A good historical novel—as Rafael Sabatini’s Scaramouche is—resembles a bridge game, where the hands and strategies are revealed only gradually. History itself unfolds irregularly, with disruptions, false starts, and surprises. Against the backdrop of complicated, vicious, and corrosive events in France in the late 1780s and early 1790s, Sabatini draws his characters from smallscale lives into the great
READ MOREIf there were a Museum of Terrible Ideas, the permanent collection would surely include today’s elected leaders who believe the best way to represent impoverished neighborhoods is to demand the defunding of police departments and supporting policies to undermine public schools. How can anyone argue that poor people benefit from lax law enforcement or ending
READ MOREAs disruptive as the 2020/2021 academic year was, it led to many positive educational changes that will be transformative and long-lasting. Most notably, parents have been re-empowered to take back the reins of their children’s education from government bureaucrats and teachers unions. Frustrated by school closures and district “Zoom schooling,” families fled public schools in
READ MORELast week, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops voted 168-55, more than 3-1, to provide new guidance for receiving Holy Communion. Behind the decision? Bishops’ alarm that the public religious practice of President Joe Biden is conveying a heretical message to the faithful and the nation. At Sunday Mass, Biden regularly receives Communion. Yet he
READ MOREAnother weekend, another round of shootings. We’ve only just hit the summer solstice and we’re already off to the races of chaos and crime. Per usual, the biggest rampage came from Chicago, where 54 people were shot over the weekend, 21 on Saturday night alone. But Chicago is not the only city having problems. A recent
READ MOREHitler’s Germany attacked Stalin’s Soviet Union 80 years ago today, thus unleashing the greatest, bloodiest, and most meaningless clash of titans in history. Thanks to the German Führer’s obsession with Lebensraum (“Living Space”) in the East, and his equally self-defeating, criminal race theory, Operation Barbarossa resulted in the mutual near-destruction of the two nations. Flawed from the outset,
READ MORETANSTAAFL with its triple repetition of the letter “A” is an acronym popularized by science-fiction writer Robert Heinlein meaning, “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.” TANSTAFL with a double A is my play on Heinlein’s contrivance: “There ain’t no such thing as free love.” Free love may bring to mind that term
READ MORESenator Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) has upset the plans of his party leaders to jam though hyper-partisan legislation and tip the electoral balance in favor of Democrats for all future elections. Manchin, a secretary of state before he was elected governor, is refusing to end the filibuster, or to vote for H.R. 1, the cynically named
READ MOREQuaker’s “Aunt Jemima” has been replaced by the Pearl Milling Company. “Mrs. Butterworth” and “Uncle Ben” have followed her into the dustbin of history, all because these venerable product images ran afoul of current ideological purity tests. Woke ideology is rolling like an avalanche through corporate America, and removing these objectionable products is one of the chief ways these
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