Pedro Gonzalez

Ohio

Writer and Politics Editor at Chronicles Magazine

contra substack, @chroniclesmag columnist

Articles

Are You More Human Than a Chatbot?

3 weeks ago | chroniclesmagazine.org | Pedro Gonzalez |Pedro González

In Peter Farrelly’s Dumb and Dumber (1994), the titular dummy, Harry Dunne, relates a still-raw heartache to his similarly dimwitted buddy Lloyd Christmas while the two are sitting in a heart-shaped hot tub. Lloyd wants him to get back on the horse, but Harry isn’t over being dumped. “I thought we were going to be together forever,” he laments. “About a week later, right out of the blue, she sends me a John Deere letter.” Lloyd asks if she gave him cause.
Creatively Disabled Authors and the AI Crutch

4 weeks ago | chroniclesmagazine.org | Pedro Gonzalez |Pedro González

Writing a novel is hard. Writing one in a month is insane. Unless you are William Faulkner, who wrote As I Lay Dying in six weeks, between the hours of midnight and four in the morning. Indeed, the author himself claimed, “I set out deliberately to write a tour-de-force. Before I ever put pen to paper and set down the first word I knew what the last word would be and almost where the last period would fall.” Faulker said he did not change a word in the end.
The New Social Revolution

1 month ago | chroniclesmagazine.org | Pedro Gonzalez |Pedro González

Writing about politics these days is a challenge because things move nearly at the speed of social media. One day, the Trump administration announces some move that generates outrage on the left and cheers on the right, only for that decision to be reversed by tweet and then revived temporarily before it goes into cardiac arrest again for good. Max Weber called politics “a strong and slow boring of hard boards.” Today, it’s forceful and fast banging of one’s head against the timeline.
The Time Is Ripe for a Serious Adaptation of ‘Starship Troopers’

1 month ago | chroniclesmagazine.org | Pedro Gonzalez |Pedro González

Neill Blomkamp is going back to Planet P—back to Bug City—to hunt for something no one’s ever seen before: a faithful adaptation of Robert A. Heinlein’s Starship Troopers. Don’t get me wrong, I love Paul Verhoeven’s 1997 cut, not least because Verhoeven tried and failed to satirize the subject matter.
Conservative Stewardship Versus the Libertarian Tech Bros

2 months ago | chroniclesmagazine.org | Pedro Gonzalez |Pedro González

One of President Donald Trump’s last moves during his first term was to sign the “Great American Outdoors Act,” which was aimed at supporting the stewardship of our nation’s natural beauty.
Museum Spat With Turkey Reveals the Superiority of Western Culture

2 months ago | chroniclesmagazine.org | Pedro Gonzalez |Pedro González

I’m not sure how it happened, but recently I found myself watching a Canadian musician on YouTube named Peter Pringle as he conducted a lament for Gilgamesh, the titular hero of the ancient epic. Wearing a yellow mock turtleneck, Pringle delivered the performance using a replica of the Gold Lyre of Ur that he commissioned. The original is considered one of the world’s oldest stringed instruments. He sang the entire thing in Sumerian, based on text that was rediscovered and translated by Westerners.
Pedro Gonzalez: This local nonprofit fits the description of what Trump ordered to be defunded

2 months ago | mustreadalaska.com | Pedro Gonzalez |Pedro González

By PEDRO GONZALEZThe Mexican flag is something of a rare sight in Anchorage. But last week, protestors draped in its colors marched along snow-covered streets to protest President Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.
Biohackers Can’t Cheat Death

Feb 3, 2025 | chroniclesmagazine.org | Pedro Gonzalez |Pedro González

Two things are true about Luddites. The first is that they are often vindicated in their concern about dramatic technological change, a process that often flies under the name of “progress.”The other is that they lose. No one can stop the future from arriving, any more than Xerxes’s men could punish the sea with whips and red-hot irons. “You may live to see man-made horrors beyond your comprehension,” as Nikola Tesla put it, and these you may also call progress.
Justice Starts at Home

Jan 23, 2025 | chroniclesmagazine.org | Pedro Gonzalez |Pedro González

Florida Man may have met his match in “Vermont Man,” Michael Reynolds, who can now boast of nearly 2,000 run-ins with Burlington police officers. In December, Reynolds was accused of trespassing on the same property twice before refusing to leave the University of Vermont Medical Center and finally being cited for trespassing after leaving and then returning to the hospital.
Pedro Gonzalez: Doug Burgum is a fit for Interior

Jan 19, 2025 | mustreadalaska.com | Pedro Gonzalez |Pedro González

By PEDRO GONZALEZInterior Secretary nominee Doug Burgum told a Senate panel on Thursday that he aims for energy dominance and cast concern on the viability of renewable alternatives. In some ways, the vision presented by the former North Dakota governor was backward-looking in that he left little doubt the incoming White House would revise and undo Biden-era policies. But it also looks ahead into the fast-approaching future.