This Is What Calamity Looks Like
And so we enter a new era, likely to last several decades at least. I spent Nov. 6 walking a cobbled beach through the fog, a...
top of page
Please note:
I warmly encourage comments, and will often reply or revise the body of the post in response. However, I will not tolerate any disinformation or gratuitously offensive material on this site. Here we uphold our own highest standards. I will remove comments that violate them.
Search
Sarah Chayes
Jul 307 min read
Juris Imprudence
(Or, "It's Official: The Supreme Court Ignores Its Own Precedent") I promised a post on the Supreme Court's recent decision granting...
Sarah Chayes
Jul 36 min read
The Real Danger (guest post)
I can't claim credit for the following post; it's the brainchild of a friend of mine, the most brilliant analyst of democracy -- and what...
Sarah Chayes
Jul 13 min read
Withdraw
As I was halfway through writing this essay, the Supreme Court decision came down granting Donald Trump immunity from prosecution for...
Sarah Chayes
Sep 30, 20234 min read
Gerontocracy
California Senator Diane Feinstein, may she finally rest, died in office on September 28. That’s how she wanted it. She clove to that...
Sarah Chayes
Aug 16, 20233 min read
Clarity At Last
Addendum appended 21 August, 2023 In these days of double-standards and the blurring of lines — between true and not true, right and...
Sarah Chayes
Jul 21, 20233 min read
Grain
“Russia has dealt another blow to the world’s most vulnerable,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield said upon...
Sarah Chayes
Jun 9, 20235 min read
Dirge
by Lisa Hupp, courtesy, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Before I get into what I intended to write this morning, a word about the federal...
Sarah Chayes
Jun 5, 20234 min read
Priorities
(Photo by Anne Way Bernard, courtesy of Appalachian Voices) So. This weekend, President Joe Biden signed a bill into law suspending the...
Sarah Chayes
May 25, 20233 min read
Cognitive Dissonance
Monotropa uniflora ("Ghost Pipe") does not photosynthesize. It lives on tree-energy, transmitted via underground mycorrhizal networks....
Sarah Chayes
May 15, 20234 min read
Making America Safe for Corruption
Updated 16 May, 2023 Did you hear about the Supreme Court decision? I’m not talking about Dobbs, or last month’s emergency stay allowing...
Sarah Chayes
Nov 19, 20224 min read
Dear Georgia:
Jubilation on the left side of the American political spectrum has hardly worn off in the wake of the midterm elections. And why not? ...
Sarah Chayes
Aug 4, 20229 min read
Three Strikes
So. Ayman al-Zawahiri is killed at last. Ayman al-Zawahiri, mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, successor to Usama bin Laden at...
Sarah Chayes
Jul 25, 20226 min read
The Need for Eden
How to count the questions raised by the gob-smacking moment unfolding around us? Here’s one that’s been plaguing me. By what kind of...
Sarah Chayes
May 26, 20229 min read
Guest Blog
Updated 27 May, 2022 First, a word on guns. I am disgusted with us, and our strange addiction to them. Like many of you, I suspect, I...
Sarah Chayes
May 7, 20225 min read
Midas...The Sequel
A recent post by the brilliant Martin Shaw got me thinking about my old sparring partner, Midas. Shaw is a myth-sayer — the best, the...
Sarah Chayes
Mar 8, 20223 min read
Ukraine Can Win
(If NATO Provides Safe-Havens For Its Fighters) When Russian troops crossed into Ukraine on February 24, its people astonished the world...
Sarah Chayes
Feb 24, 20228 min read
Who Benefits from Afghans' Distress?
Months after the United States lost the longest war it ever fought — well before the shocking outbreak of hostilities in Europe displaced...
Sarah Chayes
Sep 30, 20218 min read
Trying to Help
Updated on 3 October, to include the conditions GoFundMe is now imposing for withdrawal of donated funds. “I’m weak,” said the man on the...
Sarah Chayes
Sep 7, 20215 min read
National Interests
“Look,” US Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas-Greenfield told a reporter on August 30. “We are not in a place yet where we are...
Sarah Chayes
Sep 4, 20217 min read
Resources
(Updated 17 September, 2021, to include current conditions, money-transfer logistics, resources for helping would-be refugees submit...
Sarah Chayes
Aug 31, 20218 min read
A Friend in Deed?
“Washington consulted the Taliban, but informed the Allies. At least that’s how it seemed to us.” The man on the phone is a retired NATO...
Sarah Chayes
Aug 28, 20215 min read
Who Rules Afghanistan?
A few brief dispatches, for at least a glimpse of what some Afghans are seeing and discussing. One of you commented below on the...
Sarah Chayes
Aug 24, 202116 min read
Failing States?
Updated September 8, 2021, principally to add a riff on Pakistan and the Afghan economy. I write this post with the dizzying impression...
bottom of page