Matthew Bunn in The Conversation:

Richard Garwin, who died on May 13, 2025, at the age of 97, was sometimes called “the most influential scientist you’ve never heard of.” He got his Ph.D. in physics at 21 under Enrico Fermi – a Nobel Prize winner and friend of Einstein’s – who called Garwin “the only true genius” he’d ever met.

A polymath curious about almost everything, he was one of the few people elected to the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Medicine for pathbreaking contributions in all of those fields. He held 47 patents and published over 500 scientific papers. A giant trove of his papers and talks can be found in the Garwin Archive at the Federation of American Scientists.

Garwin was best known for having done the engineering design for the first-ever thermonuclear explosion, turning the Teller-Ulam idea of triggering a fusion reaction with radiation pressure into a working hydrogen bomb – one with roughly 700 times the power of the Hiroshima bomb. He did that over the summer when he was 23.

More here.

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Kelby Vera at Huffpost:

Israel’s former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert says he now believes his country’s relentless assault on the Palestinian people amounts to “war crimes” and must be stopped.

Addressing the people of Israel in an article written in Hebrew and published by Haaretz on Thursday, Olmert, who served from 2006 to 2009, condemned current Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government for “waging a pointless war, without a clear goal or plan, and with no chance of success,” according to Google’s translation of the piece.

While Olmert wrote that he had previously defended his country against “accusations of genocide and war crimes,” the Israeli politician said he can no longer see the widespread slaughter of civilians, including women, children and the elderly, or the campaign to starve Gaza as mere collateral damage in “a brutal war.”

More here.

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Michelle Goldberg in The New York Times:

In November, when the “Succession” creator Jesse Armstrong got the idea for his caustic new movie, “Mountainhead,” he knew he wanted to do it fast. He wrote the script, about grandiose, nihilistic tech oligarchs holed up in a mountain mansion in Utah, in January and February, as a very similar set of oligarchs was coalescing behind Donald Trump’s inauguration. Then he shot the film, his first, over five weeks this spring. It premiers on Saturday on HBO — an astonishingly compressed timeline. With events cascading so quickly that last year often feels like another era, Armstrong wanted to create what he called, when I spoke to him last week, “a feeling of nowness.”

He’s succeeded. Much of the pleasure of “Mountainhead” is in the lens it offers on our preposterous nightmare world. I spend a lot of my time saucer-eyed with horror at the rapid degeneration of this country, agog at the terrifying power amassed by Silicon Valley big shots who sound like stoned Bond villains. No one, I suspect, can fully process the cavalcade of absurdities and atrocities that make up each day’s news cycle. But art can help; it’s not fun to live in a dawning age of technofeudalism, but it is satisfying to see it channeled into comedy.

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Jerry Saltz at Vulture:

The artist Amy Sherald is best known for her magnificent 2018 portrait Michelle LaVaughn Robinson Obama, which has been looked at, studied, and written about as much as any portrait in the 21st century. It features Obama resting her chin on her right wrist, her gaze both self-aware and probing. She seems to be sizing us up as much as the other way around, forcing the viewer back on their own preconceptions about the first Black First Lady. Wearing a wonderful quiltlike sleeveless maxi dress by designer Michelle Smith, this woman radiates a casual gravitas. She is suspended in a field of turquoise paint, her skin tone a pewter-gray grisaille, which removes her from our realm and gives her an almost alien interiority and agency.

Most people only know Sherald through photographs of this one work. But as Sherald has said, “I had a career before Michelle Obama.” This is more than evident in her new mid-career survey at the Whitney, “American Sublime,” an experience in having your breath taken away.

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Sophie Oliver at Literary Review:

It’s not often that a biography really gets going after the author has reached the subject’s death. Gertrude Stein herself predicted that she would only be understood in the future: ‘For a very long time everybody refuses and then almost without a pause almost everybody accepts.’ She wasn’t entirely right, but Francesca Wade’s new ‘afterlife’ of Stein takes the sentiment seriously. The revolutions in language that preoccupied Stein in life were slowly appreciated after her death in 1946. Despite having an unpromising cast of scholars, librarians, publishers and fans, Wade turns the posthumous half of the Stein story into a narrative of suppression, revelation and hopes fulfilled. It helps that there is romance at the heart of it, and a secret notebook.

