Via Meadia is and intends to remain a liberal arts-friendly site.  Proud holder of a BA in English lit, I continue to believe that the traditional western curriculum provides an extraordinarily rich and useful intellectual, political and moral basis for young people who want to understand and change our world.But many colleges have organized themselves […]

Expect another bout of panic driven neo-Physiocracy as more people read this Economist article on the inroads that machines are making in the job market: The evidence is irrefutable that computerised automation, networks and artificial intelligence (AI)—including machine-learning, language-translation, and speech- and pattern-recognition software—are beginning to render many jobs simply obsolete.This is unlike the job […]

Last night was opera night; leaving the safety and sophistication of glamorous Queens I ventured over to the neo-Assyrian art palace at Lincoln Center where the Metropolitan Opera put on one of the greats: Verdi’s youthful masterpiece Nabucco.  Loosely, very loosely, built on the story of the fall of the Temple and the Hebrew captivity […]

What seems like a small step to many evidently looks like a giant leap to the Castro brothers.  The Cuban dictatorship announced that it will allow citizens and residents to buy and sell residential property. According to the WSJ, Cuba will allow citizens to buy and sell their homes for the first time in decades, […]

New Yorkers are getting an uncomfortable look at the ugly realities behind what we like to think of as the country’s bluest, most European and most enlightened city.  A series of trials now underway in the Bronx reveal the harsh truth of embedded corruption and contempt for the public at the heart (if that is […]

Two boats headed to Gaza were intercepted by the Israeli Navy yesterday. There were no injuries or incidents. The NYT has the story: The two boats, one Canadian and the other Irish, carried 27 pro-Palestinian activists, journalists and crew members from nine countries who were challenging Israel’s maritime blockade of the Palestinian enclave…The two boats […]

As if the European crisis wasn’t enough to keep the world busy this week, reports of an imminent Israeli attack on Iranian nuclear facilities were being discussed all over the press and the blogosphere.  In a jaw dropping display of disarray, senior Israeli defense and intelligence officials appeared to be overtly leaking deliberations to short […]

Scott Walker move over; San Francisco is the latest front line in the battle against abusive public sector unions.The bluest city in the bluest state in the union has woken up and smelled the latte; generations of extortionate collusion between shamelessly greedy and shortsighted union leaders and unforgivably opportunistic and irresponsible politicians have left the […]

The very Catholic Republic of Ireland—also known as the Island of Saints and Scholars, where abortion remains illegal and more than 30% of the people go to mass more than once a week—has decided to close its embassy to the Vatican.  Yes, there has been a lot of tension since the sexual abuse scandals and […]

Rioting, burning villages, gunmen shooting churchgoers, calls for holy war on the radio, bomb attacks on army bases – the fires are not going out in Nigeria. The BBC reports on the most recent violence: Riots have broken out in a northern Nigerian town after a church was attacked by unknown gunmen, leaving at least […]