We’ve got a problem in talking to each other. It’s an old problem, codified on the right by David Horowitz in his The Art of Political War. It has been turned into armor… Continue reading →

An essay of mine has appeared in the Houston Chronicle. Here are the first paragraphs and a link: The professors are coming! As conservative polemicist David Horowitz would have it, American college teachers long… Continue reading →

The heart of the Ceilidh is the fiddle–at least that’s so on Prince Edward Island in Canada’s Maritime.

When I was writing The Rise of the Blogosphere in 2006, I puzzled over how to approach Benjamin Franklin’s 1731 “Apology for Printers.” As the book is meant to provide background for the rise of… Continue reading →

This is from my 2013 book The Cult of Individualism: A History of an Enduring American Myth.  In it, I write about the Borderers, the people of  much of my ancestry, the Scots-Irish who… Continue reading →

Originally posted on 1968: Nothing Is Revealed:
The fight was over. In a way, that was too bad, for it had given me cover for edging into the shadows by the row of dark…

My primary task in Peace Corps in Togo, West Africa in the late 1980s was to help farmers establish a plowing regime using oxen. I ran a small training center and traveled to… Continue reading →

Originally posted on 1968: Nothing Is Revealed:
By Bundesarchiv, Bild 183-1990-1210-001 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5348179 Somewhere around this day in July of 1968–maybe a day or two later, I don’t…

Yes, today has been one of the most troubling days for Americans since the Second World War, assassinations aside. We have seen our elected leader give the keys to the kingdom to the… Continue reading →