Frank Sinatra, Jr., was saying, "I don't have to take this," getting up out of his guest chair, walking out. Howard Hart was grinning at him with his capped teeth.
- From Touch by Elmore Leonard
Friday, November 21, 2025
An Assortment of What Ifs
This is the recent Substack of mine that has received far and away the greatest amount of interest.
Consider the what ifs of history.
As I Prepare a Substack Essay on Cars
I addressed this subject a few years ago, but am back on it due to preparing a Substack essay on changing styles of cars.
My older brother has owned over 50 cars.
I am far from that league. After reviewing the cars I've owned, one model in particular stands out as the one I wish I'd kept.
Here's my list:
Volkswagen Beetle
Datsun 610
Buick Regal
Ford Escort
Volvo Sedan
Volvo Station wagon
Datsun 300
Ford Explorer
Honda Element
Mercury Grand Marquis
Lexus NX
And the one I wish I'd kept: 1969 Volkswagen Beetle. Should have never gotten rid of it.
Do you have regrets about letting a car slip away?
Thursday, November 20, 2025
When Trump Built an Ice Rink
There were important lessons in bureaucracy. An excerpt:
By October 28, 1986, the rink was completed ahead of time and at approximately 750,000 dollars under budget. Within weeks, skaters were on the ice.
[Photo by freestocks at Unsplash]
On the Beaches and in the Immigration Offices
Peter Hitchens is wrong: the British should not leave their nation; they should fight for it.
[Photo by Samuel Pollard at Unsplash]
Wednesday, November 19, 2025
Teaching a Class Today
A workshop on Equal Employment Opportunity. Sort of like "Europe in One Day" because it covers a variety of subjects, each of which could merit a separate class.
Always great to hear the perspectives of class members and to provide updates on that has been happening in this fascinating area.
Bear with me. Back this afternoon.
[Photo by Ivan Aleksic at Unsplash]
Tuesday, November 18, 2025
Mamba Mentality
"Hard work outweighs talent every time. Mamba mentality is about 4 a.m. workouts, doing more than the next guy and then trusting in the work you've put in when it's time to perform. Without studying, preparation and practice, you're leaving the outcome to fate. I don't do fate."
- Kobe Bryant
Monday, November 17, 2025
First Paragraph
Melissa, a twenty-four-year-old college graduate with a degree in journalism, has spent most of her time out of college piecing together a string of freelance jobs just so she can be sure to cover her rent, food, and transportation costs. Her biggest problem hasn't been getting a job. It's been securing a good job that allows her to launch her career and comfortably cover her expenses. Her parents help her out from time to time, and she's now considering whether she should move back home temporarily. "I'm disappointed, because growing up I was told that if I get an education, if I go to college, then I'll be successful," she says. "In reality, it hasn't helped me that much."
- From The New Life Blueprint: A 21st Century Guide for Success, Health, Wealth, and Happiness in a Complex World by Natalia Peart with Christopher Burge
G.W. and H.L.M. at Cultural Offering
A colorful description of George Washington at Cultural Offering.
If I were to host a "famous persons" dinner party, there would be chairs for Washington and Lincoln.
And perhaps a recording device nearby.
Sunday, November 16, 2025
Saturday, November 15, 2025
Five Stars!
At long last, after finishing some mega-projects, I sat down and read Nicholas Bate's book on How to Beat ChatGPT.
It is short, to the point, and excellent.
I've already begun some major changes related to my training and consulting services.
Excellent job, Nicholas!
[Photo by Ray Hennessy at Unsplash]
The Antisemites and Anti-Americans Object to Your Success
Antisemitism and Anti-Americanism want their victims to go away.
You can't please these people.
[Photo by Johannes Schhenk at Unsplash]
Friday, November 14, 2025
First Paragraph
Many of us are anxious about the rapid changes Artificial Intelligence (AI) is bringing to our careers. Some of us have 'played' a little with one of the AI applications, and we have read the articles that suggest scenarios from 'nothing to fear: it's a joke' to 'the end of civilization as we know it.'.
