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Remaking the University

Michael Meranze Los Angeles Review of Books
This new defense of a humanities education is a must read, says reviewer Meranze, "for anyone concerned with the relationship between humanistic activity and American democracy."

As Trump consolidates his power, the history of 1930s Germany repeats itself

Sasha Abramsky Sacramento Bee
I have been reading about what follows when institutions that are supposed to moderate extremist, demagogic leaders default in their role. And how easily those institutions are swept aside, at best complicit in their own irrelevance, at worst full partners in the brazen agenda of the demagogue.

Alive Inside: How the Magic of Music Proves Therapeutic for Patients with Alzheimer’s and Dementia

Amy Goodman Democracy Now!
With advanced dementia, when people no longer can recognize their own family members, they stop speaking. But when they hear music that’s familiar from their youth, because those memories are preserved, they come alive. They connect with that. It’s a direct sort of a backdoor to that failing cognitive system right to the emotional system, which is really very much intact.

Poverty and Inequality, in Charts

Jared Bernstein The New York Times
Not only are we now faced with slower growth, but that lesser growth rate is much more narrowly distributed.