August 14, 2019 – 8:06 pm
The site’s having problems: comments are not working. I’m trying to figure out what’s wrong. Update: There seems to be a problem with this WordPress theme. I may have to switch to another one. Update: Fixed. Back soon.
August 14, 2019 – 11:44 am
…there’s no place like home. The lovely Nina and I are back from our little trip abroad. We visited Slovenia and Croatia with our daughter and her young family, who had driven down from their home in Vienna to meet us, and we had a fine time getting to know these beautiful places a bit […]
Sorry about the near-total lack of content here. We’ve had a steady stream of houseguests, and I’ve hardly been online at all. I’ve paid as little attention to the news as possible, and have spent my scanty solitary time reading (Bruce Catton, Thomas West, and Forrest McDonald), working on a couple of mixes in the […]
Things might be a little slow around here for a bit; we have our children and grandchildren visiting, and the strife-torn world seems far away. Which is nice.
We’re back in the States after our whirlwind trip to Vienna. The expedition was a success: Lily, who turned ninety-eight today, bore up well, though it was exhausting for her. She was glad to visit her hometown one last time, and although she is almost completely blind, she enjoyed being taken around to some old […]
The lovely Nina and I will be away for a week. The Jewish Museum of the City of Vienna has mounted an exhibit featuring three artists who fled Vienna as the Nazis took over, and one of the three — the only one surviving — is my mother-in-law Lily, who has lived in New York […]
It occurred to me just now that July 20th of this year will be the 50th anniversary of the first time that men walked on the Moon. There should be Dunkin Donuts on the Moon by now. What the hell happened to us?
March 12, 2019 – 11:46 pm
Michael Anton comments on the seige of Tucker Carlson, here. The gist is in the final paragraph: The ruling Left cannot defeat Carlson and so must silence him. As it will attempt to silence anyone who carries his message or anything like it. Every “conservative’ who joins the ritual denunciation of Carlson wishing to be […]
The lovely Nina and I are back in the States after a ten-day visit to Ireland. We spent time with family in Lucan (a western suburb of Dublin), and toured around a bit. Among the latter were a “black-taxi” tour of the troubled sections of Belfast (an area still deeply divided, in which the walls […]
February 22, 2019 – 11:12 am
The lovely Nina and I are off to Ireland for ten days, for a visit with our new extended family (and a little old-fashioned tourism). Things may be quiet here till we get back. Meantime, do listen to John Batchelor’s recent discussion with Professor Cohen on the Sovietization of America in recent years. Part 1 […]
February 13, 2019 – 11:29 pm
I’d been getting worried again about John Batchelor — he’s been treated for cancer recently, took time off for surgery a while back, and has been away from the microphone again for the past couple of weeks. (The archival material he runs to fill in is always well worth listening to, but his latest absence […]
January 23, 2019 – 10:33 pm
I’ve just learned that Russell Baker, the longtime reporter and columnist for the New York Times, has died at the age of 93. I was a fan. I read his Observer column without fail, and have several of his books. He was a wonderful writer — graceful, witty, and piercingly but unostentatiously intelligent — and […]
January 21, 2019 – 9:57 pm
Tucker Carlson rang in the New Year with a controversial monologue on the failure of American government to address a fundamental problem of modernity: the breakdown of families, and the growing hopelessness of those who are neither intractably poor nor insouciantly rich. Unlike nearly every other “conservative” today, however, he spread the blame around, heaping […]
January 4, 2019 – 5:36 pm
This weekend, after a month in Vienna, the lovely Nina and I are heading home. We’ll be back in the States by Sunday evening. It’s been a fine time — Vienna is always a nice place to be, and we welcomed a new grandchild into our expanding extended family — but it’s time to get […]
January 1, 2019 – 10:28 am
And away we go, friends. I have no idea what 2019 will bring, but I doubt it will be boring. Keep your powder dry! I wish you all good health and good fortune, and I thank you all again for reading and commenting.
December 27, 2018 – 3:18 pm
We’re still in Vienna (for another ten days or so), spending time with our daughter and her young family, and enjoying a year-end break from our usual cares and concerns. I’ve scarcely paid any attention to the news, and I’ll confess that, as happens sometimes, I’ve had very little inclination to take up the pen. […]
December 25, 2018 – 5:53 am
…to each and every one of you. May we all put the world and its cares aside for a day to enjoy the sweet blessings of home and hearth and family, and love.
