Mass Resignation

 Approximately 100,000 federal workers are resigning today.

Lean need not be mean. 

Many a public administration degree will be based on this move.

[Recommended reading: Bureaucracy by James Q. Wilson.]

Just Arrived

 

Two Strategies

 

Two strategies for life.

J.K. Rowling on Emma Watson

 I'm seeing quite a bit of comment about this, so I want to make a couple of points.

I'm not owed eternal agreement from any actor who once played a character I created. The idea is as ludicrous as me checking with the boss I had when I was twenty-one for what opinions I should hold these days. Emma Watson and her co-stars have every right to embrace gender identity ideology. Such beliefs are legally protected, and I wouldn't want to see any of them threatened with loss of work, or violence, or death, because of them. However, Emma and Dan in particular have both made it clear over the last few years that they think our former professional association gives them a particular right - nay, obligation - to critique me and my views in public. Years after they finished acting in Potter, they continue to assume the role of de facto spokespeople for the world I created. When you've known people since they were ten years old it's hard to shake a certain protectiveness. Until quite recently, I hadn't managed to throw off the memory of children who needed to be gently coaxed through their dialogue in a big scary film studio. For the past few years, I've repeatedly declined invitations from journalists to comment on Emma specifically, most notably on the Witch Trials of JK Rowling. Ironically, I told the producers that I didn't want her to be hounded as the result of anything I said. The television presenter in the attached clip highlights Emma's 'all witches' speech, and in truth, that was a turning point for me, but it had a postscript that hurt far more than the speech itself. Emma asked someone to pass on a handwritten note from her to me, which contained the single sentence 'I'm so sorry for what you're going through' (she has my phone number). This was back when the death, rape and torture threats against me were at their peak, at a time when my personal security measures had had to be tightened considerably and I was constantly worried for my family's safety. Emma had just publicly poured more petrol on the flames, yet thought a one line expression of concern from her would reassure me of her fundamental sympathy and kindness. Like other people who've never experienced adult life uncushioned by wealth and fame, Emma has so little experience of real life she's ignorant of how ignorant she is. She'll never need a homeless shelter. She's never going to be placed on a mixed sex public hospital ward. I'd be astounded if she's been in a high street changing room since childhood. Her 'public bathroom' is single occupancy and comes with a security man standing guard outside the door. Has she had to strip off in a newly mixed-sex changing room at a council-run swimming pool? Is she ever likely to need a state-run rape crisis centre that refuses to guarantee an all-female service? To find herself sharing a prison cell with a male rapist who's identified into the women's prison? I wasn't a multimillionaire at fourteen. I lived in poverty while writing the book that made Emma famous. I therefore understand from my own life experience what the trashing of women's rights in which Emma has so enthusiastically participated means to women and girls without her privileges. The greatest irony here is that, had Emma not decided in her most recent interview to declare that she loves and treasures me - a change of tack I suspect she's adopted because she's noticed full-throated condemnation of me is no longer quite as fashionable as it was - I might never have been this honest. Adults can't expect to cosy up to an activist movement that regularly calls for a friend's assassination, then assert their right to the former friend's love, as though the friend was in fact their mother. Emma is rightly free to disagree with me and indeed to discuss her feelings about me in public - but I have the same right, and I've finally decided to exercise it.

Looks Promising

 

A Big Day for Paper Reduction

Major - and I mean major - amounts of paper are being purged from my office today.

It is glorious. Long overdue. Liberating. 

Shredding. Bagging. Filing and storing.

Confession: All of the build-up occurred because I'd postponed my Monthly Paper Reduction Days.

That will not happen again.

[Photo by Wesley Tingey at Unsplash]

Freedom Story

 

Back to the Seventies

 

As weird as the Seventies were, we had some great music.

Coming to a Municipal Government Near You

City Journal: Robert VerBruggen on pushing back against disparate impact cases.

In the Background

 KBAQ (KBACH), the classical music station in Phoenix.

Great station and you can listen to it anywhere.

Pieces of Time

 

Crank It Up

 

Christmas Decorations????

 A Layman's Blog has identified one of the great wrongs of our times.

Find Something Beautiful Today

[Photo by Andy Newton at Unsplash]

Getting Good Vibrations

My Substack post is up!

[Photo by True Agency at Unsplash]

Suspected Conversations: A Series

 At Microsoft Word:

"A lot of people will want to rename a document. Let's put in a rename button to simplify things."

"You're new here, aren't you?"

Laugh Out Loud Funny

 

Chapter by Chapter

Tapping away on writing project. Massive rains in Phoenix area. Staying dry. Major coffee consumption. 

