"Words for the Wise" enters Year Two
After a holiday hiatus, watch for lots of new commentary and analysis. With luck, most of it will be wise, or at least worthy of discussion by the wise.
As readers will have noticed (at least I hope they have noticed!) “Words for the Wise” has been on an unannounced holiday hiatus. However, we are returning with a promise of posts at least once each week, and sometimes even more often as events dictate or suggest.
Here is what you can look forward to (again, one hopes!) in the coming weeks:
Spirit of Place: In the Land of the Lotus Eaters. Your faithful correspondent goes in search of Greek myths and family connections on the Maltese island of Gozo, a purported stop on Odysseus’s long voyage home from Troy.
Are we all enablers? If so, what can we do about it? Posts about sexual abuse and why it persists will continue this year, in the wake of the conviction of Ghislaine Maxwell and the decision by New York prosecutors not to charge former governor Andrew Cuomo for sexual assault and harassment. A first post will look at weaknesses in the law, including what Northwestern law professor Deborah Tuerkheimer has called the “credibility discount” for women who accuse men of sexual assault or rape.
The psychology of vaccine hesitancy. It’s easy, and in my opinion necessary, to use peer pressure, blame and shame, and legal approaches to make the unvaccinated do the right thing to help end this pandemic one day. But we still need to understand what is behind the resistance and obstinance. Researchers disagree about what is behind it, but in that friction over the topic there is some light.
And future topics will include an update on the latest research into glyphosate (“Roundup”) and its effects on the environment; a man’s take on the debates in feminism; the fight for the soul of journalism in the face of threats to U.S. democracy; why #MeToo coverage focuses so much on celebrity abusers to the detriment of the most vulnerable victims; and, of course, regular updates on the fierce debate over the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic.