Old School Halloween Films

 

The Man

 

No Endorsement at The Free Press

 Bari Weiss notes the viewpoint diversity in their newsroom. an excerpt:

The staff of The Free Press is split almost exactly three ways in this election: between Kamala Harris, Donald Trump, and, well, neither (abstaining, writing in their preferred candidate, or remaining undecided). Yes, there are still undecideds! In other words, our editorial staff is mixed. Just like the country we write about. 

Happy Halloween!

 

[Photo by Todd Cravens at Unsplash]

For All "Slow Horses" Fans: Good News!

 Mick Herron's next Slow Horses novel - "Clown Town" - is scheduled for publication in August 2025.

On My List

 

Disasters and Their Media Coverage

 Commentary magazine: "The Lessons of Disaster" by James B. Meigs. An excerpt:

My Katrina experience taught me to be suspicious of easy narratives about disasters. Major catastrophes—whether natural or man-made—are complex, multifarious events. They contain contradictions: Heroism and incompetence exist side by side; black-and-white attributions of blame are generally wrong. Even the richest, most disciplined societies are never fully prepared for disasters. (Witness the entirely preventable meltdowns at Japan’s Fukushima Daiichi power plant following the 2011 tsunami.) Disasters are, by definition, events that exceed our imaginations and overwhelm our preparations.

One of the Most Fascinating Presidents

 

First Paragraph

Although only noon, the clouds which scudded busily above Portsmouth harbour made it seem closer to evening. For several days a stiff easterly wind had turned the crowded anchorage into angry criss-crossing patterns of whitecaps, and an attendant drizzle gave each buffeted ship and the stout walls of the harbour defences a glistening, metallic sheen.

- From The Complete Midshipman Bolitho by Alexander Kent 

Our Times

Asked whether she could provide a definition of the word “woman,” Ketanji Brown Jackson, Supreme Court nominee, magna cum laude at Harvard and graduate of Harvard Law, seemed perplexed: “I’m not a biologist,” she observed. Yet we are told by Jeremi Carswell, a specialist in the field, that children know perfectly well which of many genders they wish to grow up to be “from the moment that they have any ability to express themselves.”

- Martin Gurri, "The Endarkenment" in City Journal, Autumn 2024 [Unfortunately, that article is behind a paywall. I highly recommend City Journal. Articles in the current issue include:

• "The Plot to Manage Democracy" by Jacob Siegel
• "The Endarkenment" by Martin Gurri
• "Migrant Crime, Youth Crime, and Prisons" by Steven Malanga, Hannah E. Meyers, and Charles Fain Lehman
• "Symposium: The Mental Health Crisis" with Stephen Eide, Carolyn D. Gorman, John Hirschauer, Freddie deBoer, and more
• "Europe's Music Meritocracy" by Heather Mac Donald

Looks Promising

 

When Indoctrination Replaces Literature

 Liza Libes reveals what's really going on in the English departments. An excerpt:

I knew from that moment that something was wrong at Columbia, too. At the very least I found myself wondering if I was just an outlier in the literary world. Coming from an immigrant background—with parents from the USSR who had suffered under socialism—it bothered me that Karl Marx seemed to feature on my English syllabi more frequently than Shakespeare or Milton. I was deeply convinced that literature was not a vehicle for social activism; rather, it was a unique window into human nature, tackling questions far more fundamental than political divisions. Yet not a single student or professor in my department seemed to welcome my perspective.

A Few Great Leadership Novels

 

My new Substack post is up.

Check it out and spread the word. [These books belong on many a holiday gift list.]

Our Hive

 

"Individual bees can't be understood separately from the colony or from their shared, co-created environment. So it is with human networks; bees make hives, we make mobile phones."

- Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations by Clay Shirky [published in 2008]

[Photo by Boba Jaglicic at Unsplash]

One of the Great Under-Reported Stories of Our Society

One of the great under-reported stories of our society is how organizations fill jobs.

In many cases, the more you know about the process, the more you'll be shocked at how such a serious matter can be handled with very little scrutiny.

"We can start interviewing now. HR sent over some names." 

That should trigger alarm bells.

Heroism

 

I'm Hearing Good Things About This Book

 

Timely

 

Law Professors Randall Kennedy and Jonathan Turley on Free Speech and Intellectual Diversity at Harvard

 

Management Secret

 The key to being a good manager is keeping the five guys who hate you away from the four guys who haven't made up their minds.

