The Wheat and Chaff — Obsessions, Compulsions, Disorders

Archive

Complete Archive
All Interviews

Interview with Philosopher Todd May Published at The Believer
Marxist Army Officer Chris Helali on Buddhism, Marx, and the Democratic Left
Teaching Marx at Harvard: An Interview with Steven Jungkeit
Education and “The Public Promotion of Moral Genius”: An Interview with Peter Hershock
Buddhist Activism and Public Policy: An Interview with Jonathan Watts of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists
“President Obama is a Screen Onto Which We Project our Most Intimate Affinities and Intense Anxieties”: Harvard’s Tim McCarthy on the Cult of Consensus, President Obama’s Cognitive Dissonance, and How American Can Avoid Ending Up Like the Roman Empire
What is College For? An Interview with The New Yorker’s Louis Menand
An Interview with Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, US Ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council
“We’re Not Going to Have Better Public Conversations Unless People Want It, So It’s Figuring Out How to Get People to Want It”: Philosopher Christopher Robichaud on Truth and Knowledge in the American Political Context
“By the Time I Left Congress, There Was No Significant Bipartisan Legislative Activity – None.” Artur Davis on Life in a Fiercely Partisan House, and Why it Might Not Get Better Any Time Soon
“How People Live the Consequences of the Mess We’ve Made”: Carlo Rotella on “The Wire,” How Bill Clinton was Like a Character in a Spielberg Movie, and Why Good Pundits are So Hard to Find
Podcast Episode 1: An Interview with Jack Abramoff
Fixing Congress and Finding Peace: An Interview with Jack Abramoff
“You Don’t Want the Thing to Turn into a Pissing Contest”: Michael Dukakis on Campaign Jujitsu, Improving Obama’s Communications Strategy, and Where Occupy Should Go Next
Religion and Reckless Courage: Activist Val Kalende on the Fight for LGBT Rights in Uganda
Building an Ecclesiological Response to Mass Incarceration / On Faith and Soul-Suffering
Marshall Ganz, Obama’s 2008 Organizer-in-Chief, on the Moral Urgency of Occupy Wall Street
Former DNC Chairman Ed Rendell on Intransigent Politicians, Compromise, and Occupy Wall Street
“From a Position of Moral Strength”: Harvard Professor and Gay Rights Activist Tim McCarthy on President Obama, the Republican Party, and Life as a Second-Class Citizen
“Desperation and Wild Inspired Hope”: Todd Gitlin on Why the Occupy Movement is Different From All Other Social Movements, How Initial Media Coverage Was Like a Pre-Programmed Computer Algorithm, and How Not to Judge the Movement’s Success
“We Are Moving in a More Humanitarian Direction”: An Interview with Philosopher Peter Singer (Full Text and Video)
The Banality of Evil, Revisited: An Interview with Paul Katz on Transitional Justice and Civil Society
Lovely David Foster Wallace Interview from 2006, Just Published in English
An Interview with Nizar Farsakh, Former Adviser to the Palestinian Leadership
An Interview with Former Congressman Tom Perriello
An Interview with Theda Skocpol
An Interview with Ernesto Cortes, Jr.
An Interview with Bill Richardson
An Interview with Former Congressman Bart Stupak
An Interview with Sociolinguist Otto Santa Ana
An Interview with John Fife
An Interview with Jeb Bush
An Interview with Richard Parker, Founder of Mother Jones Magazine
An Interview with Israeli Politician Ophir Pines-Paz
An Interview with Economist James Galbraith
An Interview with Interfaith Activist and Harvard Divinity School Professor Dudley Rose
An Interview with Former AFL-CIO President John Sweeney
An Interview with Former Congressman Ernest Istook
An Interview with Former Haitian Prime Minister Michèle Pierre-Louis
What Would You Die For? An Interview with Timothy Patrick McCarthy
More on Marshall Ganz and Obama’s Health Reform Strategy
An Interview with Marshall Ganz, Architect of the 2008 Obama Organizing Effort
An Interview with Noam Chomsky
My Exchange With RNC Chair Michael Steele (Video)
RNC’s Michael Steele: Dems’ Health Proposals Sought to “Own the Means of Production”
Other Posts