It will be that sort of weekend.

Bear with me.

[Photo by Domino Studio at Unsplash]

Crank It Up

 

On My List

 

Masculinity Under Fire: Strength and Responsibility in America

A City Journal podcast.

A major topic.

[Photo by Hoyoun Lee at Unsplash]

Check Under the Hood

In the past, if you wished to change the direction of an organization, you would issue directives and, if need be, modify, add, or remove policies.

Now, however, you need to look beneath the surface. The individual departments have separate structures that may continue, if unchanged, in the old direction.

And yes, you need to check the software. It may need to be removed or changed.

Many an A-leaning organization has anti-A software.

Check it out.

And remember, as a savvy young executive once mentioned to me, most of the junk comes in via HR. 

Who Wants to Go First?

 

As The Stacks Rise

 Once again, Cultural Offering is adding to my book bills.

Good Company

 A Large Regular has been hanging out with Hemingway and Boorstin.

Keep This in Mind

 Nicholas Bate on the Human edge.

Films about Communism: A Series

 

Highly Recommended

This is on my re-read list. One of the best books on Churchill and his associates written by a man who was there: Churchill's personal physician.

Terrorism Update

 City Journal: Douglas Murray on the American Left and the Gray Zone of political violence.

"The Dawn of a Post-Literate Society"

 

"A study of English literature students in American universities found that they were unable to understand the first paragraph of Charles Dickens's novel Bleak House - a book that was once regularly read by children." 

- From "The dawn of the post-literate society" by James Marriott

Lawrence

 

21 Trust Killers

 

The list is up on Substack.

Family Business

 

Intelligent versus Smart

 Nicholas Bate, author of one of the latest books on Artificial Intelligence, has a keen observation that should be posted in workplaces.

First Paragraph

In 1945, Germany lay in ruins, morally and materially. Germans had waged the most brutal war in history and were responsible for genocide and mass murder. Seventy years later, the same country welcomed nearly 1 million refugees. To sympathetic observers, Germany had become the moral voice of Europe. To others, it was a reckless agent of moral imperialism, so keen to do good that it put the interests of strangers above its own. The return of a far-right party to parliament in 2017 revived long-standing fears that Germans had never really changed.

- From Out of the Darkness: The Germans, 1942-2022 by Frank Trentmann

Extraordinary

 

The Charlie Kirk Memorial

I think the Charlie Kirk Memorial is not going to be a simple one location, one day, event. It will be in many places and will continue for many years.

The memorial is now a much larger movement than it was a month ago and it is still growing. It will be fueled by the dedication of his followers and admirers, but also by the distortions of his critics and the fact that people can go online and watch his unedited interactions with college students and reach their own conclusions about his message and his character.

He was doing what we want more people to do: talk to one another, listen to different viewpoints, analyze the issues, and reach your own conclusions.

And he did so while knowing that there are monsters out there.

But the monsters are not going to win.

Find Something Beautiful Today

[Photo by Josh Smith at Unsplash]

The Two Trees

 The poem by Yeats.

The Relentless March

Nicholas Bate notes the important advantage of being human in an A.I. world. 

Don't lose it. 

The Algonquin Roundtable

 

Just Finished: Excellent

 

But read the first volumes in the series first.

The Rise of the Post-liberal World Order

The relatively functional global liberalism of the second half of the twentieth century worked because remaining pre-liberal hierarchical institutions, most notably religion and the family, gave it hard ground on which to build. But as liberalism progressed and began to liquidate those institutions, it sawed off the very branch it was sitting on.

- From The Collapse of Global Liberalism by Philip Pilkington

The Terminator: Workplace Version

 

My Substack column: Coming soon to a workplace near you.

[Photo by Getty Images for Unsplash+]

On My List

 

Mixed Motives

While reviewing a range of employee relations and discrimination issues over the years, I've learned the difficulty of determining motives in cases where even the prime participants weren't sure of why they took certain actions.

To complicate matters, I've seen cases where otherwise nice people did cruel or insensitive things and ones where weasels took the high road.

In short, people are complicated. 

It's as if we deal with walking-and-talking solar systems every day.

[Photo by Byron Goff at Unsplash]

First Paragraph

In later life, Hugh Trevor-Roper was sometimes referred to as "Roper." The tale - perhaps apocryphal - is told of a grandee who persistently addressed him as such. "Trevor-Roper," Hugh eventually protested. "But my dear fellow, I don't know you that well," came the reply.

