The missing “J”
For most of my life I never had any interest in genealogy, although I did have an interest in family stories. And it was the family story of a long-lost great-uncle, a mystery I wanted to solve, that propelled me … Continue reading →
Category Archives: History
“Once I built a railroad” – The Bonus Army and the On-to Ottawa Trek
What went on in this country post-January 6th, and what’s going on in Canada now, have historical precedents not just in repressive dictatorships but even in the US and Canada. It seems that the authorities are always frightened of demonstrations … Continue reading →
An ode to the 1980s
For me, the 1980s are somewhat of a blur, because I spent them having a baby and then raising that baby and intermittently working part-time. I was exhausted much of the time, and not really part of the zeitgeist. Which … Continue reading →
Ruminations on Justin Trudeau
Our Founders set up our republic in a certain way because they were students of history, and also because they were extremely thoughtful and smart. They had studied the history of governmental rise and decline and fall, tried to learn … Continue reading →
Whoopi Goldberg, the Nazis, and those white Jews
Let me start by asking whether anyone has accused Whoopi Goldberg of cultural appropriation regarding her stage name? Not only was her birth name Caryn Johnson, but her Jewish last name – and of course her silly first name – … Continue reading →
The overbearing majority: why did Schumer force a vote on ending the filibuster?
I’m confess I’m a bit stumped about the motive for this series of votes on Wednesday night. First, there was consideration of HR1 itself, and Republicans blocked taking up the bill. Then Schumer asked for a vote “to change the … Continue reading →
The evolution of the idea that each election is illegitimate
The idea that Joe Biden floated yesterday at his press conference – that the next election might be illegitimate if Congress doesn’t pass the Democrats’ radical “voting reform” bill – would have once been verboten. But in the last two-plus … Continue reading →
Milan Kundera on national memory
The Book of Laughter and Forgetting was the first book I ever read by Milan Kundera back when it was first published in 1980, and it probably is still my favorite work of his. It’s a very strange but wonderful … Continue reading →
Maus
[NOTE: The topic of the two-volume graphic novel Maus came up in a recent thread, and I’ve decided to republish a review that I first wrote in 2009. So here it is.] I recently reread the two-volume graphic novel Maus, … Continue reading →
3rd grade students in DC school psychologically abused by librarian
Here’s a sickening story: A staff member at a Washington DC school has been suspended after making third-grade children reenact scenes from the Holocaust, including getting them to pretend to dig mass graves and shoot victims, and telling them the … Continue reading →
The 80th anniversary of Pearl Harbor
[NOTE: This is a somewhat-edited version of a previous post.] Today is the eightieth anniversary of the December 7, 1941 Pearl Harbor attack. The generation that reacted to it by mobilizing and fighting World War II is on its last … Continue reading →
New England stone walls
[NOTE: Yesterday I noticed a discussion in the open thread about stone walls in New England and elsewhere. I thought I’d link to a post I wrote about stone walls, but – as sometimes happens – I discovered there was … Continue reading →