- Casey Stengel, legendary baseball manager

On My List

 

And Be Sure to Read the Book

 

Imagine the Staff Meetings

 

Find Something Beautiful Today

 

[Photo by Pavol Svantner at Unsplash]

An Anxious Generation Looks for Happiness

 

Don't Let Politics Ruin Friendships

 

My Substack post is up. 

Let's make an extra effort to maintain personal relationships as the election and Thanksgiving approach.

The Saints

 

Immateriality

 A wheel may have thirty spokes,

but its usefulness lies in the empty hub.

A jar is formed from clay,

but its usefulness lies in the empty center.

A room is made from four walls,

but its usefulness lies in the space between.

Matter is necessary to give form,

but the value of reality lies in its immateriality.

Everything that lives has a physical body,

but the value of a life is measured by the soul.

- From the Tao Te Ching by Lao-Tzu

Checking Out the Monster Movies

 

While preparing an upcoming Substack post, I've been checking out trends in horror and suspense films.

Unsurprisingly, Alfred Hitchcock's work is always in the front ranks.

The closer you get to them, the better they look.

I find it difficult to pick a favorite.

Always Watch for Shifts

 "We did a very good job, on the whole, of avoiding the traps and entanglements of the world for the first hundred and twenty-five years, and even made bold to warn the Old World that its presence in the Western Hemisphere, however brief, would be regarded with suspicion. Then things changed."

- From The Present Age: Progress and Anarchy in Modern America by Robert Nisbet

Hit the Substack!

 

My goal is to have over 100 subscribers to my Substack account by the end of the year.

Whether you sign up for a free or paid account, you'll get a lot of helpful information.

I've already posted on some topics that you're unlikely to find anywhere else and others are in the pipeline.

Good Rule Through and Beyond the Election

"If you discard a lifelong friendship because somebody votes for the other team, you've made a terrible mistake... Don't cast aside family members and lifelong friendships. Politics is not worth it. If we follow that principle, we'll heal the divide in this country."

- J.D. Vance

Physical Exam

 I'm scheduled for my annual physical exam.

This is accompanied with regret that such exams cannot be conducted with the efficiency and effectiveness of Dr. McCoy (a.k.a. Bones) in Star Trek.

Once past the weigh-in, however, everything is normally smooth. Following Calvin Trillin's formula, I always deduct 35 pounds for clothes.

Fingers crossed.

Yes!

 

Fun Times in the English Departments

 Anyone in the academic humanities - anyone who's gotten within smelling distance of the academic humanities these last forty years - will see the problem. Loving books is not why people are supposed to become English professors, and it hasn't been for a long time. Loving books is scoffed at (or would be, if anybody ever copped to it). The whole concept of literature - still more, of art - has been discredited. Novels, poems, stories, plays: these are "texts," no different in kind from other texts. The purpose of studying them is not to appreciate or understand them; it is to "interrogate" them for their ideological investments (in patriarchy, in white supremacy, in Western imperialism and ethnocentrism), and then to unmask and debunk them, to drain them of their poisonous persuasive power. The passions that are meant to draw people to the profession of literary study, these last many years, are not aesthetic; they are political.

- William Deresiewicz, "Why I Left Academia (Since You're Wondering)", in The End of Solitude: Selected Essays on Culture and Society

Rosten

 Extremists think 'communication' means agreeing with them.

- Leo Rosten

Filmmaker

Thinking of having a film made? 

Check out Anthony Janssen.

Impressive stuff.

Sweet Talking Thing

 

Can You Hear Me Now?

I live in or near the center of Phoenix, Arizona. One block to the east and one block to the west, cellphone coverage is excellent.

In my cursed neighborhood, however, it is marginal. That has been the case for years. 

I occasionally watch SpaceX launches from California by standing in my front yard. 

It's a great reminder of technological advances.

[Update: Spelling error corrected. Editor reprimanded.]

Memories of an Old Smear

 The latest news stories are a reminder of the infamous smear that CBS reporter Daniel Schorr concocted against Senator Barry Goldwater in 1964. An excerpt from a Jewish Press article on "Daniel Schorr's Big Lie:

Schorr, at the time a CBS News correspondent, decided to inject some of his own fear-mongering into the campaign. On July 12, he reported that “it looks as though Senator Goldwater, if nominated, will be starting his campaign here in Bavaria, center of Germany’s right wing” – which, Schorr provocatively added, was “Hitler’s one-time stomping ground.”

