Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

Here.

This essay by New York University law professor Thane Rosenbaum is worth your time. Key paragraph:

The very essence of Obama’s foreign policy was the antithesis of everything Churchill represented. No wonder the president wouldn’t have been able to stomach the sight of Churchill’s bust. Obama was notably, if not pathologically, anti-colonial, appeasement-friendly, condemning of American exceptionalism, and endorsing of conciliation at almost any price—as we now see, even at the risk of jeopardizing the security of America’s allies.

Condemnation by Rosenbaum's fellow law professors in 10, 9, 8, . . .

To the Editor:

“Should Americans Work More? It’s Possible” (The Upshot, July 14) doesn’t address the fundamental question of why we need more economic growth than we have now.

Working more at substandard wages is not a recipe for a healthy economy or a healthy society or healthy people. What we need is a better distribution of income and wealth. That would allow more people to earn a living wage, more people to have more leisure time and more resources to enjoy it, and it would tax the environment far less.

What we need are fiscal policies and employment laws that ensure that both labor and capital get a fair share rather than capital’s getting the larger share, as has increasingly been the case for the last four or five decades.

ALAN MEISEL

Eastbrook, Me.

The writer is a professor of law and bioethics at the University of Pittsburgh.

Note from KBJ: This letter has nothing to do with either law or bioethics. The letter writer's opinion, therefore, is worth no more than that of any randomly selected person.

Jon Butcher Axis (1983).

Here.

Here.

To the Editor:

This storm was precipitated by Senator John McCain, who called the attendees at Donald Trump’s Arizona event “crazies.”

Haven’t we heard enough disparaging remarks made about Republican voters? It was inappropriate for Senator McCain to refer to those Americans as crazies.

ANDREA ECONOMOS

Scarsdale, N.Y.

Note from KBJ: Exactly right. Donald Trump returned an insult. No gentleman would do any less.

The most ambitious undertaking of Aquinas—perhaps of any medieval author—was his Summa theologiae, the massive multivolume work that, as its title suggests, was intended to lay out in totality the fundamentals of the Christian faith. The contents of the Summa have been explored many times before. While it is not my intention to reduce this or any other theological work solely to its social context, the structure and literary form of the Summa must also be recognized as responding to the practice of university disputations no less than the collected disputed questions already mentioned. The Summa was a work aimed for beginners, and, for this reason, its literary form is as instructive as the explanations it contains. A question is put forth, followed by an argument, a counterargument (sed contra), and a resolution, just as in the classroom debates. Aquinas's prefatory comment regarding his authorial intention merit [sic] attention:

Students in this science have not seldom been hampered by what they found written by other authors, partly on account of the multiplicity of useless questions, articles, and arguments; partly also because the things they need to know are not taught according to the order of learning (ordinem disciplinae), but according as the plan of the book might require or the occasion of disputing (occasio disputandi) might offer; partly, too, because frequent repetition brought weariness and confusion to the minds of listening students. Anxious, therefore, to overcome these and other obstacles, we will try, confident of divine help, to present those things pertaining to sacred doctrine briefly and clearly insofar as the matter will permit.

Thomas is offering a new presentation of theology because, in his mind, (1) current works of theology are unsuitable for beginners; (2) present works are too verbose and detailed; (3) they are all unsystematic and are too repetitious because they are unsystematic. Consequently, Thomas has conceived of a work that will address these deficiencies, and his method will be to replace the random sequencing and questions of the earlier works with an ordered format that reflects the systematic, logical procedure of contemporary university classroom disputation. Among many other things, the Summa is a testament to the profound influence of dialectical pedagogy in the oral culture of the university—a summa not just of theology but also of the institutionalized form of debate, commentary, and exegesis that had become central to the day-to-day practices of scholastic culture.

(Alex J. Novikoff, The Medieval Culture of Disputation: Pedagogy, Practice, and Performance, The Middle Ages Series, ed. Ruth Mazo Karras [Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013], 166-7 [endnotes omitted])

There was a scary crash in today's stage of the Tour de France. A young French rider, Warren Barguil, who had already been involved in three accidents during this Tour (one of which sent several riders to the hospital with broken bones), took the wrong line in a turn on a fast descent into Gap and knocked Geraint Thomas into a pole. I watched it live. Here is video. Luckily for Thomas, the blow was glancing rather than direct. He was able to climb out of the ditch and continue, finishing only seconds behind the others. The winner of today's stage, Ruben Plaza of Spain, averaged 27.73 miles per hour for 124.9 miles. Chris Froome retains the overall lead.

Here.