Dr. LEW

St. Vincent & the Grenadines This week, I have been in St. Vincent and the Grenadines. It is rare for me to take this kind of time away a full week simply to rest, observe, and be. The beauty here is extraordinary. At moments, the landscape reminded me of Monte Carlo or the south of France: boats resting on brilliant blue water, mountains rising dramatically from the sea, and homes nestled high into the hills. The colors reminded me of the Candy Land game I played as a child pink, green,...

Mother Jones Illustrations;michel Christopher/abaca/zuma;malcolm Ali/whe image/getty;chip sornodevilla/getty What happens when dystopian visions of futuristic societies stop feeling like fiction and begin to resemble reality? A year ago, a group of us read Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower & Parable of the Talents (read my blog3/1/25). What struck me then and disturbs me even more now was how eerily familiar Butler’s imagined America felt. Her novel depicts a society destabilized by...

Golden Roulette Wheel Recently, we have heard a great deal about betting on clinical trials whether a drug will work, whether it will receive government approval, or whether a particular treatment will make it through the regulatory process. And when I say betting, I mean betting. I mean the same kind of betting we associate with Las Vegas: putting money down on an uncertain outcome with the hope of making money if you are right. Except this time, the wager is connected to whether somebody...