Everyone’s writing about trigger warnings — that is, the idea that bloggers, journalists, professors and writers of all kinds should warn their readers of content which may be upsetting to individuals who have faced certain kinds of trauma, specifically, sexual assault — these days, so I’ll add my two cents. First, some links:  A Chronicle of Higher Education blog post, “Treatment, not Trigger Warnings.”  As the title indicates, the post argues that  The solution is not to help these students... Read more

Every now and again I try an “open thread” type of post, with varying degrees of success, but I’ll try again, because I couldn’t find much of anything at the library the last time I was there, so I thought I’d solicit reader suggestions. Me?  The last one that comes to mind that was compelling, in the can’t-put-it-down sense, and was satisfying when I finished it, was Unbroken (my review here).  That was back last September, and I’ve probably read... Read more

So a faithful reader, Peter Hurley, referred me to an article he’s written on “Opening the Canada-US Border,” which, as much as I tend towards immigration restrictionism, I actually like quite a lot.  It’s basically a plan for a Schengen Agreement between us and our northern neighbor, or, as we from the Detroit like to say, “practically the 51st state already anyway,” and “just like the U.S. except nicer.” And the borderlessness of the European Union (combined with the common... Read more

This, from Kaiser Health News via the Chicago Tribune: A pair of potent new drugs can cure the vast majority of patients infected with hepatitis C . . .  One of them, called Sovaldi, costs $1,000 a pill — $84,000 for a typical 12-week course. The other, Olysio, costs around $66,000.  The article profiles Walter Bianco, who succeeded in getting Medicare approval for this drug regimen, but it sounds as if this is the tip of the iceberg. Researchers estimate... Read more

So this is in the category of “a solution in search of a problem,” but I was thinking about immigration earlier, in light of a story that Ann Althouse linked to about a woman in an unhappy marriage, in which all her commenters observed, “her husband married her for the green card and she doesn’t see it!” Let’s split prospective immigrants into two broad groups:  those coming to the U.S. to better their lives, because their home country is poor... Read more

The good news:  Michael Madigan and Pat Quinn do not yet have the votes to make permanent the “temporary” tax hike.  Enough Democrats are standing their ground and holding to their promises, rather than buying Madigan’s line that keeping promises is for suckers (well, paraphrased). They’re not giving up, though.  The latest, according to today’s Tribune, is to create a budget reflecting the scheduled tax rate, in order to “pressure recalcitrant Democrats by showing them what they’ll be giving up... Read more

So the other day I linked to a CNN report on a Sudanese Christian woman sentenced to death for apostasy, because, according to Sudanese law, she was “born Muslim” and had no right to be a Christian.  And I also started to read a book on modern-day persecution of Christians by Muslims, Crucified Again, the fundamental claim of which, based on the initial chapter, is that it’s a part of the fundamental nature of Islam to be intolerant of other... Read more

So usually when I do these “from the library” posts, it’s a book on politics, but this came from the memoirs section. I Forgot to Remember is an unsettling book.  Su Meck, at the age of 22, lost her memory in a freak accident in 1988, a very Hollywood-style total amnesia (which she and/or her ghostwriter tells us is in fact extremely rare).  But unlike a Hollywood tale, she struggles for many, many years subsequent to that accident. A young... Read more

Rain poncho-clad demonstrators demanding $15-an-hour pay circled the McDonald’s with signs and chanted in Spanish, “What do we want? $15! When do we want it? Now!” and “McDonald’s, we are here.” So reports a Tribune article on a multi-city (with “dozens” of protesters in Chicago) protest for $15 pay for fast-food workers. Now, the protest was sponsored by, and funded by, the SIEU (the “funding” part is unclear, but the Tribune specifically uses the word “bankrolled” — I know that... Read more