Disaster Strikes

The retirement of Justice Kennedy is an unmitigated disaster.  We are now already virtually guaranteed a very right-wing court for a generation.  Roe v. Wade is toast, in spirit if not in letter.  If Trump or Pence gets to appoint a Ginsburg vacancy…. The Supreme Court is too powerful.  And its great power is combined […]

The Dignity of the chef de l’état

François Hollande is a highly inept politician.  He is impossible to respect. http://www.liberation.fr/france/2015/12/23/decheance-de-nationalite-itineraire-d-une-volte-face_1422728?xtor=EPR-500001&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=quot Let us deprive suicide bombers of their French nationality.  One can be sure that this deprivation will haunt them in their graves, or frighten future would-be terrorists into becoming law-abiding citizens. The terrorists are simply criminals of a particularly dastardly sort, but […]

New French Book on Growing Inequality

It sounds like Thomas Piketty, who is French, has written an important book about the trends of distribution of wealth and income in 20th-21st century economies, primarily in developed economies.  The general story is that the “natural” rate of accumulation of capital is on the order of five-six percent per annum, while the natural rate […]

Race far from dead as major issue, the South far from new

Recent Supreme Court décisions occasioned the following excellent contributing editorials from liberals in today’s “New York Times.” Thomas Edsall on the marginalization of blacks in the South via gerrymandering and “bleaching.” http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/10/the-decline-of-black-power-in-the-south/ Linda Greenhouse on Ruth Bader Ginsberg’s dissent in Fisher vs. University of Texas: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/07/10/the-cost-of-compromise/?hp All of this gives the lie, in my opinion, […]

Netherlands Travelogue

Delft So we are back in Gascony after two weeks in the Netherlands, les Pays-Bas, where we partook of the joys of contemporary urban civilization.  For those who plan to spend more than three-four days in Holland, I can heartily recommend that they buy an annual museum subscription, at a cost of 45 euros, which […]

Ledocs World Gets New Web Address

Through the wonders of information technology that are mostly opaque to me, this blog should now be available at the address “http://ledocs.net”, or, more simply, “ledocs.net.”  If you are using the old address at wordpress.com, you should be redirected to the new, sleek, hip, very wonderful address.  Now, all the incredible free content of this […]