- From How to Beat ChatGPT: How to never say AI killed my job by Nicholas Bate
[Photo by Markus Winkler at Unsplash]
Thursday, November 13, 2025
"The Question"
In 1994, American Marxist historian Eugene D. Genovese wrote a memorable open letter to the Left on the necessity for the Left to answer the question: "What did you know, and when did you know it?"
Read the entire essay here.
[Photo by Marjan Blan at Unsplash]
Wednesday, November 12, 2025
The Fatal Attraction
The fatal attraction of the government is that it allows busybodies to impose decisions on others without paying any price themselves. That enables them to act as if there were no price, even when there are ruinous prices paid by others.
- Thomas Sowell
Tuesday, November 11, 2025
A Great Nation
How's this for variety?
Cultural Offering has American Heroes and the Sons of Whitaker Chambers.
[Photo by Melissa Walsh at Unsplash]
Stories That Stay
My guess is that I was in the sixth grade when I found a copy of In the Great Apache Forest in the school library.
It was the true story of George Crosby, a young Boy Scout who served as a fire spotter in the White Mountains of Arizona during the First World War.
The book had particular appeal because my family often camped in the area. I'd not only seen the remains of the old fire tower on the top of Mount Baldy but had even seen George Crosby when he and his wife owned a small store in Greer, Arizona.
The books that are currently recommended for children strike me as all message and no adventure. There is certainly little in many of them that would appeal to a young boy.
An important job. A dark forest. A large grizzly bear. A Winchester rifle.
What's not to like?
Veterans Day
For some reason, I was sent to an Air Force Base for my initial Army physical exam. Most of the guys in the waiting room were Air Force personnel getting their retirement physicals.
They mildly teased me. ("You seem like a nice guy, but I think you're crazy to go into the Army.")
Not that the teasing didn't go in the other direction. During training I watched some Army artillery officers spoofing the Air Force in an effort to encourage the young soon-to-be Army officers to opt for the Artillery Corps.
One of them portrayed a dandified Air Force officer who pulled handkerchiefs out of his sleeves while swinging a golf club and declaring that air support was simply not possible because there was a small cloud in the distance.
That, of course, allowed an artillery gun crew to pull up and quickly fire off some rounds.
All joking aside, I never saw anything but a high level of respect for all of the services. There was an acknowledgement that each had an important mission.
Because each of them did.
[Photo by Joe Ridley/Beth Martin at Unsplash]
Monday, November 10, 2025
This Isn't Just Happening in the Education Field
A natural consequence: When a full-time opening is advertised, it's often overloaded with the qualifications and responsibilities that once belonged to multiple positions. Job ads today often resemble Frankenstein's monster, cobbled together from various roles out of departmental desperation and internal compromises. I suppose it's theoretically possible that an exceptional candidate might be found who can cover five responsibilities that once belonged to three different faculty members - but it's unlikely. And candidates aren't mind readers; they don't know which of the five duties advertised are the ones that really matter.
- From "How to Fix Our Cold, Inefficient Hiring: Too many searches fail to woo candidates with kindness and professionalism" by David D. Perlmutter in The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 18, 2025
Learning about Human Nature
These are times when large numbers of college students have never read a book and when it's possible to get a degree without having read Shakespeare.
I believe this is disastrous when it comes to developing important insights on human nature.
If I were meeting with a class of men and women in their early twenties and our main topic was how the world really operates, my initial inclination would be to assign the following works of fiction:
- Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare
- Othello by William Shakespeare
- Erasure by Percival Everett
- Bleak House by Charles Dickens
- War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy
- Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
- Animal Farm by George Orwell
- Submission by Michel Houellebecq
- White Teeth by Zadie Smith
- The First Circle by Alexander Solzhenitsyn
What would be on your list?
Repatriation
Germany's chancellor wants Syrian asylum seekers to go home.
I hope the Swedes and the Irish are paying attention.
Sunday, November 09, 2025
Saturday, November 08, 2025
Reminder for Boomers
Younger generations are told that if they do the same things as the boomers did, things will work out well for them. But society has changed very drastically, and it doesn't work in quite the same way. Housing is way more expensive. It's much harder to get a house in a place like New York or Silicon Valley, or anywhere the economy is actually doing well and there are a lot of decent jobs. People assume everything still works, but objectively, it doesn't.
- Peter Thiel, "Capitalism Isn't Working for Young People" (The Free Press, 11/7/25)
I'd Make It Downstream from the Family
Every problem in American life is downstream from education.
- Jeremy Wayne Tate
Podcasts
I'm preparing a plan for some podcasts.
They'll be relatively short and will cover a range of subjects.
If you think of any topics that you'd like me to address, please let me know.
[Photo by Will Francis at Unsplash.]
Friday, November 07, 2025
National Fountain Pen Day
Mitigating Chaos, a man of fine reading tastes, reminds us that this is National Fountain Pen Day.
[I'm surprised the schools aren't closed.]
He has inspired me to upgrade to a higher-level fountain pen. I had a great experience with a small and inexpensive Kaweco Sport pen and then a bad one with its replacement.
A recent article about the effect of inexpensive Chinese fountain pens had a collector who said that if his place was on fire, he'd rescue a Pelikan.
Hmm.
Byrds
A Layman's Blog has a magic folk-rock video from the Sixties.
I recall quickly buying their first album.
Supplies
Coffee, plenty of it.
Legal pads.
Pens, both fountain and Jetstream Uni 0.7.
Typing paper.
Vicks VapoInhaler.
American Heritage Dictionary.
Paperclips.
Large trash bags.
Billing sheets.
Rough outlines.
Handel. Copland. Bach.
Thursday, November 06, 2025
Miscellaneous and Fast
- The trailer for "H Is for Hawk."
- Yehuda Teitelbaum on the NYC mayoral race.
- John Carney in July on Mamdani's coalition.
- The trailer for "Atropedia."
Victory Speech
The New York Times: The full text of Zohran Mamdani's victory speech.
[Photo by Francesca Saraco at Unsplash]
Wednesday, November 05, 2025
The NYC Talent Puddle
Despite the massive talent pool that exists in New York City, two of the top three candidates for mayor would have not been in the running for an assistant department head position in a mid-sized city.
The third one's experience would have been tainted by his poor decision-making.
First Paragraph
"It was Simchat Torah, a major Jewish holiday, and the Sabbath as well, when Hamas jihadis stormed into Israel and laid waste with a brutality and inhumanity that was reminiscent of the darkest days of National Socialist Germany."
From Antisemitism: History & Myth by Robert Spencer
Tuesday, November 04, 2025
Miscellaneous and Fast
- City Journal: "New York Braces for a Mayor Mamdani."
- Montana politics: "She said the message was not meant as a threat."
- The trailer for "Bone Tomahawk."
- Nelson Riddle: "Route 66."
- Andrew Roberts: "Will China Bury Us?"
- Hermes Paris: Men's ties.
- Leon Redbone: "Walking Stick."
Rediscovering Bruce Catton
I cannot recommend the works of Bruce Catton strongly enough.
He was a thorough historian, and his books are beautifully written.
Monday, November 03, 2025
Time for Moral Clarity
The October 7 attacks deserved a better response from the civilized nations.
[Photo by Marek Studzinski at Unsplash]
Newport on The Fear of Superintelligence
I’ll start worrying about Tyrannosaurus paddocks once you convince me we’re actually close to cloning dinosaurs. In the meantime, we have real problems to tackle.
- Cal Newport
First Paragraph
They called him Moishe the Beadle, as if his entire life he had never had a surname. He was the jack-of-all-trades in a Hasidic house of prayer, a shtibl. The Jews of Sigher - the little town in Transylvania where I spent my childhood - were fond of him. He was poor and lived in utter penury. As a rule, our townspeople, while they did help the needy, did not particularly like them. Moishe the Beadle was the exception. He stayed out of people's way. His presence bothered no one. He had mastered the art of rendering himself insignificant, invisible.
- From Night by Elie Wiesel
Sunday, November 02, 2025
Saturday, November 01, 2025
First Paragraph
On the night of February 27,1933, smoke and flames gutting the Reichstag building in Berlin marked the Wagnerian end of the short-lived German democracy.