December 16, 2018 – 6:24 am
The lovely Nina and I have just welcomed into the world our second grandchild, Declan Calder Wright, born to our daughter Chloe and her husband Christopher (who is as fine a young man as ever there was) here in Vienna, Austria, at 2:40 p.m. on Saturday, December 15th, 2018. (His middle name, Calder, was my […]
December 10, 2018 – 5:09 pm
The lovely Nina and I are settled in now in Vienna, and our daughter is due to bring forth our second grandson on Wednesday (though he may arrive sooner). We are quartered in a little apartment in the 3rd District, just around the corner from the Hundertwasserhaus, and we are waiting, well, expectantly. Paris may […]
December 6, 2018 – 1:38 pm
Sorry it’s been slow here. We’ve been getting my 97-year-old mother-in-law‘s life in order after her fall last month, and today the lovely Nina and I are off to Vienna, where our daughter is expecting her second child — a baby boy — on the 12th. I’ll be back online once we get settled in […]
November 22, 2018 – 12:35 pm
… to all of you. We have much indeed to be thankful for.
November 19, 2018 – 11:15 pm
I’m very happy to report that John Batchelor, whose three-hour program every weeknight is the best thing on all of radio, is back on the air after a sudden two-week departure. Three days ago he tweeted this, which I’d missed at the time: Hi The good news is that after a 7 hour surgery and […]
November 13, 2018 – 2:43 pm
Not long ago the great physicist Freeman Dyson wrote an introduction to a report on the beneficial aspects of higher carbon dioxide levels. In it he asked: The people who are supposed to be the experts and who claim to understand the science are precisely the people who are blind to the evidence. That to […]
November 10, 2018 – 5:15 pm
My (very) elderly mother-in-law is in an ICU after a fall. I doubt I’ll be writing anything here for at least a few days.
November 2, 2018 – 10:55 pm
In Baltimore for a conference this weekend. Back next week.
October 31, 2018 – 12:46 pm
With the mid-term elections less than a week away, Angelo Codevilla surveys the social and political battlefield that the United States — now more disunited than at any time since our last Civil War — has become. His essay begins: Prior to the 2016 election I explained how America had already “stepped over the threshold […]
October 20, 2018 – 10:42 pm
“No man is always in a disposition to write, nor has any man at all times something to say.” – Dr. Johnson (Also, I have house-guests. Back soon.)
October 14, 2018 – 12:01 am
…around here, anyway. I’ve been offline, mostly, for the past few days, and paying little attention to the news. I did see that there was a brouhaha of some sort between Antifa and Gavin McInness’s “Proud Boys” in New York City today, but I don’t know more than that, and can’t really be bothered to […]
October 2, 2018 – 10:17 pm
Still very busy here, I’m afraid. I’ve also got little to add to the big story of the moment, which is of course the Kavanaugh appointment. There’s nothing subtle or nuanced about any of it; it’s just raw combat, and everyone knows it. So what can I say? (New things do keep popping up, though.) […]
September 29, 2018 – 12:04 am
Now Twitter has suspended my all-time favorite account, the brilliant and eccentric @ThomasWictor. How intensely irritating. Update, 9/29: Now @hbdchick (who is the very soul of reason and moderation) is gone too! (Her blog, which is effectively an online university, is here.)
September 24, 2018 – 10:38 pm
I’m very sorry never to have really got back up to speed after the August break. The blog is still very much alive, but the Muse unusually silent, and it has been a very busy and chaotic time the past few weeks. Currently we are in Chicago for a couple of days, and there will […]
September 20, 2018 – 9:18 pm
At Newcomb Hollow Beach this afternoon: (If you hadn’t heard, Mr. Medici, 26, was fatally attacked a week ago by one of the great white sharks that have recently made our part of Cape Cod their home.)