A Good "Day After the Election" Film

 

For Want of a Nail

“For the want of a nail the shoe was lost,

For the want of a shoe the horse was lost,
For the want of a horse the rider was lost,
For the want of a rider the battle was lost,
For the want of a battle the kingdom was lost,
And all for the want of a horseshoe-nail.”

And who would know better than The Butler Professional Farrier School?

Wow!

 

"Seer of the Selfie"

From City Journal in 2023: Remembering Christopher Lasch.

When the Power Goes Out

FutureLawyer is an expert on staying connected during a power outage.

[Photo by The Tampa Bay Estuary Program at Unsplash]

What is the Scariest Book You've Ever Read?

What's your Number 1 Scariest Novel? I'm tempted to exclude Stephen King novels just to make it interesting, but let's put them in the competition. I'll later update the post with my own pick of the scariest novel but will now mention that Stephen King's novella "The Mist" comes in second for me.

Some other nominees I've heard over the years include:

• Dracula by Bram Stoker
• The Shining by Stephen King
• Ghost Story by Peter Straub
• Harvest Home by Thomas Tryon
• Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury
• I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
• The Exorcist by William Peter Blatty
• The Terror by Dan Simmons
• The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson
• House of Leaves by Mark Z. Danielewski
• The Lower River by Paul Theroux [Not classic horror but very scary.]

[Confession: I read dystopian novels but have stopped reading purely horror novels. Doing so has brightened my life.]

[Update: For me, the hands-down winner would be Ghost Story by Peter Straub. The movie version was mediocre, but the book is truly frightening.]

[Photo by Neven Krcmarek at Unsplash]

Arrived

 

On My List

 

The It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World Option

 Commentary magazine: Israel reveals the location of Hezbollah's money.

But it's not under a Big W.

On My Desk and Being Studied

 

Gibbet Hill

 BBC: A new Bram Stoker short story has been found.

Not to be confused with Bram, A Spy Story by our old friend Nicholas Bate.

The Official October Poem

 

We need to get back to reciting poetry.

This Looks Like a Wow

 

First Paragraph

 On November 8, 1519, Bernal Diaz del Castillo saw a sight that would remain fixed in his memory for decades to come. The twenty-seven-year-old Spanish soldier already had encountered signs of an ever intensifying urban civilization as he and his fewer than four hundred comrades marched from the humid lowlands of Mexico up into the volcanic highlands. And in a hint of what was to come, he noted "piles of human skulls," arranged in neat rows, atop the provincial temples.

- From The City by Joel Kotkin

Back By Popular Demand

 

Have You or a Friend Been Rejected by Questionable HR Software?

My new Substack post is up.

I believe this raises one of the most important questions in the nation today.

Find Something Beautiful Today

[Photo by Aaron Burden at Unsplash]

When WWII Began

 

As Flying Gets Stranger

There are times when The Madden Cruiser looks very attractive. 

First Paragraph

 "There is nothing we prize more than courage, yet nothing is in shorter supply."

- From Courage Is Calling: Fortune Favors the Brave by Ryan Holiday

I Assume Their Leader Is Called Commodore

 

A Moving Letter of Thanks

 My Dear Mr. President,

Ever since your appointment of my husband - as your next Chief of Staff - I have wanted to write you [she had been ill]. It is difficult for me to put in words what I really feel. For years I have feared that his brilliant mind, and unusual opinion, were hopelessly caught in more or less of a tread-mill. That you should recognize his ability and place in him your confidence gives me all I have dreamed of and hoped for. I realize the great responsibility that is his. I know that his loyalty to you and to this trust will be unfailing. It is with the deepest feeling of gratitude and happiness that I send you this note of thanks.

Very Sincerely Hours,

Katherine Marshall

[Katherine Marshall was the wife of General George C. Marshall. She wrote this letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in May of 1939. The letter is cited in Eric Larrabee's fascinating book: Commander in Chief: Franklin Delano Roosevelt, His Lieutenants & Their War.]

Old But Good

 

Culdesac, Arizona

 Outside magazine: A car-less Arizona community where the homes don't have parking spaces.

Smile

 Ann Althouse has a summary of remarks from the Al Smith dinner.