- From The Crucial Years 1939-1941 by Hanson W. Baldwin
Three for Pure Pleasure
There are some books that bring pure pleasure via the content and the writing.
- A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway
- Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller
- Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat
They should be read and re-read.
Friday, October 31, 2025
Thursday, October 30, 2025
First Paragraph
I cannot always see Trieste in my mind's eye. Who can? It is not one of your iconic cities, instantly visible in the memory or the imagination. It offers no unforgettable landmark, no universally familiar melody, no unmistakable cuisine, hardly a single native name that everyone knows. It is a middle-sized, essentially middle-aged Italian seaport, ethnically ambivalent, historically confused, only intermittently prosperous, tucked away at the top right-hand corner of the Adriatic Sea, and so lacking the customary characteristics of Italy that in 1999 some 70 percent of Italians, so a poll claimed to discover, did not know it was in Italy at all.
- From Trieste and The Meaning of Nowhere by Jan Morris
Wednesday, October 29, 2025
Recommended Essayists
You know the version of the conversation game where everyone lists their choice of extraordinary dinner companions. I propose a collection of essayists. You might not always agree with them – in fact, I’m certain you won’t because they’d disagree with one another – but you’ll be in for fine and often highly amusing writing.
I’ll set aside
some well-known powerhouses such as James Baldwin, G. K. Chesterton, Joan Didion,
George Orwell, Jonathan Swift, and Tom Wolfe.
Here goes:
Arguably:
Essays by Christopher
Hitchens
Cultural
Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and the Arts by Clive James
Cultural
Cohesion: The Essential Essays
by Clive James
Essays in
Biography by Joseph
Epstein
In a Cardboard
Belt! Essays Personal, Literary, and Savage by Joseph Epstein
Latest
Readings by Clive James
Once More
Around the Block by
Joseph Epstein.
The Ideal of
Culture: Essays by Joseph
Epstein
Things Worth Fighting For: Collected Writings by Michael Kelly
Oxford Union
City Journal: Daniel J. Flynn has some ideas for the newly ousted president-elect of the Oxford Union.
He needs to read Flynn's new book on Frank Meyer.
Tuesday, October 28, 2025
The Pipeline
It is no surprise that Nicholas Bate has a lot of great stuff in the pipeline.
[Photo by Wolfgang Weiser at Unsplash]
Monday, October 27, 2025
Memories of Book (and Comic Book) Reports
Return now to the old days of Classics Illustrated Comics.
[With a modest proposal for college bookstores.]
Sunday, October 26, 2025
Saturday, October 25, 2025
"When the Frost Is on the Punkin"
This has become an Execupundit tradition:
Kent Risley with a marvelous recitation of the poem.
[Photo by Elissa Wyne at Unsplash]
Bouncing Back
And yet, buried under layers of luxury and self-doubt, America’s political and economic institutions still hum with energy. Most Americans still exhibit the bourgeois democratic values that have sustained the nation on its journey to greatness. If our current political leadership doesn’t seem quite up to the task of both articulating and executing popular desires, a new generation is waiting in the wings. These new leaders will have personal and political faults of their own, of course. Leaders always do. But they may also be better suited for the task ahead. Better equipped to defend what’s best in America.
Read all of Matthew Continetti's essay in Commentary magazine.
Don't Think This Doesn't Happen
They examined everything except the key issue and the key witness.
But they thought they were thorough because they had explored so many other things.
The Debate for Manhattan District Attorney
Alvin Bragg has been given the gift of two opponents who will split the vote.
Friday, October 24, 2025
New York City's Experience Problem
A structural reason why New Yorkers should consider experience when choosing a mayor.
[Photo by Triston Dunn at Unsplash]
First Paragraph
The boy was wild and perfect, standing on the central table and clapping his hands. He had the eyes of a saint, Frau Möller recalled afterwards, an earthly saint like Francis, or a great thinker like Galileo. She had noticed him when he came in, past her little alcove by the door. She was not there to oversee the youth club. The young were specifically enjoined by the Party to organise themselves. Spaces were to be set aside for self-education and cultural awareness, and music was a part of that. If these gatherings became rowdy and inappropriate - if they were not strictly what had been envisioned by the committee - that was no concern of hers. She was employed only to keep the coats and close up. She had no other role.
