“It occurs to me that ‘giving birth to the future’ isn’t simply a metaphor. I say this as I continue wrestling with infinity — that is to say, working on the book project I began a decade ago: a book about creating peace. My exploration into all this goes beyond politics, global or otherwise. There are countless ways that humanity needs to change and, indeed, is changing. For instance: ‘For much of the 20th century, the childbirth process in this country didn’t invite a lot of active participation from parents. Mothers in labor were given heavy doses of drugs, and fathers were banished to waiting rooms.’ So wrote David Colker in the Los Angeles Times in 2015, shortly after the death of Elisabeth Bing (at age at 100!), the German-born woman who cofounded Lamaze International in 1960 and helped profoundly change the way we birth the future.” (11/17/25)
“Seizing the means of production requires control of not only private businesses, natural resources, and factories, but human bodies and minds.” (11/17/25)
“On November 9, The New York Times published an update on the situation with Iran’s nuclear program. The article contains some valuable material. But it also gets three important things wrong. The article badly misses the shift in relations in the region. By implying that other countries in the region are more willing to work with the U.S. and insisting that ‘Iran is more isolated from the West than it has been in decades,’ the article presents an Iran who is increasingly alone in the region. Nothing could be further from the truth.” (11/17/25)
“Perhaps the quote that will define the next Great Financial Crisis will be this one from an executive at a former lender to the $10 billion fraud known as First Brands. ‘You’re not paid to do due diligence in this market.’ There have been three high-profile Private Credit (PC) blowups in the past month. All were due to fraud, and all had telltale signs of problems ahead if anyone bothered to look under the hood. … The same was true leading up to the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis. No one was looking under the hood of either the borrowers or the lenders. The game plan was to make your money, move on to the next deal, feign ignorance when it all blows up, get a bailout, and let others pay the price.” (11/17/25)
“Next time your dog begs for a treat, you might want to give it to him. In Pennsylvania, a dog reportedly wounded his owner with a shotgun left on the bed, while in North Carolina, a dog was caught on camera setting a house (of the assistant fire chief no less) on fire with a damaged lithium battery. Since I just finished teaching my torts students about animal liability (and strict liability for dog bites), these cases offer a teachable moment for humans and canines alike. Dog bite cases have long been a mainstay of torts, even including recent incidents involving the Biden family at the White House. However, what about canine attacks using weapons?” (11/17/25)
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Jennifer Kavanagh
“Every threat has failed and it is too late for the US to just ‘walk away’ from the Ukraine war. But Washington has something Russia wants, badly.” (11/17/25)
“If we think of it as a particular kind of ecosystem, the West has cultural, institutional, and ideological features that have made it successful, but also easy to exploit. In other words, invasive ideological species (IIS) don’t care a jot about those institutions, but will use them to take power.” (11/17/25)
“In a memo to staff on October 30, Avelo Airlines’ head of flight operations Scott Hall painted a rosy, if defensive, picture of the company’s future. Avelo’s financial strategy was working, he said. The company had a big contract from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to do charter deportation flights … Sure, shutting down their entire West Coast operation looked bad, but it was good, actually, a long-planned move toward efficiency that had nothing to do with the ‘outrage mob’ boycotting Avelo for its association with ICE. … The truth is much more bleak: Avelo’s ICE flights appear to be a fiasco, defined by the poor planning, cruel treatment, and serious safety lapses endemic to ‘ICE Air,’ the network of charter carriers and military planes that transport shackled migrants to detention facilities and out of the country.” (11/17/25)
“Transparency is usually a good thing. But so is privacy. And so, too, are limits on government power.
Which bring me to the Epstein files — or, more accurately, those files bring me here. …. The public has a right to know! But does it?” (11/17/25)