I Think Jules Verne Might Have Liked This

 

Scribbling

I start with a small Kaweco Sport fountain pen, then switch to the computer laptop, then for the second draft, I use the fountain pen for making notes, and then back to the computer.

The most creative sections are with the fountain pen. That's why any inserts are handwritten first.

A pencil won't work. A ballpoint pen is okay, but it's not as good as the fountain pen.

The flow makes all the difference.

Oh yes. Black ink. No distractions.

The Law of Triviality

 "The time spent on any item of the agenda will be in inverse proportion to the sum involved."

- C. Northcote Parkinson, Parkinson's Law and Other Studies in Administration

Example: A board will pass a huge budget in minutes but will devote an hour to debating parking spaces.

Mao-Maoing the News Anchors

 A character in Ernest Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises explains pithily how he went bankrupt: “Two ways: gradually, and then suddenly.” So, too, with the collapse of integrity at CBS News. The signs have been accumulating for decades. There was Dan Rather’s 2004 use of false documents to try to unseat George W. Bush during his reelection campaign. In 2012, 60 Minutes withheld the release of an interview with Barack Obama about the true source of the Benghazi terrorist attack. And in November 2023, Gayle King scolded the father of an Israeli child being held hostage by Hamas for not worrying enough about the suffering of “innocent” Palestinians.

Read the rest of Christine Rosen's essay in Commentary magazine.

Late Bloomers

 

Courage Media

 Ayann Hirsi Ali has started a new news platform, and it looks very interesting.

Quick Look

 

12 Rules for Readers

My Substack post of rules for readers is up.

Please read and share.

The Increasing Issue of Water

 Time magazine: The water drought and the Navajo nation.

Should Be a SpaceX Theme Song

 

First Paragraph

 Americans are idealists. This is both one of our glories and curses because it makes us particularly vulnerable to manipulation by self-interested word-spinners. Nowhere is this more evident than in the immigration debate, where the restrictionists have most of the facts and logic on their side, but the beneficiaries of the current system have succeeded in blocking reform largely by defining themselves as the holders of the ethical high ground.

- From "Americans First: The American Conservative"; an essay in Noticing: An Essential Reader, 1973-2023 by Steve Sailer

Immigration: It Pays to Read the Fine Print

 From my recent Substack post on immigration:

Established under the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), the American Job Centers provide an impressive array of services such as career counseling, assistance with job searches, free internet, and hiring events.

The federally funded International Rescue Committee’s “Switchboard” website notes that “Participants in the WIOA Adult program . . . who are low income, receive public assistance, or are ‘basic skills deficient,’ including English language learners, are entitled to priority individualized career services and training services. This may include many refugees, asylees, parolees, or SIV holders. AJC staff must prioritize services to qualifying individuals ahead of other jobseekers.” [Emphasis added.]

Execupundit note: Consider who falls into that "other job seekers" group. Providing service to them is not prioritized. They go to the back of the line.

"SIV holders" refers to Special Immigrant Visas that are granted to people who assisted the U.S. military, such as translators in Afghanistan and Iraq. "Parolees" has nothing to do with past criminal activity but simply means that the person has temporary permission to be in the United States.

Captive of a Scientific-Technological Elite

The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present - and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

- From President Dwight Eisenhower's Farewell Address, January 17, 1961

Someone Left the Cake Out in the Rain

 

Richard Harris in another world.

Why Leaders Should Study Dwight Eisenhower

My Substack column on Dwight Eisenhower is out!

Please check it out and spread the word.

When You Have an Open Border

The Free Press: Madeleine Rowley on how the Biden administration's border policies "have led to an explosion in the forced prostitution of migrants in the U.S."

An excerpt: "These guys" are sex traffickers, and dangerous doesn't begin to describe them.

Danger on Line 1

 Dr. Mark Hyman talks with Dr. Jonathan Haidt about the dangers of smartphone use and social media.

Jeremy Carl on Anti-White Racism

 

Find Something Beautiful Today

 

[Photo by Tim van Cleef at Unsplash]

Let the Litigation Commence

 The California Coastal Commission votes to block SpaceX from launching missiles from California because it does not like the viewpoints of Elon Musk.

Poetry Break

 

Check out "The Vacation" by Wendell Berry.

[Photo by Daniel Olah at Unsplash]

When Tech Gets to Know You

 Increasingly we use technology to mediate not only our choices but also our emotional experiences and feelings. The companies that make these technologies don't want you to just smile and hum along to an ad that urges you to "buy the world a Coke," as an old television commercial once did. They want to know when you are thirsty. Once they know that, as Antonio observed in Shakespeare's The Tempest, you will "take suggestion as a cat laps milk."

