A while back I was looking up one of my favorite films, The Lives of Others, and I came across this quote at Wiki: …Maxim Gorky [said] that Lenin’s favorite piece of music was Beethoven’s Appassionata. Gorky recounted a discussion … Continue reading →
[NOTE: The following is a slightly changed version of a previous post of mine. If you follow the links in the second paragraph, you’ll find three other pieces I’ve written about the decision to drop the bomb on Hiroshima.] Once … Continue reading →
For the left, failing to teach history – or teaching the leftist version of history – is a feature rather than a bug. A big, big feature. It makes it easier to fill in the blanks with utter claptrap. To … Continue reading →
At the Army website: It was the test that forever changed the world and the course of human history. The test took place at the Trinity Site on July 16, 1945, at 5:29 a.m. Mountain War Time. The test was … Continue reading →
Commenter “Mrs Whatsit” has made this thoughtful observation: I used to wonder how on earth the “good Germans” allowed Hitler to happen. I’m afraid that now I see, as it’s happening around me among many people who sincerely think of … Continue reading →
According to this: PBS released a 30 minute documentary on “How Muslims influenced Thomas Jefferson and the Founding Fathers” without even once mentioning the Barbary slave trade. “Romanhelmetguy” – the author of the tweet I just linked – goes on … Continue reading →
I’ve written quite a few times before about Sebastian Haffner’s excellent book Defying Hitler. I suggest everyone read it. Haffner, a young man when Hitler came to power, describes Hitler’s rise in harrowing and insightful psychological detail. Right now I’ve … Continue reading →
Commenter “Bauxite” wonders: Understanding that this is being driven by the leftmost flank of the American left, I still can’t see how it makes sense. Trump is at his strongest on law and order and illegal immigration. They’ve changed the … Continue reading →
[NOTE: The following is a slightly-edited version of a previous D-Day post.] Today is the eighty-first anniversary of D-Day, the Normandy landings in WWII that led to Western Europe’s liberation. I wonder how many people under forty, either here or … Continue reading →
That’s the premise of this article: For most of its history, America’s higher-education system, for all its flaws, operated around a hard but fair rule: Raw intellectual firepower mattered. Talent mattered. The ability to retain information and apply it correctly … Continue reading →
To the present-day Vietnamese it’s a happy anniversary, according to NPR: Large, cheerful crowds of flag-waving people had been gathering in central Ho Chi Minh City since early Wednesday morning, many of them having camped here overnight. The city became … Continue reading →
An absolutely fascinating episode, and heartwrenching:
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