- From An Honourable Englishman: The Life of Hugh Trevor-Roper by Adam Sisman

The Analogues

 

First Paragraph

The claim of this book is that global liberalism, after reaching its peak in the post-Cold War period, is finally collapsing. This is an enormous claim. Not just in terms of its ramifications for the world but also in terms of simply understanding why it is happening and what it means. Liberalism as a project - as a global project - is around half a millennium old. The ideology of liberalism today permeates the way we think at the deepest and most fundamental level, about the economy, about human autonomy, about the common good - really, about everything. This means that, even if the thesis of this book is correct, it is an extremely difficult topic to write about simply because it is so all-encompassing and so complex.

- From The Collapse of Global Liberalism (And the Emergence of the Post-Liberal World Order) by Philip Pilkington

At Sea

 

The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats

 Turning and turning in the widening gyre   

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere   

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst   

Are full of passionate intensity.

Read the rest of the poem here.

Time to Re-Watch

 

What Perpetrators of Evil Tell Themselves

They [the Serbs] found a remarkable solution: They felt sorry for themselves. They marinated in self-pity; self-cherishing, they fairly caramelized themselves in sentimentality. They solved their formidable moral problem by declaring themselves the injured party. An artful if disgraceful display of jujitsu; this is a tactic one encounters in wife beaters and child abusers, who ingeniously manage to convince themselves, if not the authorities, that they were driven to it by the terrible behavior of their victims.

- From Evil: An Investigation by Lance Morrow

The Manchurian Candidate

 

Remembering Robert Redford

 My first studio movie was The Way We Were. Like everyone else I was dazzled by Bob and Barbara. They were both terrific to me and I learned a lot from them both. Bob used to hide in my trailer so they’d stop pulling at him every five minutes. We would sit and talk about the difference between theatre and movie acting, and his advice went a long way in my life. Years later he came to a New York stage performance, and I remember he wrote a personal note to every one in the cast. He knew the impact he had on people, especially his fellow artists, and he used it graciously at every opportunity. . He was an incredibly giving and lovely man. I’m grateful for the short time and chats we had together. Thank you, Bob, and may you rest in peace.

- James Woods

Mass Migration and the United Kingdom

Christopher Caldwell examines one of the major issues of today in The Claremont Review of Books.

He wrote Reflections on the Revolution in Europe: Immigration, Islam, and the West in 2009.

The Europeans like to take their time on potentially fatal threats.

Artificial Intelligence Summaries: Copyright Problems

The September 15, 2025 issue of The Wall Street Journal reports that the publisher of Rolling Stone is suing Google, alleging that the AI overviews use reporting from various sources without appropriate compensation.

It is reasonable to expect a variety of litigation on related issues.

This could be a major area of vulnerability for A.I. in the United States.

The Chinese, shall we say, are more flexible in such matters.

War from Safe Spaces

I can't stop thinking about the fact that the people who have been insisting on safe spaces for a decade, who melt down from being "misgendered," who think "words are violence" and everything requires "trigger warnings" are now laughing at the public execution of a human being, mocking those who are grieving including Kirk's own family and are acting as if they are prepared to wage a war? Will they wage it from their safe spaces? How?

- Jennifer Sey

Crank It Up!

 

Unusual Memoirs, Extraordinary Lives

Consider these to be tickets for time travel.

[Photo by Timeea Pirvulescu at Unsplash]

Civilization

 

I believe that order is better than chaos, creation better than destruction. I prefer gentleness to violence, forgiveness to vendetta. On the whole I think that knowledge is preferable to ignorance, and I am sure that human sympathy is more valuable than ideology. I believe that, in spite of the recent triumphs of science, men haven't changed much in the last 2,000 years; and in consequence we must still try to learn from history. History is ourselves.

- Kenneth Clark, Civilization

[Photo by Constantinos Kollias at Unsplash]

Films About Communism: A Series

 

Find Something Beautiful Today

 

Check It Out

 

An Ideology Leading to Murder

The core tenet of repressive academic safetyism—that officially designated student victim groups are dangerously vulnerable to meanie “haters”—is laughably delusional. There have been few more pampered and richly endowed individuals than early twenty-first century American students. Yet they are encouraged to think of themselves as “unsafe” by the very adults who should be leading them toward a grounded understanding of reality. And that is because the adults on campus are even more invested than students in maintaining the hegemony of leftism—a belief system enabled in part by the conceits of fragility and dangerous “haters.”

Read all of Heather Mac Donald's essay in City Journal.

Hmm

 

Je Suis Charlie

 The Free Press on the larger significance of the murder of Charlie Kirk.