- From The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World by Christine Rosen

The Weekend

I have a Substack column to write and at least two books to finish reading. 

Oh yes, and a lawn to mow because irrigation is arriving on Sunday.

And the background music of the weekend will be Copland, Handel, and Gershwin.

There may also be some Elton John.

Have been in touch with an old friend who practices law in New Mexico. His home burned down in a forest fire and he's thinking of relocating if not to a less-fire prone part of New Mexico then possibly to a small town in Arizona that would be close enough that he could drive back and continue his law practice. 

I suggested Tubac, which has become sort of an art colony a little south of Tucson.

[Photo by Sean Benesh at Unsplash]

Hmm

 

More on Pen Pals

 For "an increasingly disconnected world":

• Slowly
• PenPal World

Pen Pals and Loneliness

 

Jim McCann, the founder of 1-800-Flowers, on a strategy to combat loneliness: 

Get with some of the new groups for Pen Pals.

Civilization Works

An organization for the defense of Western civilization.

Sorely needed.

[Photo by Hans Reniers at Unsplash]

Need-to-Know Principle

 "Things were run on a need-to-know principle; if you needed to know, you were not told."

- Peter Jay, a former top executive in the Robert Maxwell organization quoted in Leaders, Fools, and Impostors: Essays on the Psychology of Leadership by Manfred F. R. Kets de Vries

On My List

 

Lessons in Politics: A Series

 "Our first Arizona governor, George W.P. Hunt, served seven terms, and during his last term he came to my hometown, Douglas, for a political rally featuring free hot dogs. He was a huge man with a drooping mustache, round eyeglasses, a white linen suit, and a pith helmet - a picture politician of his day. There I was barefoot and hungry. Governor Hunt gazed across the crowd and bellowed, 'Arizona is such a land of opportunity, why, some day one of these little Mexican boys may become governor.' It seemed as if he was looking straight at me. I remember saying to myself, 'I wonder when he's going to serve the hot dogs?'"

- Governor Raul Castro, 1989

Love

 "I love being married. It's so great to find that one special person you want to annoy for the rest of your life."

- Rita Rudner

Yogi Berra, Philosopher

 FutureLawyer, who is bravely battling the storm in Florida, has a Yogi Berra story.

The Catch-Up Box Gets a Companion

 I spent part of last night and this morning going through what I've come to call The Catch-Up Box.

Any document or note that cannot be immediately handled goes into that box and then, once a week, they get reviewed. [I have a habit of scrawling on index cards.]

Some items stay there because the time is not right for action, but most get moved on.

Now that I've started a Substack column, however, The Catch-Up Box is getting cluttered with articles and notes pertaining to past or future columns.

And so now it is joined by The Substack Box. Nothing fancy. No files within the box. Just items pertaining to articles.

You might say the box is one big file folder and that's wise because you don't lose things in a fat file.

It's when you get too clever and specific that they get lost.

The Automation Paradox

 The more we use GPS . . . the more the parts of our brain responsible for navigation and memory shrink. And the less we know our neighborhood. This is known as the automation paradox: the skills you automate, you lose. So the more we depend on machines to think for us, the less good we become at thinking for ourselves.

- Margaret Heffernan

To Be Periodically Viewed

 

Bouncing Back

 The best reason to fail is to learn that failure isn't the end of the world. "The first time I blew a test," I sometimes say to campus groups, "I walked out feeling like I no longer knew who I was. The second time, it was easier." The statement never fails to elicit a round of cathartic laughter. Students are relieved to discover that it's possible to blow a test or two and still survive to adulthood.

- William Deresiewicz, Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite

- 

Playing Like Copland?

 

Time to Look for a Genuine Life

 

My new Substack post is up.

Please check it out and spread the word!

First Paragraph

Imagine the following: The restaurant is dimly lit and a little grimy. People are eating and talking; you are given a table; it's crowded but the smells coming from the kitchen are promising. The menu's contents are foreign to you and you're forced to ask your waiter, what is a Jerusalem artichoke? What does it taste like? You order and consume a deliciously weird meal. You pay with cash and leave satisfied.

