The Post-Partisan Emporium

  The Laughter of Wolves John Michael Greer As I write these words, lean gray wolves are pacing through a rain-soaked landscape in eastern Europe.  Dim rumbling sounds in the far distance, like summer thunder that’s strayed into the wrong season, don’t bother them. Nor does it trouble them that the forest around them is dotted with the decaying ruins of buildings abandoned half a century ago. Something else doesn’t disturb them, either, but we’ll get to that. Keep the wolves in mind as we proceed. Keep them in mind. It may seem like an improbable leap from wolves running through the forest to a flustered speech by one of the pampered darlings of the Western world’s corporate aristocracy, but there’s a connection. The pampered darling is Yuval Noah Harari, the chief intellectual of  the Davos set these days. I hope I won’t be accused of setting up a straw man if I mention that he’s a gay vegan atheist who practices mindfulness meditation and writes the kind of big-picture history books

  We're All Bags of Bitchy, Demanding Enzymes and that's okay. Don't overthink it. ALEX WASHBURNE My mom was a molecular biology professor and I was something of a delinquent skateboarding child on the school-to-prison pipeline. During my occasional bouts of suspension, I would go to my mom’s office for the day. Sometimes she’d put me to work cleaning glassware, other times I’d be plating yeast or counting cells on a hemocytometer to think about what I’d done. Occasionally, I’d be free to roam the department and, every time I was free, I went straight to Eric Toolson’s office. Eric Toolson is a legend in my mind. He is biology professor who looks and talks more like a Hells Angel. With long grey hair, sophisticated glasses and imposing facial hair, Eric would drive a Harley Davidson to work, occasionally swear like a sailor, but think and talk like philosopher. When the glassware was cleaned, the yeast plated, and the cells counted, I would roll up to Eric’s office with my