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Category: opinions and journalism

The Sacklers: which cap fits?

(a): One of America’s great philanthropic dynasties.

(b) The initial author and a prime beneficiary of the epidemic. (the epidemic of opioid addiction. Purdue Pharma – the Sacklers’ family company – developed and agressively marketed OxyContin, which they misrepresented as a “safe” painkiller)

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Word power: Jean M. Twenge on “iGen”

The twin rise of the smartphone and social media has caused an earthquake of a magnitude we’ve not seen in a very long time, if ever. There is compelling evidence that the devices we’ve placed in young people’s hands are having profound effects on their lives—and making them seriously unhappy.

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Word power: a senior member of Australia’s current government speaks frankly

…and anonymously:

this person observed his vocation was becoming unsustainable for normal people. By normal people, he meant balanced people. If balanced people could no longer cop the life, the profession would shrink back to representation by a very narrow type of personality—people who live for the brawls and the knockouts, and can’t function without the constant affirmation of being a public figure. We would end up with representation by ideologues, adrenalin junkies and preening show ponies, posturing for a media chorus as unhinged as the political class.

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Word power: populism, “post-truth”, anger, Trump, Brexit, elites…

This post highlights three interesting essays on the above.

Only one author is primarily a journalist; the other two are, respectively, an English physicist/cosmologist and an Australian (of Greek ancestry) who is best known for his provocative literary fictions.

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