Writer
Brian L. Cronin
Latest Content
Postcard from China
This is a postcard, according to The Crimson. That constitutes an interesting claim from an epistemological standpoint, or at least a nitpicking one. How does The Crimson know it’s a postcard?
The New Binge
Harvard’s winter break is a long one. And for a swelling subsection of Harvard undergraduates, it means more hours spent absorbing the pixelated plot of a television show.
Democracy Against the Odds
My worst-case scenario is learning that, against one-in-six-million odds, the national election was decided by a one vote margin in one state, New Jersey. For that, I’ll mark up a ballot.
Depressed Yuan, Equivocal Yawn
China buys U.S. assets, and then sends the U.S. more and more manufactured products—all in exchange for the precious opportunity to spend long hours making those products, dump the revenue back into U.S. assets to depress the exchange rate, rinse, and repeat.
Remembrance of Things
What value does memory of these sacrifices confer? What does it mean to “never forget”? And why remember at all?
It’s (Not) All in the Numbers
Today, the alleged experts fling numbers more than anyone. And anyway, it was Plato himself who wrote, “A good decision is based on knowledge and not on numbers.”
Stupid, Absurd Sports
Sports are stupid. And the idea that Harvard, supposed bastion of the non-stupid, should fund them, support them, and even—on rare occasions—succeed in them, is a tragic one. Sports are plebian; they are for semi-morons, not for Cambridge’s brightest.
Rock Chalk, Mr. President
Mr. Obama’s brackets say something about him. At least, those cautious picks fit a broader narrative. After a predictable early-on push for campaign promises, Mr. Obama has followed, in many respects the path of least resistance.
Liars and Politicians
Yes, sometimes politicians break promises. Sometimes they shatter them in a memorable, sharded frenzy. But, more often than not, they do their best—or do something, at a minimum—to follow through on those promises.
When Fair Is Foul
Occupy Harvard sees “injustice in Harvard’s adoption of corporate efficiency measures such as job outsourcing.” And yet, simultaneously, we have this statement, from Occupy Wall Street: “Ending wealth inequality is our one demand.” An incongruity because it begs the question—whose wealth inequality?
Addition by Deduction
The charity tax deduction says something. It says something about who we are as a society. It says that we can value something as a nation. It says that rising above a greyscale, amoral mush of competing national interests, we can orient ourselves.