- From The Extinction of Experience: Being Human in a Disembodied World by Christine Rosen

Waymo Driverless Cars

 Yes, it is possible to get around much of the Phoenix area in driverless cars.

Waymo has the details.

This seems to be catching on. I see a lot of their cars around.

Death of an Illusion

But the sense of normality was a dangerous illusion. On October 7, Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood that controls the Gaza Strip, burst out of its lair into Israel and began a systematic slaughter of the population there. Hamas rockets crashed into apartment buildings as far north as the outskirts of Tel Aviv. Hamas fighters shot at anything that moved, murdering civilians, carrying an untold number of Israelis back to Gaza as hostages—whole families have been taken captive. In one day of horror, more than 600 Israelis died, more than 2,000 were injured, and at least 100 vanished into Gaza.

Read the rest of Martin Gurri's essay in City Journal.

First Paragraph

 I am often asked if I would change anything about the Electoral College. My answer has changed over time. Perhaps that is unsurprising. I am older and have seen more of life than that third-year law student who started studying the Electoral College in 2001.

- From The Indispensable Electoral College: How the Founders' Plan Saves Our Country from Mob Rule by Tara Ross

October 7 Atrocities

 

Find Something Beautiful Today

 

[Photo by Jonathan Delmares at Unsplash]

The Reading of Men

 Cultural Offering provides some sound advice from Ray Bradbury.

Back By Popular Demand

 

A Nation is a Nation

 A nation is not a community. A community is not a neighborhood. A neighborhood is not a family.

You occasionally encounter companies that claim to be "family." The people there may be close, but they are not a family.

Multiply that distinction many times over when you hear of politicians who speak of the nation as a community or a family. 

That language may signal the beginning of a political attempt to usurp the obligations and love of real communities and real families.

As the Campaigns Progress

"Propaganda does not deceive people; it merely helps them to deceive themselves."

- Eric Hoffer

In the Biz

 

Just Arrived

 

October Surprise

 New York magazine's Elie Honig, former federal prosecutor, on "Jack Smith's October Cheap Shot."

An excerpt:

"Yet Smith now uses grand-jury testimony (which ordinarily remains secret at this stage) and drafts up a tidy 165-page document that contains all manner of damaging statements about a criminal defendant, made outside of a trial setting and without being subjected to the rules of evidence or cross-examination, and files it publicly, generating national headlines. You know who'll see those allegations? The voters, sure - and also members of the jury pool."

Danish School: Back to Books and Pens

 

When Oversight Really Isn't Oversight

 CNN on accountability in Minnesota state government.

The pension fund for teachers is another area of interest.

A Must See

 

Free Speech is Not a Minor Item

Reason magazine: One side is clearly far off the mark when it comes to freedom of expression.

The Possessed/The Devils

 Commentary magazine: Gary Saul Morson on the classic tale of woke totalitarianism written in Russia 150 years ago.

An excerpt:

From the meeting’s first moment, young people vie to outdo each other repeating revolutionary clichés taken as scientific fact, including the necessity of abolishing every religion, all traditions, and received morality. At last, an ideologue named Shigalyov insists on explaining his irrefutable “system” for establishing earthly paradise.

Modern Tribes

 

I'm Back

 Yesterday was a computer connection problem. I tried various techniques and finally arranged for a tech to come out today. This morning, however, all is well.

I'm back in the game but, having cleared my desk, the new game is discovering where the stacks went.

A Civilized Debate

We have now survived the vice-presidential debate. 

It turned out to be a civilized event and that's mainly due to the two debaters. The moderators were biased to the point of being humorous. 

I believe that J.D. Vance clearly won, but both men deserve credit for giving us a sense of how political debate can and should be.

Will the Police Go Woke?

 My recent Substack post on police departments has clearly drawn interest. 

That's possibly because so many people have noticed how programs tend to slip in through the HR window.

Trusting the Elites

City Journal: Matthew Lilley on what the elite universities are doing in the aftermath of the U.S. Supreme Court decision on preferences. An excerpt:

We know that elite universities previously discriminated against white and Asian applicants to benefit black and Hispanic students. So, universities like Yale that signed the amicus brief and have seen little change in their demographics after SFFA are either breaking the law now, or they were misleading the Supreme Court when they declared race-neutral methods insufficient to achieve their diversity goals. Which is it? The answer is probably both.

Looks Promising

 

A Voice from Montana

Palladium magazine in July 2023: Author Walter Kirn on how America lost the plot.