First, the story of Stein’s life must be told. The myth of Stein, her Parisian salon and her collection of modernist art is immense; Stein scholarship is even bigger. In this inflated scene, Wade’s is a sensitive, compelling study that – like her debut, Square Haunting, a group biography of four women writers living in the same London square – puts writing at the centre of her subject’s world. Her Stein is charming, self-important, eccentric, vulnerable and obsessive, driven to understand her own interests but not always understanding others’. Stein’s preoccupation with knowledge began early.

more here.

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Ayşe Zarakol in The Ideas Letter:

Something very fundamental is happening in world history, again. If anyone had been hoping that the Western alliance’s rallying together after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 or the scattered (and at times self-contradictory) efforts of the Biden administration to shore up international law would be enough to save the so-called liberal international order, the first few months of the second Trump administration should be enough to dispel that notion. The three pillars of liberal internationalism—multilateralism, democracy, and free trade—have already taken severe hits and more are likely to come. At the very least, this moment marks the end of the post–Cold War order.

Almost as striking as the speed with which things are getting dismantled is the fact that no one—academics, policymakers, journalists, social media influencers, podcasters—seems to have a clear idea about what comes next. Talk of crisis and disorder abounds; some analogies to the 19th and 20th centuries pop up here and there, with comparisons to imperial competition and lessons from the interwar period or predictions about a Cold War 2.0. But this is all very backward-looking, all very muddled. Contrast the present with the end of the Cold War. Those who were around for that last world-historical moment will remember that there was no shortage of projections about the future then, some optimistic, some pessimistic—which is to say, too, that there is no greater proof that liberalism’s current crisis is real than the establishment’s inability today to imagine anything about what will follow.

More here.

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Gilberto García-Vazquez in Phenomenal World:

In a dramatic shift in US trade policy, the Trump administration has imposed and continues to threaten new rounds of tariffs against Mexico, sounding alarm bells across the Mexican manufacturing industry. If fully implemented, these measures could cause immediate disruption in key industrial zones, place hundreds of thousands of jobs at risk, and halt strategic investments.

Whatever Trump’s motivations around migration, security, or a new model of trade integration, the threat reveals a deeper structural vulnerability in Mexico’s economy: an excessive dependence on a single trading partner, one which is now willing to use tariffs as a political tool. This instrumental use of economic power has direct consequences for the stability of the Mexican economy and the functioning of highly integrated value chains between the two countries.

A clear example of this politicization of trade is the recent dispute over the 1944 Water Treaty. On April 10, less than a week after new tariffs announced during so-called “Liberation Day” came into effect, President Trump accused Mexico of “stealing water from Texas farmers” and threatened to immediately impose an additional 10 percent tariff on all Mexican imports, along with targeted economic sanctions. This episode illustrated how the arbitrary and political use of tariffs can generate profound uncertainty around bilateral trade secured by agreements signed decades ago.

More here.

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Lisa L. Miller in Boston Review, with  responses from Eric Blanc, Marcus Gadson, Gianpaolo Baiocchi, Samuel Moyn, Aziz Huq, Kelly Hayes & Maya Schenwar, and Lily Geismer.

On the floor of the Senate at the end of January, Chuck Schumer condemned the actions of Donald Trump’s new administration. “This is an explicit assault on our system of checks and balances which have served this republic so well for centuries,” he stated.

In doing so, Schumer tapped into a hallowed American ideal. Probably no narrative about our system of government is more widely shared than this one: that the Framers of the Constitution wisely restrained government power through separation of powers, judicial review, bicameralism, and federalism. Especially in moments of heightened political conflict, many Americans invoke checks and balances as a safeguard against tyranny and essential protection for minorities. Hillary Clinton captured the essence of the prevailing view when she asserted, after Trump’s first win in 2016, that “constitutional checks and balances” are a key part of “an immune system protecting us from the disease of authoritarianism.”

It is thus unsurprising to hear Democrats marshaling these ideas against Trump’s brazen and ongoing attacks on government, immigrants, and political opponents. What these invocations mean as a practical matter is not always clear, however. Some place their hopes in the courts, even as the administration openly flouts many rulings. Others, taken with the promise of “progressive federalism,” urge resistance in blue states. Still others seem eager for a return to “normal,” evoking a golden age of bipartisanship and well-functioning constitutionalism before Trump. These strategies have intuitive appeal because they draw on popular ideas about the virtues of our constitutional system, but they miss something fundamental about our political crisis—and thus about how to resolve it.

More here.

