Richard Kozul-Wright and Kevin Gallagher in Phenomenal World:
The “rules-based order” is more a confessional community of ardent believers in the benign global influence of American economic and political power than an accurate description of global governance. This is not widely understood. The more common story is that—per, to take a recent example, Paul Krugman—after the Second World War, Pax Americana “chose not to rig the system in its favor,” and instead cultivated a new model of hegemonic governance based on decency, benevolence, and restraint.
Donald Trump’s ascendancy to the White House through the murkier worlds of mega real estate deals and reality television means he has never had much time for such values—nor for the internationalist trappings typical of more vaunted members of “the order.” That unique personal history is beginning to hit home.
A flurry of Presidential decrees since January 17 has taken direct aim at key institutions of international cooperation, both domestic and multilateral. More are expected. There is certainly malice in these actions, and perhaps a little madness. But they embody an underlying belief in the restorative power and technological acumen of American business to make the country great again—and a determination to ensure that it is not obstructed by countervailing forces at home or abroad.
More here.
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For 23 years, A.O. Scott was a film critic for the New York Times. For the past five months, he has been the nation’s most prominent poetry critic, writing a monthly column that uses the Times’ interactive technology to analyze a single poem at a time. Scott isn’t coming to poetry as a true outsider. He finished all the coursework and exams for a Ph.D. in literature, and he was a literary critic before he started writing about movies. But when most writing about poetry is done by poets and lifelong academics, many of whom seem to view other poets and academics as their primary audience, that still makes Scott an unusual and welcome presence.
In the beginning there was agony. Under the empires of old, the strong did what they willed and the weak suffered what they must. But over the centuries, people built the sinews of civilization: Constitutions to restrain power, international alliances to promote peace, legal systems to peacefully settle disputes, scientific institutions to cure disease, news outlets to advance public understanding, charitable organizations to ease suffering, businesses to build wealth and spread prosperity, and universities to preserve, transmit and advance the glories of our way of life. These institutions make our lives sweet, loving and creative, rather than nasty, brutish and short.
When 
Last August, Phish hosted a four-day music festival at a racetrack in Dover, Delaware. It was called Mondegreen—the word for a misheard lyric or phrase—and it was the band’s first festival since 2015. Phish—the singer and guitarist Trey Anastasio, the keyboardist Page McConnell, the bassist Mike Gordon, and the drummer Jon Fishman—was scheduled to play at least two sets a night for four nights in a row. No other bands were on the bill.
Steve Bannon, Trump’s first term whisperer, once described himself as a 
I am a glyph-breaker. I confess. Guilty as charged. A glyph-breaker who didn’t break anything, and that is quite paradoxical, because, to be a true glyph-breaker, you should have deciphered an undeciphered script, like Jean-François Champollion (the founder of Egyptology, who decoded the Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs), Henry Rawlinson (who gave us the key to cuneiform) or Michael Ventris (who deciphered 
As with so many other scientific controversies in our political life, public opinion on Covid origins has come to track — and serve as a signifier for — partisan identity. This bodes ill for dispassionate investigation, which we must have if we want to know the truth about what actually threw the world into chaos for years and 
“The University will not surrender its independence or relinquish its constitutional rights,”