Original anecdotes, commentary, rumination, and occasional pontification.
JUNE 20, 2020 – As the professor in tweed lit his pipe in front of us 10 students that first day of “The History of Western Civilization,” no one could’ve foreseen the future (three-and-a-half-years later): me in disguise, shoving a gigantic whipped cream pie into the prof’s face. A still-shot of that scene would cap …
JUNE 15, 2020 – At the Red Cabin we have a TV but only for watching movies the old-fashioned way—via DVDs. But soon after my wife bought a large antique cabinet with doors and mounted the TV inside, we got used to the cabinet and forgot all about the TV. A year ago, though, we …
JUNE 8, 2020 – As the train of justice hurtles down the track and we privileged folks decide whether to (a) jump aboard; (b) jump out of the way; or (c) get run over, I must sing the praises of the baked potato. The track isn’t smooth, so in walking through the carriages toward the …
JUNE 6, 2020 – On the way to our cabin recently, we saw a huge, road-side sign that read, “HOME OF THE FREE BECAUSE OF THE BRAVE.” Honestly, the sign didn’t remind me of today–the anniversary of D-Day, start of the Allied invasion of Normandy to drive Hitler’s Wehrmacht back to Germany; an operation that …
JUNE 2, 2020 – How will the current chapter of our history read? There’s no script, no pre-determined outcome. There are signs, however, of what could well unfold. Not to sound melodramatic—which means the exact opposite: to sound melodramatic—but current dynamics in our body politic prompt thoughts about revolution. And I’m not thinking ala the …
MAY 28, 2020 – Yesterday evening in my chair of privilege I faced the stark, tragic reality of America: Grant’s defeat. Two nights before, Netflix had been acting up, depriving me of my regular fix of The Medicis. I switched to the History Channel and chanced upon a three-part documentary about Ulysses S. Grant, produced …
MAY 27, 2020 – By now everyone’s seen the video of the Minneapolis police officer kneeling on the neck of a cuffed, black man lying in pain on the street. The face of the officer reveals the absence of fear, and as officially reported, the arrestee had been apprehended not for violent crime but because …
MAY 24, 2020 – I’m about to plunge into a self-directed study of . . . the Renaissance, or “rebirth”; the period of a grand flowering of arts and letters during the fourteenth, fifteenth, and sixteenth centuries, emanating from the Italian city-states. I knew, of course, that “renaissance” means “rebirth,” but until my current binge …
MAY 20, 2020 – Everyone’s heard of the scientific method. Strike that. Some have heard of the scientific method and fewer yet, apparently, actually understand it, and a subset of those who understand it, fully subscribe to it. (For the record, the scientific method is an approach to knowledge whereby hypotheses are formulated, tested, and …
MAY 9, 2020 – I’m pleased to announce that I’ve now slogged through 59 installments of the 60-episode Netflix series, Bolívar. I’m saving the final segment for some special occasion—perhaps the return of democracy and economic prosperity to El Libertado’s homeland, Venezuela. Actually, I know how the story ends: Bolívar dies and all goes to …
MAY 8, 2020 – On the 75th Anniversary of V-E Day, I wonder: should I think of “V-E” as “Victory in Europe” and dwell upon its lessons or . . . should I view today as “Very Easy” and live obliviously? If like Simon the Simpleton I don’t care about the portents of history and …
MAY 2, 2020 – Perhaps you and I see the same images. Perhaps we don’t, for we live in the Disunited States of America. In any case, witness gun-toting protesters in Michigan and beach crowds in California. “What?” They say. “A killer virus is afoot? It’ll take time . . . and patience . . …
APRIL 25, 2020 – Feeling outraged that America’s led by a village idiot, I think about this day in Portugal in 1974. That’s when the military initiated the largely bloodless “Carnation Revolution”—named so because citizens stuck carnations into rifle barrels of soldiers guarding the streets. It signaled the end of Estado Novo—the “New State”—under the …
APRIL 15, 2020 – Recently, all set to “do our taxes” by the traditional deadline, I realized that thanks to The Virus, the filing deadline is now July 15. Then a client called: what could he do with retail clients who can’t pay rent? (Fortunately, the client’s property isn’t mortgaged.) “Negotiate,” I said, “but condition …
MARCH 25, 2020 – Lately I’ve pondered what my grandparents would’ve said about the current crisis. They were born in the early 1890s and lived to advanced ages, topped by my maternal grandmother, who died at 100. They lived through many cataclysms, but as far as I could tell, were none the worse for wear. …
MARCH 25, 2020 – When I was a student (in ancient times) of ancient times, one standout was Alexander the Great. There was a guy who studied at the feet of Aristotle, then at my age as a college junior, became king on his way to becoming a conqueror, and ultimately “Great,” all by the …
MARCH 21, 2020 – When our sons were cub scouts, I volunteered to be co-leader of our younger son’s “den” of “cubs,” who, being eight-years old, resembled more a dray of squirrels. For a den meeting landing on President’s Day, we hatched the idea that one of the tall dads would dress up like Lincoln and …
MARCH 17, 2020 – As I sit in our “sitting room,” sipping coffee, distancing myself from the latest news (while my wife, on the other hand, reads it), and moving my fingers across the keyboard of my laptop, I realize that by chance I’m wearing my dark green sweatshirt—the one about which my wife often …
FEBRUARY 17, 2020 – When I was in grade school, everyone knew Lincoln’s birthday and Washington’s. Those dates were as common knowledge as the fact that Fourth of July fell on . . . July 4. But with the Uniform Federal Holidays Act of 1971, many holidays, including Washington’s birthday, were moved to the closest …
FEBRUARY 15, 2020 – In every era society faces two over-arching questions: 1. What’s happening? and 2. What should be done about it? In the current era, people have ready but competing answers to the second question. These prescriptions, however, turn on the answer to the first question, and again, everyone knows exactly what’s happening. …
FEBRUARY 6, 2020 – If you haven’t listened to Senator Romney’s speech on the floor of the Senate yesterday, you should. Yesterday evening in his normally comedic monologue, Stephen Colbert, host of the Late Show, gave an impassioned tribute to the lone Republican Senator to vote to convict President Trump. In voting against the Lock-step …
FEBRUARY 2, 2020 – Yesterday’s edition of The Washington Post published an opinion piece by James Comey, one of Trump’s many outspoken nemeses. Comey provided cool reassurance to those among us who can’t stand Trump. He cited major upsets in our history, from the assassination of JFK to the demise of the Democratic Party with …
JANUARY 27, 2020 – Seventy-five years ago today, Soviet troops liberated the concentration camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau near the Polish town of Oświęcim (“Auschwitz” in German), just west of Kraków. It is estimated that of the 1.3 million people who were sent to those camps, about 1.1 million died—shot, gassed, worked to death, starved to death, …
JANUARY 26, 2020 – A prominent historian once said that no reliable history could be written less than a half-century after events under examination. Based on my own life experience, I find that perspective compelling. As we watch Trump’s impeachment trial unfold, we—right, left, center, off the charts—must wonder, Starting 50 years from now, how …
JANUARY 17, 2020 – Undaunted, he worked doggedly for admission into another Polish university, less selective than Jagiellonian University, but nonetheless, boasting a top-flight history department. He labored under the tutelage of a legendary scholar/professor, and then made a second attempt at Jagiellonian University. He passed. (In a “small world” aside, my wife and I …