Posts:
By Karl Sweetman The term “vaccine hesitancy” has been used in the medical field since the early 2010s but has come into mainstream use recently because of widespread resistance to vaccination for Covid-19. Depending on your point of view, justification for such...
By Karl Sweetman I have recently learned that Cuenca High Life is considering making a number of changes to its format, particularly its comments section and policy. The reason? A number of complaints from readers who object to what they perceive as an increasing...
By David Leonhardt Bruce Sacerdote, an economics professor at Dartmouth College, noticed something last year about the Covid-19 television coverage that he was watching on CNN and PBS. It almost always seemed negative, regardless of what was he seeing in the data or...
By Liam Higgins Almost unnoticed in the aftermath of the February 7 national election was the death of the movement that dominated Ecuador’s political landscape for 14 years. Founded by former president Rafael Correa among others, Alianza Pais, failed to place a...
By Jan Dynes Despite all the ugly alternative news and craziness that were a megaphone for how loud the obnoxious can be there are many who have simply perservered through the pandemic. We need to realize that those who were quiet and not screaming from the rooftops...
By Peter West “There is an urgent need today for the citizens of a democracy to think well.” These words, which could have been written yesterday, come from Thinking to Some Purpose, a popular book by the British philosopher Susan Stebbing, first published in 1939 in...
By David Leonhardt If you've been following the Covid-19 news, you’re probably familiar with the idea of vaccine alarmism. It goes something like this: The coronavirus vaccines aren’t 100 percent effective. Vaccinated people may still be contagious. And the virus...
By Chris Hedges The Rev. Will Campbell was forced out of his position as director of religious life at the University of Mississippi in 1956 because of his calls for integration. He escorted Black children through a hostile mob in 1957 to integrate Little Rock’s...
By David Leonhardt In a public health emergency, absolutism is a very tempting response: People should cease all behavior that creates additional risk. That instinct led to calls for gay men to stop having sex during the AIDS crisis. It has also spurred campaigns for...
By Glenn Greenwald A new and rapidly growing journalistic “beat” has arisen over the last several years that can best be described as an unholy mix of junior high hall-monitor tattling and Stasi-like citizen surveillance. It is half adolescent and half malevolent. Its...
By Enrique Ramos Ecuador stands at a crossroads ahead of the February 7 national election. It can continue a path of orthodox economic policies and balance its accounts by electing a conservative centrist or adopt the dangerous policies of a young leftist who...
By J.D. Tuccille In the panicked aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the powers-that-be dusted off wish lists of surveillance-state powers and began monitoring and tracking us in ways that affect our lives two decades later. The political turbulence of recent...
By Molly Hodgdon To live in Vermont is to be smothered by nature’s beauty on a daily basis. Everywhere you look is another peaceful pond, another shimmering lake or emerald hill or misty field graced by a family of grazing deer. It’s almost obnoxious, like that one...
By Kevin P. Gallagher and Jorge Heine One of the most bipartisan acts during the Trump administration was passage of the Better Utilization of Investments Leading to Development Act (BUILD Act) of 2018, establishing the United States International Development Finance...
Editor's note: The riot at the U.S. Capitol two weeks ago has ignited a debate about the role of major social media platforms as purveyors of news and other information, much of it proven to be false and incendiary. The debate focuses on social media's special...
By Karl Sweetman Any long-term reader of the CuencaHighLife comments section will testify that the tone of those posts has grown noticeably more vitriolic and vituperative over the past few years, especially when the topic involves U.S.politics or culture. This...
By Dennis Prager As my listeners and readers can hopefully attest, I have been on a lifelong quest to understand human nature and human behavior. I am sad to report that I have learned more in the last few years, particularly in 2020, than in any equivalent period of...
John Keeble I was reading the story of Stephen Akpabio-Klementowski during the morning after the Trump "coup attempt" had been put down and I realised: “Yes, the Western world's future is not going to be easy, but there is the light of hope again.” At that moment, as...
By Kira Ganga Kieffer Infection and death rates caused by Covid-19 are raging, but the rollout of the vaccines brings new hope that the pandemic will end and we will soon be back to normal. Yet, according to a recent Pew Research study, 40% of Americans are wary of...
By Andreas Kluth Dear Janet Yellen: Congratulations! You’re probably the next Treasury secretary of the U.S. That’ll throw you into daunting policy cauldrons — from financing America’s massive deficits to managing China and taming the tax code. With so much in your...