We fear his assassination represents a watershed moment for free expression in this country. We worry that his murder will have a profound chilling effect—that people will shy away from open discussion, that they will avoid honest debate, and that they will turn away from sticking their neck out for fear that engaging with their fellow citizens might mean an engraved bullet will be meant for them.

We must not let that happen.

The Slow Horses Novels Continue

On My List

 

Life Is Not a Computer Game

 Douglas Murray writing in the New York Post. An excerpt:

You might say that anybody could have done that.

But anybody didn’t, and anybody doesn’t.

And in any case, Charlie Kirk was not just anybody.

He didn’t just give people a platform and debate his ideas and theirs.

He listened.

Time to Read

 

Never Forget

 

Revelation

We seem to be in the Loon Self-Identification Stage of a national tragedy.

This is a relatively new development, but it should be an invaluable resource to HR departments and voters in the future.

"Rome"

 

The Leap of Bate

 The Man Who Never Sleeps, the incomparable Nicholas Bate, is now at a new blog site. 

We always knew he was a Hunter Gatherer.

Longing to Learn about Ancient Rome?

 

My Substack has some excellent resources and you don't even need to know the difference between Octavian and Augustus.

[Photo by Jorgen Hendriksen at Unsplash]

The Monsters Among Us

 The first assassination I personally remember was that of President John F. Kennedy. It was so jarring that many of us felt we'd seen the end of assassinations for a while.

After all, such violence was not supposed to happen in a civilized and advanced society.

But then came the assassinations of Malcolm X, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., and Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

Those were followed by numerous assassination attempts: one on Alabama Governor George Wallace; two on President Gerald Ford and one on President Ronald Reagan.

And, of course, two assassination attempts on President Donald Trump.

And now, the political assassination of Turning Point leader Charlie Kirk.

The monsters are out there, and they always want to take away our choice,

China as Engineer Nation and America as Lawyer Nation

 

Gracious

The Free Press: Adam Rubenstein on the Charlie Kirk he knew. 

Charlie Kirk Shot

Charlie Kirk was shot at a Utah university.

Horrific.

Films About Communism: A Series

 

A Quiet Ally in the Pacific

Mike Burke, writing in Commentary magazine, has a very interesting article on Japan's rising strength.

[Photo by Arron Choi at Unsplash]

The D Day Advantage of "Inferior" Sherman Tanks

 

One of the Best Books on The French Revolution

 

Life in Paradise

"The Party Secretary catches Kovacs," said Szocs changing tack. "'Comrade Kovacs, why weren't you at the last Party meeting?'" "The last Party meeting?" replies Kovacs. "If I'd known it was the last Party meeting, I'd have brought the whole family.'"

- From Under the Frog by Tibor Fischer

Big Changes Ahead in Britain

 

Best Wishes

 Best wishes on a full and speedy recovery to Patrick Rhone, intrepid Volvo driver.

[We had a Volvo station wagon for many years. It was built like a tank.]

Peaceful Nepal?

The Associated Press on the protests in Nepal. 

More Attention Needed

 

Films About Communism: A Series

 

Horror on the Subway

"And that's before you even notice that he's holding a knife." 

Kat Rosenfield, writing in The Free Press, examines the murder of Iryna Zarutska on a Charlotte, North Carolina light rail car. 

This Often Comes to Mind These Days

 

Eric Hoffer's "The True Believer" Should Be Read in High Schools

 

Home Owners Association Letter

 

Spread the Word

 

Films about Communism: A Series

 

Workplace Jackals

They're out there and it's important to know how they operate.

[Photo by Chris Stenger at Unsplash.]

Eat, Pray, Leave

City Journal: Kay S. Hymowitz on the midlife divorce problem.

[Photo by Kier in Sight Archives at Unsplash]

Find Something Beautiful Today

 

Time to Re-Watch

 

Unbundle the Universities

 One of the strangest things about an American university education is that it bundles a whole lot of things together. If you want to take a course in high-level mathematics or listen to the lectures of an accomplished historian of Ming China, you must also buy membership in one of the country's most lavish gyms; purchase all-you-can-eat meals at breakfast, lunch, and dinner; rent a room in a student dorm even if your parents happen to live a few miles down the road; pay an army of administrators whose jobs range from organizing parties to hiring puppies for you to pet during finals; subsidize student clubs that are devoted to such varied activities as playing Dungeons & Dragons or blind-tasting exclusive wines; and help to pay the lavish salaries of football and waterpolo coaches.

Read all of Yascha Mounk's essay on Substack.

