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:
Continue reading →… with particular force because they see their entire edifice of power threatened. I recall that, at the beginning of Trump’s first term, I started reading about the self-styled Resistance to Trump. The word was chosen for its Nazi-fighting associations: … Continue reading →
As soon as I typed that title, I started thinking that you don’t often hear people talk about venting their spleens anymore. In fact, I began to wonder, did I ever hear it? Or did I merely read it in … Continue reading →
The terrible plight of returned hostage Eli Sharabi – the man who was released from Hamas captivity last Saturday in a state of extreme emaciation and weakness, only to discover that his wife and two teenage daughters had been murdered … Continue reading →
As my regular readers are almost certainly aware, I have a law degree from a university that’s supposedly not too shabby. But it was a long long time ago that I sat in a law school classroom. I didn’t like … Continue reading →
Last weekend I went to this exhibit in Boston that featured many items taken from the wreck of the Titanic. Most were very ordinary: some green cufflinks, a bow tie, paper money, a toilet, men’s wool slacks and a vest. … Continue reading →
At least, that’s the reason that’s being given by Trump: The weather forecast for Washington, D.C., with the windchill factor, could take temperatures into severe record lows. There is an Arctic blast sweeping the Country. I don’t want to see … Continue reading →