- From Karla's Choice: A John le Carré Novel by Nick Harkaway
Thursday, October 23, 2025
NYC Blues
Rob Henderson on the youthful supporters of Mamdani.
Remember the informal slogan of John Lindsay when he ran for mayor in 1965: "He is fresh while everyone else is tired."
Great slogan. He turned out to be a disaster.
A Little Civil War with Breakfast
I've been reading Civil War histories with my breakfast. It's been delightful. Makes the current times seem sane.
Did you know that when South Carolina seceded from the Union - the first state to do so - one of its leaders wanted the new country to be named the Confederate Slave-Holding States of America?
Catchy name. There's always at least one idiot in any large meeting.
Wednesday, October 22, 2025
Totalitarian Anti-Zionism
Gil Troy in Commentary Magazine takes us back to Daniel Patrick Moynihan, the United Nations, and evolving anti-Zionism. An excerpt:
It was and is the Great Inversion—and Perversion. Despite being mass-murdered by Nazi racists, Jews became racists. Despite resisting Ottoman, and then British, colonialism controlling their indigenous homeland, Zionists then became settler-colonialists. Despite there being many dark-skinned Israelis and light-skinned Palestinians, Israelis became “white oppressors,” racializing this nationalist clash. And despite enduring history’s largest genocide, Jews were and are accused of “genocide.”
Academia
The problem with spending time with students, or on students, or writing book reviews or essays is that none of those activities do anything for you professionally. Academics are rewarded for one thing and one thing only: research. Scholarly publication. Nothing else counts; anything else is a step toward professional suicide. I knew this, of course, and it tormented me. But, to quote a phrase, I could do no other.
- William Deresiewicz, "Why I Left Academia (Since You're Wondering)" in The End of Solitude: Selected Essays on Culture and Society.
Tuesday, October 21, 2025
A Meandering Chef
I have completed the research for the report and have several stacks of paper as proof.
To those I have added the rough, very rough, drafts of approaches that go in different directions, each one altered by new perspectives that come to mind, but now, like a stew simmering in a large pot, they await the spices I carry, even though a great deal of the report's flavor will be achieved by subtraction, not addition.
And much will depend upon the connecting theme, which is yet to be chosen.
That selection will be made with care because the best themes have one thing in common: the ability to bite.
[Photo by Getty Images for Unsplash+]
First Paragraph
Everybody agreed that the Washington's Birthday ball was the most brilliant event of the winter. Unlike most social functions in this army camp by the Rapidan, it was not held in a tent. There was a special weatherproof ballroom - a big box of a building more than a hundred feet long, whose construction had kept scores of enlisted men busy. Some of these had been sent into the woods to fell trees. Others had taken over and operated an abandoned sawmill, to reduce the trees to boards. Still others, carpenters in some former incarnation, had taken these boards and built the building itself, and it was pleasantly odorous of new-cut pine, decorated with all of the headquarters and regimental flags which the II Army Corps possessed. The flags may have been worth seeing. It was a boast of this corps that although it had suffered nearly 19,000 battle casualties it had never yet lost a flag to the enemy.
- From A Stillness at Appomattox by Bruce Catton
Monday, October 20, 2025
It Is Never Easy
Cultural Offering's Buckley has passed.
It is never easy. It's been several months in our household, and I still find myself looking for our dog.
I do believe that dogs go to heaven. It wouldn't be heaven without them.
First Paragraph
This book answers a simple question that is never asked. How did the Roman state survive for nearly 2,000 years?
- From The Romans: A 2,000-Year History by Edward J. Watts
A Holocaust Has Many Fingerprints
My Substack on the rationalizations is here.
Excerpt: We didn’t kill them. Our sole responsibility was to sell their furniture as well as the other property they left behind when they moved. And, of course, we made sure their homes had new owners.
[Photo by Colin C Murphy at Unsplash]
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