The shutdown itself is bad but not devastating. The real danger will come up in a couple of weeks. There's legislation which is in fact routine - it's passed every year - which allows the government to borrow money, otherwise it can't function. If Congress does not approve this budget request, the government may have to default.

The United States is off the international spectrum in religious extremism.

While Trump keeps the spotlight on himself, the "respectable" Republican establishment chips away at government programs that benefit the general population.

The criminalization of Black life was something specific to the United States in the post-Reconstruction period and there's something like it happening today with mass incarceration, directed largely against black males.

The reason academic disputes are so vicious is that so little is at stake.

So take social media; take a look at the way they're used. In a lot of ways they're used constructively; lot of things are done that couldn't be done before. On the other hand a lot of the effect of social media is to set up extremely superficial contacts amongst people.

The Ottoman Empire . . . The rulers in Turkey were fortunately so corrupt that they left people alone pretty much - were mostly interested in robbing them - and they left them alone to run their own affairs . . . with a lot of local self determination.