One can describe libertarians in terms eerily similar to Morpheus’ first description of the Matrix: They are everywhere; they are all around us; even now, in this very room, there are closet libertarians waiting to turn around in their desks and proselytize in Viennese economics. You can see them with their hodgepodge signs when you […]
Author Archives: Andrew Bloom
Posted inColumns, Opinion
Nearly there: Marriage equality in America
It’s not that I occasionally have to scrape the bottom of the political barrel to find Lasagna-worthy subject matter, it’s just that so much of the news out there bores me to such tears that I cannot bring myself to contribute to any more redundant opinions and tossed salads of speculation. But last week, I […]
Posted inColumns, Opinion
The Obama vs. Osama showdown: one year later
Some of us vividly remember the first murmurs of agitation, one year ago, that rippled across the Internet faster than we were used to – this was no mere announcement of a music festival lineup or a paltry celebrity’s passing. No, this was an announcement of an announcement, an enigma in itself before we were […]
Posted inColumns, Opinion
Political scandals are a zero-sum game
Last week, in a week which presented a multitude of so-called scandals within the Obama bureaucracy — one of which, perhaps, even meriting the designation of actual scandal — what must be the right’s first opportunity for a lucrative argument against the administration’s competence has already been soured by the idiotic rhetoric of the typical […]
Posted inColumns, Opinion
Clinical evidence suggests conservative intelligence
Last February, the conclusions of a study conducted by Brock University in Ontario, Canada, appeared in “Psychological Science,” the highest-ranked and most prestigious empirical journal in psychology today. The journal is often responsible for bringing to light the most interesting developments in the disciplines of cognitive, developmental and health psychology, as well as behavioral neuroscience […]
Posted inColumns, Opinion
The agony of 'Out Of Touch' politics
Sooner or later, every American incumbent is eventually called “out of touch” — just as all flowers are eventually called pretty and all Cal Poly professors are eventually accused of inflating their own PolyRatings. When elected politicians are accused of this crime, it is usually the case that some appeal to populism was originally intended, […]
Posted inColumns, Opinion
The news has election fatigue
Spring quarter is a fascinating reversal of the dandy bravado with which we assault the returning of classes in the winter or fall. One hears less of the exciting pursuits of higher knowledge. The hallways instead seem to echo with party-hoarse voices invoking their separate muses, sober affirmations to survive another quarter and hasten escapes […]
Posted inColumns, Opinion
The great contraception debate
To say that this present debate over contraception moves in circles is an understatement. There are more twists and turns than a third-rate action movie. The transient faces and figures of all those involved move erratically as strophe and antistrophe across the stage of media. Dancing erratically in the center spotlight like Thom Yorke on […]
Posted inColumns, Opinion
Coulter's visit is a colossal miscalculation
Ann Coulter is a relic, a bigot, a mystery, a firebrand, a slipped disc, a wrenching gear, a fountain that does not trickle but rather vomits apoplectic sarcasm and such impossibly acidic bile that one wonders how such a substance could ever be contained by a creature of — as best as we can tell […]
Posted inColumns, News, Opinion
Live From New York: Retriever Derails Romney
There was once a time when the opening sketch of Saturday Night Live (SNL) comprised the most cutting-edge political and social satire to be found among the mainstream outlets of criticism. In a critical landscape, that was at least as divided and mistrusted as it appears now. Its voice was one of vicious truth-seeking at […]
Posted inNews
Same-sex marriage decision presents conservatives with chance to reform
I don’t like Tuesdays. Too often they feel like a dreary extension of all that went unfinished on Monday, and seldom can they match the sunny halfway-there optimism of Wednesday or Thursday’s stoic determination to finish strong. No, Tuesdays have long seemed altogether ugly. So you can imagine my surprise when this week’s Tuesday opened […]