English Lit? Bah humbug.
At the level of ontological mass, the English-language canon can’t punch with the French or Russian traditions.

SAT 2025: When consistency becomes a puzzle under fragmented epistemic identities

Wemby for King 👑🇫🇷

I don’t agree with Marx as a system, but he belongs to a line of thinking I studied and still engage with analytically.

If Fukuyama’s “end of history” thesis implied institutional convergence, you’d expect Japan’s postwar economic model to have spread widely across Asia.

#EndOfHistory #PoliticalEconomy

Consider Paul Kennedy’s 𝑇ℎ𝑒 𝑅𝑖𝑠𝑒 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝐹𝑎𝑙𝑙 𝑜𝑓 𝑡ℎ𝑒 𝐺𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑡 𝑃𝑜𝑤𝑒𝑟𝑠: His basic point was that durable power tracks economic capacity and institutional discipline, and that overextension and spectacle usually appear when confidence in that base is thinning.

#goldenfleet

www.usatoday.com/story/news/p...

When states have deep surplus, they tend not to advertise power through ornament.

At its peak, dynastic China, producing an estimated 25-35% of global GDP, expressed strength in administration, logistics, and coordination, not gold-plated spectacle.

#goldenfleet

www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/tru...

One reason the political right resonates with the general public is its claim that judging people by anything other than material success comes off as pretentious.

This doesn’t mean wealth is a good metric; only that it feels legible and non-judgmental in a culture suspicious of elites.

A start towards better nutrition: a salad or fruit and protein smoothie every day 🥗🍓

A volunteer project I took on during the 2020 election cycle: I built and funded a small canvassing and materials distribution setup, built and maintained a website to support Chicago-area volunteer efforts, and attended a campaign-run two-day organizer seminar and coordinated with the campaign.

Battleground State Participation in the NYC Mayoral Election

I took a look at out-of-state participation in the NYC mayoral race after reading a recent article by @chicago.suntimes.com about Chicago-area donations to the contest.

Happy holidays!