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Matthew Karp in Sidecar:

The US political world can today be divided not only between left and right, but along another axis: Trump maximalists and Trump minimalists. Maximalists are inclined to view Trump as an agent or conduit of a sudden historical rupture, whether the transformation of the party system, the destruction of American democracy or the implosion of the liberal world order. Minimalists see Trump not as a fundamental break but rather as a lurid symbol of longer-running developments, or a symptom of crises that lie elsewhere – a black hole detracting attention from real political problems.

This is not a cleanly partisan or ideological distinction, which is one of the things that makes it interesting. There are many familiar liberal maximalists, of course – some of them have recently decamped to Canada in fear of or in protest at the tyrannical regime; and there are conservative maximalists too, mostly right-leaning newspaper columnists who have mobilized few votes but left an outsize impact on the texture and tenor of anti-Trump politics. Despite some disagreement, liberal and conservative maximalists unite in seeing the President himself as the chief and often the only issue in national politics; both have also leapt to enlist in the ‘fascism wars’, often brandishing the F-word as a cudgel to discipline the left at elections, and elsewhere.

Yet there is also a countervailing minimalism of the centre.

More here.

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Adeola Adeosun in Newsweek:

Democratic National Committee (DNC) Vice Chair David Hogg publicly endorsed Rep. Jasmine Crockett of Texas as “the type of leader” their struggling political party needs during a Friday appearance on The Breakfast Club radio show. The endorsement comes as Hogg faces potential removal from his leadership position following a credentials committee vote this month that challenged his February election due to procedural errors. Newsweek reached out to Hogg and Crockett via email on Saturday for comment.

This endorsement highlights the ongoing identity crisis within the Democratic Party following comprehensive losses in the 2024 election cycle. Democrats lost the White House, Senate, and House, creating uncertainty about the party’s future direction and leadership. The public backing of Crockett, known for controversial statements and confrontational tactics, signals a potential shift toward more combative political messaging. Recent polling shows former Vice President Kamala Harris currently leading potential 2028 presidential candidates, followed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, California Governor Gavin Newsom, and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

More here.

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From Harvard Magazine:

At Friday afternoon’s rain-soaked Radcliffe Day celebration, Oscar-winning actress and filmmaker Jodie Foster received the 2025 Radcliffe Medal, reunited with an old college mentor, and gave a shout-out to Harvard for pushing back against the Trump administration. “What I hope for people now is that they take the gloves off, and Harvard has shown that recently, and right on,” Foster said, acknowledging that the politics of the last decade have left many people feeling “worn out and sad.” Then, looking toward the audience gathered in Radcliffe Yard, she added, “This group of thinkers in these rarified places, where the intellect and the ability to connect [are] really revered above all else, [need] to really understand that you have the power to use love as a guiding principle and be strategic.”

The day’s stated theme was women’s evolving role in film and television, but what kept coming up, for Foster as well as a panel of other speakers from the entertainment industry, were broader fights for equality and freedom. “Jodie has used the power of art to engage with existential questions that define the human experience,” said Radcliffe Institute Dean Tomiko Brown-Nagin in her introductory remarks, adding that Foster’s work focuses “our attention on critical issues and overlooked voices.”

More here.

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Only Ayesha (God be pleased with her)

Wrapped in silken, the angel brought her; only Ayesha,
The Apostle saw her for three nights in a dream, only Ayesha.

He sees her lips placing morsels, and says, ‘Only Ayesha’;
following the bowl’s edges, she slurped, only Ayesha.

The lovers do not stop reiterating, testing the language’s deal:
‘How is the love knot? Stronger than ever, but only Ayesha.

In darkness, making a thread pass the needle’s hole, she implored;
He became the pouring lamp, they embroidered love, only for Ayesha!

‘Who is the most beloved to your heart?’ Of course, only Ayesha.
One who is the Beloved of let it be, so His love is only Ayesha.

He raced and deliberately lost; only a Lover bears defeat with humility.
But He won her heart; she was smitten, the Last Apostle, and only Ayesha.

In the hues of love, the lovers are immersed, so the Apostle imbues her,
everything appears to be of One reflection, so there was only One Ayesha.

 Just for a lost necklace, He stopped the whole cavalry; imagine empathy,
The Lover and the Soldier, entwined martyrs of love, the Apostle, and only Ayesha.

The only Love cleared by a Revelation; no trial, no love, divinely orchestrated,
She was pure; Ah! the endurance and the Apostle bore it only for his Ayesha!

The last moments, the feverish head reclining in her lap, and the lips murmuring,
This poet is too ordinary to narrate the story of love; only He and only Ayesha!

by Rizwan Akhtar

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Gabrielle Drolet in The Walrus:

I got the offer to do Horse News not long after I moved to Montreal, at a time when I needed work more than ever.

