Tuesday, March 25, 2025

Why Don't We Live in a World of Four Hundred Nation-States?

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Those who have actually read the work of theoreticians of the information age like Alvin Toffler may remember its view that the centralized...

Kevin Phillips on Financialization and Decline

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I suppose that few these days encounter theorizing the "rise and fall of great economic powers" outside a university program or co...

Of Finance and Decadence

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I remember decades ago first encountering the cyclical theories of the rise and fall of great economic powers--the patterns those theories...

What the CPI Doesn't Tell Us

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The sorts of economic commentators who are given the kind of media platform from which one can reach an appreciable audience are famously a...

What the Complaints About How Hard it is to be Famous are Really About

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It is a commonplace that the famous complain (ceaselessly) about the downsides to being famous. How complete strangers may be inappropriatel...

Why People Can't Stand Hearing Celebrities Whine About "How Hard it is to be Famous"

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It is a commonplace that celebrities often complain about the less attractive aspects of being famous (or rather, fame on the very particula...

Remember Paul Flart?

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Back in 2018 an individual working as a security guard in a hospital recorded videos of his flatulations and, using the name "Paul Flar...

Is There a War on Independent Bloggers?

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Far from being a situation where those who "work hard" may reasonably hope to make steady progress, those who have been "ind...

If the Information Age Never Happened, Where Does That Leave Us?

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While few remember this today--at least in part, I suspect, because many prefer that it not be remembered--the "information age" ...

Of the Politician's Rhetoric of "Sacrifice"

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Political hacks of a certain kind love to speak of "sacrifice"--to tell the public that it must "sacrifice" for this or ...

Show Business for Ugly People: Whining About the Rewards

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People in show business whine--constantly--about the less glamorous realities of their business . People in the Show Business for Ugly Peo...

Review: The Bourne Ultimatum, by Robert Ludlum

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In publishing a third Jason Bourne novel a mere four years after the preceding book Robert Ludlum could seem to simply be milking a past su...

Review: The Bourne Supremacy, by Robert Ludlum

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WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD The premise of Robert Ludlum's The Bourne Identity (which differs significantly from the premise of the well...

The Novels of Robert Ludlum (A Listing)

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Below is a listing of Robert Ludlum's novels intended to provide a convenient links page for my reviews and essays about them that I hav...

What Was the Last "Real" Robert Ludlum Novel?

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Robert Ludlum is one of those authors who has famously been more "prolific" in death than in life. Publishing 22 novels during his...