The attached will piss off my MAGA-leaning readers, but I remind them that democracy is imperfect. The solution to speech with which you disagree is not to cancel the speaker or to retreat into your echo chamber, but to engage with the speaker’s ideas. With luck, we will learn something from each other and build …
Here’s how Gibbon describes the fall of the city now known as Istanbul: In the first heat of the pursuit, about two thousand Christians were put to the sword; but avarice soon prevailed over cruelty; and the victors acknowledged, that they should immediately have given quarter if the valour of the emperor and his chosen …
C Choose Your Rump State The empire of Trebizond (Trabzon, in Turkey today) was a monarchy situate on the south shore of the Euxine Sea initially formed as a semi-autonomous client state of the Byzantine Empire. It survived the sack of Constantinople in 1453 by eight years; its offshoot, the Principality of Theodoro, located on …
(The following was written while I was on hold, waiting to speak with an ERAP operator.) “Well, in our country,” said Alice, still panting a little, “you’d generally get to somewhere else—if you run very fast for a long time, as we’ve been doing.” “A slow sort of country!” said the Queen. “Now, here, you …
-I think lobotomies should be allowed in some cases. -Dad! -Really. -Like, who? -The guy who sucker-punched Mike. -He needs treatment. -Far away from Mike and the rest of his neighbors. -He is bipolar! -He is dangerous. That’s me and my son. He and his little sibling had just made a snarky reference to lobotomies. …
In an earlier post in which I discussed the etymology of the -FU acronyms, I mentioned the term BOHICA. Like GPS and nuclear power, the word was developed by the military but is now used in the civilian world (while GPS and nuclear power benefit everyone, the term BOHICA outside the military is now restricted …
I was pleasantly surprised to see that the Washington Post, AKA Pravda on the Potomac, ran an article last week about the manufactured housing industry that was (i) not hidden behind the Post’s paywall, and (ii) both informative and fair (Kerrymen, Newfies, and people from New Jersey can click here, here or here for the …
Cleveland, back in the day Here is a link to a review of Esther Sullivan’s book Manufactured Insecurity, in the Cleveland Review of Books. Readers unsure of whether to click the previous link can click here, here or here. Belgians, Newfies and Kerrymen can click here.
Mobile home park ownership makes for strange bedfellows. I dislike the three Supremes who were rammed through during the Trump administration. Gorsuch is taking up space where Merrick Garland belongs. Kavanaugh is a drunk who can’t stand up under cross examination. ACB is brilliant but crazy, with scary views on reproductive rights, religion and gun …
When I was driving in northern Maine recently, a maiden aunt who lives in Maine whom I see only on Thanksgivings, weddings and funerals called me. Looking at the caller ID, I emitted a low groan and let it ring. I was listening to a podcast that interested me, and did not want to be …