Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s speech on the fate of four prominent monuments in New Orleans addresses a long-standing debate between those who profess a love of history and those who see that history reflected in present-day racism. The speech provides a cogent summary of this debate and a compelling argument–supported by all three branches of the… Read More
This week in history: The Overland Campaign
In the spring of 1864, with the Army of the Potomac encamped in northern Virginia, Lieutenant General Ulysses S. Grant vowed, “I propose to fight it out on this line if it takes all summer.” As it happened, the ensuing campaign would take all of that and more. From FATEFUL LIGHTING, “Every Day and Every… Read More
This week in history: Battle of Shiloh
The two-day battle at Shiloh (Pittsburgh Landing, Tennessee) marked the first major Union victory of the Civil War and proved a gruesome portent of the fighting to come. From “The Devil’s Own Day,” FATEFUL LIGHTING, by William Hillenbrand: By the first week of April, 1862, General Grant was in camp at Pittsburg Landing on the… Read More
A Modest Proposal revisited
Back in the early 1700’s, Irish satirist Jonathan Swift sought to redress the suffering of his impoverished countrymen with a simple suggestion. In a parody of careful reasoning, Swift proposed that they sell their infant children to the English for use as food, going so far as to suggest that Irish babies would quickly become… Read More
Trump crosses “event horizon”
With President Trump’s return to Twitter warfare in leveling unsubstantiated charges that his predecessor ordered the wire-tapping of his offices, what little hope existed for a return to some semblance of normality in the White House has now been extinguished. After six weeks of the most dysfunctional presidency in American history, the verdict in the… Read More
The Donald v. The World
Among the many questions Donald Trump has not been asked during his meteoric—as in large, dense object on a collision course with everything humanity holds dear—rise to become his party’s nominee for the highest office in the land, is the question of what he sees as his obligations as president. While we have been treated… Read More
Republican debate heroes
Call it a moment of karmic resonance or proof that irony is the soul of wisdom. While channel-surfing in advance of the latest Republican debate I happened upon a scene from the movie “Billy Jack Goes to Washington” (1977). For those with the good fortune never to have seen it, the movie features Tom Laughlin (who… Read More
Benghazi blow-out
It isn’t often that congressional hearings draw a large viewership, and on the face of it the latest hearings of the Select Committee on Benghazi should have been no exception, containing little that was new or revealing. The last time the committee called Secretary Clinton to account was in January, 2013, nearly three years ago,… Read More
Mad scientists of democracy
In a 1932 opinion, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis coined the phrase “laboratories of democracy” to describe the role of state governments in providing test platforms for new laws that could, if successful, be adopted at the federal level. Grounded in the Tenth Amendment’s stipulation that “all powers not delegated to the United States, nor prohibited… Read More
Channeling Sam Wainwright
Something about the Supreme Court’s recent decision affirming the Affordable Care Act brings to mind Frank Capra’s movie classic,”It’s a Wonderful Life.” For the sake of newly-arrived space aliens who may not have seen it, the movie stars Jimmy Stewart as George Bailey, whose many friends include an old buddy, Sam Wainwright. Sam is the… Read More