What OCD is Like: Being Present to Someone with OCD
Jeremy Scahill’s “Dirty Wars” and the Cost of Us-Them Thinking
The First Few Chapters of a Life with OCD
Interview with Philosopher Todd May Published at The Believer
Getting the Flu: A Four-Day Forced Meditation Retreat
If You Have $250 Million, You Shouldn’t Be President
Education and “The Public Promotion of Moral Genius”: An Interview with Peter Hershock
Buddhist Activism and Public Policy: An Interview with Jonathan Watts of the International Network of Engaged Buddhists
Case Dismissed! Charges Dropped in My Bizarre Arrest at a January Romney Event
“President Obama is a Screen Onto Which We Project our Most Intimate Affinities and Intense Anxieties”: Harvard’s Tim McCarthy on the Cult of Consensus, President Obama’s Cognitive Dissonance, and How American Can Avoid Ending Up Like the Roman Empire
The Evasion of Ethics at Harvard Kennedy School, Or Why Digging Deep into Ethics Makes Us Better Policymakers
An Interview with Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, US Ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council
To Bet or Not to Bet? Why Gambling on Elections is Wrong
William James, Mental Illness, and God: How OCD Helps Me Understand Certain Varieties of Religious Experience
“By the Time I Left Congress, There Was No Significant Bipartisan Legislative Activity – None.” Artur Davis on Life in a Fiercely Partisan House, and Why it Might Not Get Better Any Time Soon
Five Disturbing Things About Mitt Romney’s “I’m Not Concerned About the Very Poor” Comments
“Lock Yourself in Your Bathroom and Then Imagine You Have to Stay There for the Next Ten Years”: The Slow Torture of Life in the American Prison System
Podcast Episode 1: An Interview with Jack Abramoff
Tens of Thousands of Responses to My Arrest at a Romney Event in New Hampshire
What I Just Wrote to the Romney Campaign About My Arrest on Monday
Some Additional Reflections on My Arrest at a Romney Event in Hudson, NH
I Was Kicked Out of a Mitt Romney Event and Arrested on January 9. I’m Still Trying to Figure Out Why.
On Newt Gingrich’s Warm-Up Music at His “Hispanic Town Hall Meeting” at Don Quijote’s Restaurant, Manchester, NH, January 8
I’m Pretty Sure Rick Santorum Lied to My Face on Friday
Building an Ecclesiological Response to Mass Incarceration / On Faith and Soul-Suffering
“Goodbye to All That” – Mike Lofgren’s Reflections on His Time in the GOP
Longer Lives for Some / Better Lives for All: Sonia Arrison’s Piece on Life-Extension Technology in the Wall Street Journal
Does Remembering Our Mortality Make Us Mean?
Ira Glass Asks for Patience on My Behalf
Jonathan Safran Foer: A Public Intellectual Worthy of the Name
More on the Taxation Fixation
The Rich ≠ Job Creators
Finding My Father, Part 3
Finding My Father, Part 2
Finding My Father, Part 1
Speaking as Citizenry
Call for Submissions: Made-Up Maladies and Imaginary Illnesses
What OCD is Like: Worrying at the Speed of Thought
Learning Spanish Means Learning to Shut the Hell Up
Living in Buenos Aires Makes Me Feel Stupid
Photos of the Day: La Quiaca, Argentina
Speaking a Language Well Means Being Able to Freestyle
Is This How Truth-Tellers Should Expect to be Received?
Photo of the Day
The Only Route to Profound Joy?
Lovely David Foster Wallace Interview from 2006, Just Published in English
What OCD is Like: Exhausting and Unsafe
Foto del Otro Día
Foto del Día
What OCD is Like: Two Kinds of Guilt, One Healthy Response
Is Philips Trying to Sell HD TVs with This Assassination Ad?
Fotos del Día
What OCD is Like: An Episode in Buenos Aires
What OCD is Like: First in a Series of Videos
Video Series on OCD Coming Soon…
A Response to Gregory Mankiw’s 10/9 NYT Piece
The Value of Social Media for Social Movements
Back in the Game
Tony Judt on Revolutions and Revolutionaries
Massachusetts Needs to Pass a Post-Conviction DNA Access Law
What Ethics Is
What We Know
Before the Next News Cycle
Retired US General Suggests Gay Dutch Troops Partly to Blame for Srebrenica Massacre
And a Delicious Review of Tony Judt’s New Book
Tony Judt on Courage in Politics
More on Marshall Ganz and Obama’s Health Reform Strategy
All You Can Eat. In 10 Minutes.
Judge: “It’s Safe to Assume We Execute Innocent People”
What’s at Stake in the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict?
Texas Exonerates Tim Cole
The Limits of Comedy Journalism
Faith and Aid
Christ and Gandhi, House and Home
“Agnotology”
Poetry Break: The Summer Day
This is Happening
The Choice
He Did That Too? The LBJ Legacy
How (Some of It) Got This Way
Get Out Your Library Card
A New Civil Rights Manifesto
On What Grounds? On What…Possible…Grounds?
Pseudo-Events, Be Gone!
Life is Not Made That Way
That ‘Vision’ Thing Again
Curious: Chatroulette
A Thin Week on the Blog, But Nowhere Else
Saying No to Superficiality and Meanness: A Clever Form of Internet Resistance
Leadership as Consciousness-Raising
But Not Like This
Keep ‘Em Talkin’
A Remarkable Young Man
A Beautifully Simple Way to Think About Democracy
A Politics of Nothing More Than ‘Leave Me Alone’?
With So Much Drama in the GDP…
As a Known Memory
What’s the Idea?
The US Senate: Long Overdue for Reform
New to Me
How to Be a Scholar
Idea for a Movie
The President’s Question Time
Questions for Scholars: Population Thresholds and Technology
“Camp No”
“That I Drink Deeply From Wells That I Did Not Dig….”
If the Best Defense Were a Good Defense
Let the Words Wait