Good Point

 I would like to die on Mars. Just not on impact.

- Elon Musk

Discover Eastern European Novels

The first day in the countryside they had walked out of the forest slap into a Russian camp. Pataki immediately feigned intense pain, on the lines of acute appendicitis, and got the others to plead for a doctor and medicine. This appeal had the desired effect, the soldiers had told them to go to hell and shooed them away.

~

Mathematics had this to recommend it, if nothing else: it made everything else, ants, English, push-ups, ironing, washing-up, beguiling and wonderful. Whole new galaxies of interests had popped open now that the maths exam was drawing close; anything unconnected with maths was irresistible.

~

"It goes without saying you're going to win this match," said Hepp, "so I'm not going to say it. These meat-processors have undoubtedly got webbed toes and if they're in basketball gear, it's because they brought their mothers to help them change. I don't want to be accused of being unreasonable, I don't want to be the target of petulant rumblings but gentlemen, I have to insist on a twenty-point victory."

- From Under the Frog, a novel by Tibor Fischer

King Charles Should Call for an Election

Cabinet reshuffle in Great Britain. If the King calls for an election, it would be a major service to the nation and a boost for the royalty.

[Photo by Elias Kipfer at Unsplash]

Back By Popular Demand

 

First Paragraph

 If you have visited West Baltimore lately, you understand. If you haven't, you can't understand. But I'll try to explain what it's like and then offer an argument for how it got that way.

- From Failure Factory: How Baltimore City Public Schools Deprive Taxpayers and Students of a Future by Chris Papst

Gratitude is Vital

My Substack essay on gratitude is up.

Please read and spread the word.

[Photo by Nathan Lemon at Unsplash]

Jolly Good

 

From Harry Mount's review in The New Criterion:

"It sounds like the mosaic technique shouldn’t work. But Brown is so acute in his observation—and so funny—that other people’s pictures of the Queen coalesce to form as accurate a picture as is possible of this most elusive of characters."

Great Program: Ethics in America

 

Skyscraper Adverse Phoenix

 

Scientific Dictators

"In my fable of Brave New World, the dictators had added science to the list and thus were able to enforce their authority by manipulating the bodies of embryos, the reflexes of infants and the minds of children and adults. And, instead of merely talking about miracles and hinting symbolically at mysteries, they were able, by means of drugs, to give their subjects the direct experience of mysteries and miracles - to transform mere faith into ecstatic knowledge. The older dictators fell because they could never supply their subjects with enough bread, enough circuses, enough miracles and mysteries. Nor did they possess a really effective system of mind manipulation. In the past free-thinkers and revolutionaries were often the products of the most piously orthodox education. This is not surprising. The methods employed by orthodox educators were and still are extremely inefficient. Under a scientific dictator education will really work - with the result that most men and women will grow up to love their servitude and will never dream of revolution. There seems to be no good reason why a thoroughly scientific dictatorship should ever be overthrown."

- Aldous Huxley, Brave New World Revisited

[Photo by Roman Popov at Unsplash]

Municipal Litigation

City Journal: Steven Malanga finds that lawsuits are zapping city budgets.

My reaction: Wait until the questionable use of software for personnel selection starts producing large awards.

Racial Preferences and Artful Dodgers

If you thought that colleges and universities were going to abandon racial preferences, think again.

Writing in Commentary magazine, Naomi Schaefer Riley reveals what the College Board has been up to.

The Best James Bond Film

 

A Needed Read

 

This book goes to THE key question in the workplace.

First Paragraph

 I left home more than forty years ago. I was eighteen. When I went back, after six years - and slowly: a two-week journey by steamer - everything was strange and not strange: the suddenness of night, the very big leaves of some trees, the shrunken streets, the corrugated-iron roofs. You could walk down a street and hear the American advertising jingles coming out of the Rediffusion sets in all the little open houses. Six years before I had known the jingles the Rediffusion sets played; but these jingles were all new to me and were like somebody else's folksong now.

- From A Way in the World by V.S. Naipaul

Back By Popular Demand: Barcelona 1908

 

Beware of Oikophobia

 My Substack is out: "Self-Contempt is Not Harmless."

[Photo by Taylor Brandon at Unsplash+]

First Paragraph

I first met a former member of the Waffen SS, the Nazis' elite fighting force, while researching a television documentary in Austria in 1990. It was an extraordinary experience.

- From The Nazi Mind by Laurence Rees

Made in Britain

 

The Three Historians

 

Labor Day

Walt Whitman: "I Hear America Singing."

[Photo by Nik Guiney at Unsplash]

Hmm