Dollars and Dogecoins

NOT MERELY IS THERE NO THERE THERE, THE IDEA OF THERE IS SILLY AND STOP TALKING ABOUT IT

Trump supporters rejoice: some old questions about the nature of truth given a new gloss or, why there is no there there because we’re built for survival, not accuracy. New adventures in levitation: lifting things using light. And penises may be ubiquitous but they are wildly overrated as research subjects.

A prominent evangelical preacher turns out to be a serial sexual predator — after the flagship evangelical publication Christianity Today investigates revelations by his victims. “The central cultural conflict for religion in this century”: can robots pray? Sounds like a stupid question but it wasn’t in the sixteenth century and isn’t now.

FOREIGN DESK

It’s time to stop pretending Iran is anywhere near developing a nuclear weapon. The arms industry exerts far too great an influence over foreign policy. Trump’s phone calls to his handler Putin and other international figures now belong to Biden and anyway, is Putin quite as immoveable as everyone seems to assume?

Enough of the both-sidesism — the blame for US political decay rests squarely with the GOP. How the colossally vile Saudi regime still “corrects” women who displease Saudi men — and how it proposes to force major companies to relocate their headquarters there.

DOLLARS AND DOGECOINS

Who’s ditching neoliberalism now? Biden’s Keynesianism (no wonder neoliberal hack Larry Summers is unhappy). China is now the European Union’s biggest trading partner, not the United States (well done, Donald).

The only crypto-currency worth a damn, Dogecoin, is experiencing a resurgence years after most of its holders forgot they even had it (and, more to the point, forgot the passwords to their wallets now worth a few bucks). Will vaccines return us to a pre-COVID normal? And what to do with English post-Brexit?

THE DYNAMICS OF HATE

“The male glance is the opposite of the male gaze. Rather than linger lovingly on the parts it wants most to penetrate, it looks, assumes, and moves on.” How the work of women is casually dismissed. Why do we hate female celebrities? Actually, it’s us, bitch. Liz Flux on Promising Young Woman and its brilliant casting. From glory to dismay: the rapid fall of the Lincoln Project. How Jewish scientists were treated under the profoundly anti-Semitic Soviet Union. And a fossil fuel-based analysis of how the US electorate is divided.

FINALLY

One of the world’s best music critics, Alexis Petridis looks at the elusive Prince as we approach five years since his death.

And stories about pets going missing in airports usually end very sadly. Well, not this time.