I first learned of Victor Klemperer’s The Language of the Third Reich in a column Mike Godwin of Godwin’s Law (“As an online discussion continues, the probability of a comparison to Hitler or to Nazis approaches one”) wrote in June 2018 in … [Read more...]
Some Patterns of American Political Demographics
I like to watch/listen to CSPAN while I write and search the Web, especially the weekend Book TV. Around midnight, as September 17 slid into 18 this year (2016), Alan Taylor was talking about his book, American Revolutions: A Continental … [Read more...]
The Politics of PT Barnum
Phineas Taylor (PT) Barnum was not only a show business producer and early mass marketeer but also a politician. He was elected to two terms in the Connecticut state legislature (1865 and 1866) representing the town of Fairfield as a … [Read more...]
Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman
Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman by William Tecumseh Sherman NY: The Library of America, 1990 ISBN 0-940450-65-8 Sherman went to West Point in 1836 and graduated in 1840, 4th in his class academically. He served in Florida, South … [Read more...]
On “Resurrecting The Liberal Project”
A century ago, a popular ex-president stood before a presidential nominating convention and concluded: We stand at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord. And, for the following century, liberals and progressives have lived under the … [Read more...]
World Meteorological Organization: Heatwave Decade
The World Meteorological Organization recently released their Global Climate Report: Decade of Extremes (pdf alert: http://library.wmo.int/pmb_ged/wmo_1119_en.pdf and video at http://youtu.be/qSz7U0C0bsY) looking at general weather … [Read more...]
On Monday Morning Philosophy, Or, Founders Tell America: “You Figure It Out”
"...you see, all the majesty of worship that once adorned these fatal halls / was just a target for the angry as they blew up the Taj Mahal..." --From the song "Gasoline", by Sheryl Crow The reason this is coming up today is because I've … [Read more...]
On Saving Us From The Immoral, Or “Ready, Fire…Aim!”
There are those who seem surprised that a defective rattrap like the Mulford law could be endorsed by the legislature of a supposedly progressive, enlightened state. But these same people were surprised when [California's] Proposition 14, … [Read more...]
66 Years Ago Today: D-Day
Here is the message from Gen. Eisenhower that was distributed immediately prior to the attack: Soldiers, Sailors and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force! You are about to embark upon a great crusade, toward which we have striven these … [Read more...]
Renaming the Tea Party
I am not going to take any time writing about why I don't agree with the politics of the so-called "tea party." There's plenty of that here. I'd like to instead give some context about the silliness of their name, and what we should rename … [Read more...]