September 10, 2018 – 4:56 pm
Well, I’m back from our annual musical retreat in the Isles of Shoals, but I’m completely exhausted. (We get up early, spend the days organizing and rehearsing, then play for the rest of the folks on the island from cocktail hour until the “wee small hours of the morning”. Getting more than about four or […]
September 4, 2018 – 1:15 pm
It’s September, and after a restful summer break, it’s time to start getting back to normal operations around here. (There’s been a lot to talk about.) The next few days are busy ones, though: I’ll be working long hours today and tomorrow, and from Friday until Monday I’ll be on remote and rocky Star Island […]
Once again, it’s August, and the weather here in the Outer Cape is warm and sultry. Suddenly, swimming my daily mile in Wellfleet’s clear glacial kettle-ponds, gathering and consuming our renowned oysters, gazing at the blue horizon, and slowly working my way through a swelling backlog of books (including Thomas West’s book about the Founding) […]
August 1, 2018 – 10:47 pm
A reader has sent me this link, to a blog dedicated to what has come to be known as “pizzagate”. I present it without comment, for now at least.
Sorry about the scanty output: it’s summer, and I’m on a reduced schedule. I have begun reading The Political Theory of the American Founding, which you may recall from our link to, and subsequent discussion of, Michael Anton’s review. The book directly addresses several questions I have been stewing over for a long time now, […]
If things are a bit quiet here over the next few weeks, it’s because we have a full house — our daughter Chloe, her husband Chris, and our little grandson Liam are here from Vienna to stay with us in Wellfleet for a few weeks, and later this week they’ll be joined by our son […]
Our friend Bill Vallicella quoted this, from Michael Anton, on Independence Day: For the founders, government has one fundamental purpose: to protect person and property from conquest, violence, theft and other dangers foreign and domestic. The secure enjoyment of life, liberty and property enables the “pursuit of happiness.’ Government cannot make us happy, but it […]
Happy Independence Day, America. And to all of you, dear readers, as well. I hope we can set strife aside for a day to appreciate how lucky we are to live in this extraordinary country.
As I mentioned recently, it’s been a busy spell for me, with little time or “bandwidth” for writing (though by now I’ve built up quite a backlog of things I’d like to comment on). Now I’m off to Kansas City on business for a few days. Will post as time permits.
“We often read nowadays of the valor or audacity with which some rebel attacks a hoary tyranny or an antiquated superstition. There is not really any courage at all in attacking hoary or antiquated things, any more than in offering to fight one’s grandmother. The really courageous man is he who defies tyrannies young as […]
Charles Krauthammer is not long for this earth, it seems. Whether you agree with him or not on the issues — sometimes I have, and sometimes I haven’t — he is an intelligent, civilized, thoughtful and articulate man, who has borne a life-altering disability with strength and dignity.
Houseguests this weekend. Back in a bit.
April 23, 2018 – 10:38 am
Did I miss anything? We had a splendid time overseas, but home is best. I have a busy couple of days ahead, picking up the threads of ordinary life. Things should get back to normal here shortly.
April 12, 2018 – 11:52 am
Things may be a little quiet here for a fortnight or so: the lovely Nina and I are off to Austria to visit our daughter, her husband, and our wee grandson Liam. I’m disinclined to keep too close an eye on the news while we’re traveling; frankly I could use a break. I may post […]
It appears that my blog-posts are now appearing again in Google searches. I don’t know if this was due to a re-indexing after the blog’s title change (perhaps the blog’s title carries more weight in Google’s world than for other search providers), or whether it might even have been thanks to some behind-the-scenes assistance from […]
Well, I’m back up, it seems. The technical problems on the backend appear to have been due to some gummed-up WordPress plugins and an old version of PHP. I’ll confess that I had begun to suspect that something darker was happening. My recent exclusion from Google search results (while Bing and DuckDuckGo results were unaffected) […]
A busy couple of days. Back shortly. I’ve noticed also that there have been a lot of backend errors recently that have been affecting connectivity here. I’m investigating and hope to have a resolution shortly. Thanks for your patience. Update, 3/12: The backend problem persists. (Just posting this update took me half an hour.) Support […]
Big news tonight about a meeting between President Trump and Kim Jong Un. Most commentators, including many I respect, are suggesting that Mr. Trump is being played, just as previous presidents were. I’m not so sure. Here’s why. What’s different this time around is that Trump is using a different lever, and he isn’t using […]