I was twenty-four and a full-time adult now, tasked with the question of how I planned to fill my time and make a living.

A year and a half earlier, when I’d finished my undergraduate studies in English and creative writing, I had immediately enrolled in another creative writing program. I wish I could say this was entirely because I was devoted to my craft or that it was my life’s dream to write a book, but that’s only a small part of the truth. The main reason I joined a master’s program was that I didn’t want to face what life would look like once I was no longer a student.

As I’d gotten closer to finishing my undergrad, I kept getting asked what came next. For years, the question “What are you going to do when you grow up?” had been answered the same way: I’m going to be a writer. This was an answer that adults found cute when I was a child and concerning as I got older. A writer, they echoed, mulling the word over slowly. Interesting. By the time I got to university, it was an answer that felt downright unacceptable. Sharing dreams about writing for a living elicited looks of mingled confusion and pity. A writer?

More here.

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Quico Toro and Guido Núñez-Mujica at Persuasion:

It’s been an enormous week for nuclear. On Monday, in a landmark policy U-turn, the new German Chancellor Friedrich Merz finally dropped his country’s longstanding opposition to nuclear energy at the European level. In a joint op-ed with French President Emmanuel Macron, Merz aligned his position with France’s, ending years of fierce and constant opposition that had refused funding to nuclear investments across the EU and treated nuclear power, in some ways, as worse than coal.

The move came in the context of a broader effort to revitalize the Paris-Berlin strategic partnership, where German sniping against nuclear projects had been a constant irritant. The shift has barely gotten noticed in the German press, because it isn’t likely to change policy within the country. Nuclear restarts remain a hot-button issue there, with not only the Greens but the Social Democrats adamantly opposed to restarting the country’s nuclear fleet. As Merz depends on Social Democratic votes for his coalition’s Bundestag majority, big roadblocks remain.

But in the EU more broadly, dropping the German government’s constant obstructionism to approving nuclear projects under the Green New Deal—Europe’s landmark climate policy—could nudge dozens of plants toward viability.

More here.

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[Click on photo above or here for video.]

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Lisa L. Miller at The Boston Review:

Majorities of Americans across the political spectrum have long understood that their system of government doesn’t serve them well. Institutional obstacles at all levels em- power elite minorities to safeguard their own interests and block popular policies that would broadly serve the American people, from universal health care to a higher minimum wage. Of course, Trump’s attacks on political institutions have little to do with constraining the power of elites or advancing such policies; on the contrary, with Elon Musk at the head of DOGE, they are advancing rank corruption and kleptocracy for the benefit of the ultrawealthy and extreme ideologues. But Trump does tap into the sentiment that our institutions are broken. Acknowledging the flaws in our system does not mean endorsing his, or any president’s, unlimited power. Nor does it mean there is no form of checks and balances that can serve American democracy. Rather, it clarifies the necessity and urgency of reforming government so it responds better to the needs of ordinary people.

To advance this goal, we need a frank assessment of how our system of so-called checks and balances works as a real-world set of democratic institutions. The conventional wisdom says that checks and balances forestall the abuse of power. But our particular system constrains the public far more than it constrains elites.

More here.

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Here’s the economic theory for us ordinary folk,” a dad said to daughter
about the way of the world before Tariffs got in the way.

How Things Work

Today it’s going to cost us $20
To live. Five for softball. Four for a book,
A handful of ones for coffee and two sweet rolls,
Bus fare, Rosin for your mother’s violin.
We’re completing our task. The tip I left
For the waitress filters down
Like rain, wetting the new roots of a child
Perhaps, a belligerent cat that won’t let go
Of a balled sock until there is chicken to eat.
As far as I can tell, daughter, it works like this:
You buy bread from a grocery, a bag of apples
From a fruit stand, and what coins
Are passed on helps others buy pencils, glue,
Tickets to a movie in which laughter
is thrown into their faces.
If we buy a goldfish, someone tries on a hat.
If we buy crayons, someone walks home with a broom.
A tip, a small purchase here and there,
And things just keep going. I guess.

by Gary Soto

Postscript: This is almost unbearably sweet in this crazy time.
Well, almost any sanity is now poignant because of its general loss.
It would probably cost a hundred bucks today “to live.” Maybe more.
But this is a human way in which we take care of each other. Isn’t
that what economics is really about? not spoon-feeding billionaires
at the cost of food for the hungry? —Nils Peterson

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