certainly a unique life position to be in. There’s a specific routine we follow:

• I visit my parents for a few days.
• We catch up the first 24 hours and talk about everything you’d expect.
• I ask Dad if he wants to do a weed gummy with me.
• He says no. Last time was fun but he’s off it for good.
• Mom says he should.
• He says no again.
• My mom insists that it’s good for him.
• Dad caves, and an hour later we are having the time of our lives. 

Call it peer pressure. I call it true love. 

Do we need weed gummies? Of course not. But boy do they add a hilarious kind of fuzz to everything we do. 

And over the last couple years, they’ve given me a lot of laughs, some funny pictures…

And a way to get to know my dad a little better.  Read more »

by Amir Zadnemat

Introduction: Flight from Tranquility

In the age of noise, we have become refugees from silence. Imagine a world where every moment of wakefulness is filled with sound. From the jarring morning alarm to the podcast we listen to on the way to work; from the constant murmur of the office to the background music in the café; from the endless information on our smartphones to the television that’s on just to have “something” playing. We, the people of the 20th and 21st centuries, are master architects of sonic walls. Skillfully, we fill every gap and empty space in our daily lives with noise and information.

For many of us, silence has become a strange, uncomfortable, and even frightening concept. This auditory void is like a mirror we fear to gaze into. But this global flight bears witness to a deeper truth: silence is not merely the absence of sound. If it were, it wouldn’t evoke such terror.

Silence is an active and powerful presence—an entity with its own character and unique qualities. Not an empty canvas, but the canvas itself; the surface upon which the meaning of sound, thought, and self-existence is painted. Silence can be soothing or terrifying, intimate or threatening, sacred or humiliating. It is a universal language that conveys the deepest messages without a single word.

This article is an invitation to a conscious journey into the heart of this forgotten land. Our goal is to explore the multifaceted nature of silence to demonstrate that this “nothingness” of hearing is, in fact, “everything.” From the physics of vacuum to the psychology of solitude; from its vital role in music and art to its power as a political and spiritual tool, we analyze silence not as absence, but as a complex and meaningful entity.

This is an effort to reclaim silence; not as a void to flee from, but as a sacred space to embrace and listen to its meaningful voice. Let us, for a moment, lower the volume of the world and tune into the melody of existence. Read more »

by Barry Goldman

Everybody knows the scene in Casablanca when Captain Renault is “shocked, shocked” to find that gambling is going on in Rick’s Café. The phrase has become shorthand for all kinds of official hypocrisy. But I want to go back a few lines. Here is the clip.

Major Strasser says, “This café is to be closed at once.” Captain Renault says, “But I have no excuse to close it.” And Strasser says, “Find one.” The boss wants some official action taken, and he directs a subordinate to come up with a legal justification for it. He doesn’t say, “Would you please conduct a review of the statutes and judicial precedents in this area and determine whether or not I have the authority to take this action.” He says, “Find one.”

An exchange like that is likely to have taken place, directly or indirectly, between Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Legal Counsel T. Elliot Gaiser. Hegseth said, “I want to blow up what the president has ‘determined’ are drug boats in the Caribbean and kill all the people aboard.” Gaiser said, “But you have no excuse for doing that.” And Hegseth said, “Find one.”

The outcome of that conversation was what I previously called The Murder Memos. As I write this, the murder memos have still not been made public, but they have been disclosed to select congress members, and there has been a fair amount of reporting about what they contain. One argument in the document, reported in the Wall Street Journal and elsewhere, follows a line of reasoning that goes like this: Armed attacks have been legally justified in the past when they were ordered in response to the use of chemical weapons by an adversary. Fentanyl is a chemical. And it kills a lot of Americans. So you could think of it as a weapon. Therefore, um, national security, protect our citizens. Something, something. Kill them all. Yeah, that’s the ticket!

I wish I were exaggerating. Read more »

by Laurence Peterson

In the long and illustrious history of bullshit, there has perhaps never been another month quite like January, 2026, at least in terms of its political manifestations. The month began with a completely unprovoked attack on Venezuela that resulted in the apprehension of the country’s president and his wife, and their subsequent abduction to the United States.  This action resulted in the death of scores of people, and was done without any congressional input. Days later, the city of Minneapolis in Minnesota was occupied by some 2,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement  (ICE) and Customs and Border Protection (CBP) personnel (quite possibly due to the racist targeting of the large Somali community there) who proceeded to terrorize the community with many arrests and violent encounters with residents.

Days after that, Renee Good was shot 3 times and killed by a Federal agent, Jonathan Ross, who was spirited from the Minnesota and remains a free man. A little more than a fortnight later, another Minneapolis resident and American citizen, Alex Pretti, was mauled by 8 Federal agents (who likewise remain free men) and shot by two of them 10 times, resulting in his death. At the same time, US warships from the Far East are taking up positions near Iran, and the Trump administration continues to threaten that nation, again unprovoked in any demonstrable way, with military force. Closer to home, President Trump is accelerating pressure on desperately benighted Cuba, which, once more, poses absolutely no threat to the US, and without congressional authorization. By the time this piece appears (I am writing on January 29th), it is very possible that Iran will have been attacked, or that the Cuba will descend into some kind of chaos. Or God knows what else: Greenland; Canada; Gaza/West Bank/Lebanon. And another government shutdown looms. Meanwhile, there’s always Epstein. Read more »

by Mike O’Brien

For a variety of public and private reasons, this year is already worse than last year, and last year was awful. I’ve pretty much given up my long-standing news addiction, which in previous years had me reading vast swathes of reporting and analysis for hours a day, because now I just don’t want to know the details of all the unfolding horrors of which I am already vaguely aware. This began when I stopped reading The Guardian after the American election. Of all the major English-language news outlets, The Guardian hews closest to my own political and moral sympathies, and as such tends to focus on issues and events that I care most about. Because the issues and events that I care most about all seem to be converging in a slow-motion flaming train-wreck, accurate and insightful reporting on such matters is psychologically unbearable. Being informed, at least in the compulsive manner of the news addict, is not the empowering experience I hoped it would be. Knowledge is a necessary but not sufficient condition for improving the world, and if the other necessary conditions (like access to relevant institutions, material power, opportune social and political conditions) don’t obtain, then the cost of knowledge seems to outweigh the benefits. I still feel the moral pull to “bear witness” to the important events of the world, but this feels more and more like a private exercise of virtue and less like a public duty of any practical utility.

Luckily, there is plenty to read besides headlines about how everything that I value is cooked. Read more »