Going forward, I will try to look on the bright side, whenever I think there’s a bright side worth looking on. That said, there is much to look out for in the meantime, and I'd be remiss if I didn't point out some of the more pernicious developments as I spot them. Accordingly, I'm revisiting a post from two-and-a-half years ago. What was true then seems to be getting truer every day. The legal sanctioning of informants described here has only grown closer to the Stalinist model, but that’s not why I’m reposting. Rather, it’s that the Stalinist model itself needs a brighter light trained on it, since it’s that very model that Americans just voted for, whether they know it or not. It’s a model currently on full display in Putin’s Russia and Kim’s North Korea, among others. Here in the U.S., we can see that more pieces are falling into place every day. Rage over the Texas abortion laws comes naturally to anyone with eithe...
As I personally digest the possible consequences of this election, I expect to be writing more sporadically through the end of the year. This will surely involve several repeats of previous posts, starting with this one. I wrote this piece in July of 2022 — just as the shock of the Dobbs decision was setting in — and I think I unintentionally creeped some people out. It was, by a wide margin, my least-read post, even as it offered a highly practical workaround for women wanting to end a pregnancy. Now, with the abortion landscape likely to deteriorate — and with the availability of abortion pills under threat from several directions — I am quite sure this workaround is worth another look. There is no reason why a safe, dirt-cheap, non-medical procedure that’s in widespread practice worldwide shouldn’t be part of the abortion discussion. So here, with light edits, is my case for menstrual extraction. I am quite sure most Americans have never...