Please Distribute to All Presenters

Nicholas Bate has a key message: Presenting is not PowerPoint.

PowerPoint should be a last, not a first, resort.

Our Sunny Future

 

Europe's Absence

What did the crowd of young people shout to Jacques Chirac in 2004, during the first visit by a French president to Algeria since decolonization? "Visas, visas." A malicious wit might say they drove us out and now they all want to come live with us! That does not cast doubt on the legitimacy of their independence, but it does explain this disturbing truth: Europe got over the loss of its colonies much more quickly than the colonies got over their loss of Europe.

- From The Tyranny of Guilt: An Essay on Western Masochism by Pascal Bruckner

Confession

 

The Question Is Asked Again

 

A Cup of Ginger Tea

Ginger tea made with ground ginger is great for clearing the sinuses.

It's also a nice companion when you're setting priorities and analyzing issues.

I am sipping it while considering the role of literature in life.

More on that later.

[Photo by Milada Vigerova at Unsplash]

The Serious Mission

 

Buckley and Borges

 

Get Out Old Dan's Records

Click here for the details.

We need to return to those days.

[Photo by Victrola Record Players]

Hmm

 

Upcoming Substack Topics

There will be some meaty subjects, of course, but the ones that often get the greatest attention are the equivalent of flowers, the view of a large meadow, or the preparation of a good cup of coffee.

Consider the prose but also consider the poetry.

Poetry Break

Talking to yourself?

Check out Jean at Pondering.

The Red-Green Alliance

Spiked: Brendan O'Neill on the leftist-Islamist alliance to destroy Israel.

Michel Houellebecq was an early predictor in his novel, Submission.

Time to Watch Again

 

Break Out

 Kurt Harden at Cultural Offering has kindly reposted one of my blog posts from 2011.

I'm glad to see that its advice still holds up!

How Organizations "Work": Yes Minister

 

"Hacker himself processed events in a variety of ways, and the readers will have to make their own judgement as to whether any given statement represents

(a) what happened

(b) what he believed happened

(c) what he would like to have happened

(d) what he wanted others to believe happened

(e) what he wanted others to believe that he believed happened."

- From The Complete Yes Minister by Jonathan Lynn and Anthony Jay

A Roman Lawyer Gets an Unusual Assignment

My short and modest novel continues to get positive responses.

Although lawyers may be inclined to like it, it's written for everyone.

Be a rebel. Check it out in paperback or e-book.

[FYI: Most agents and publishers won't consider short novels. Period. The only exception is where the author is famous. One of the many things that should be changed in the publishing business.]

The Depraved Logic

 

Find Something Beautiful Today

[Photo by Ducey Lima at Unsplash]

Europe Needs Nationalism

My Substack is up on why "European" is as meaningless as "South American."

Let Britain be Britain. Let France be France. And so on.

[Photo by Sebastien Gabriel at Unsplash.]

Rough Gig

 

The Globalist War on Englishness

 Writing in Spiked, Brendan O'Neill notes the war on English identity. An excerpt:

Yet [Suella] Braverman is raising an important question: if anyone can be English, doesn't that make Englishness meaningless? When an identity becomes too fluid, surely it dies?  Like Braverman, I don't identify as English. I don't have a drop of English blood in my body and my family have been here for five minutes historically speaking. I tick White Irish on medical documents and census forms. It would be mental - not to mention rude - if I was to turn to some lad whose ancestors fought at Agincourt and say: 'I'm as English as you, mate.'

In the Stack

 

A Famous Debate Switch

 

The Trump role was played by a woman, and the Hilary role was played by a man.

Audience vote? "Trump" won.

Oh Canada!

 

Great TV Show Themes: A Series

 

Treasure Trove

Check out all of the books by The Man Who Never Sleeps.

Mental Communism

The heart of the problem is egalitarianism. Not equality of opportunity, but equality of outcomes. Once you posit that every disparity is an injustice, you have to correct every disparity. You punish effort and subsidize failure, and the individual stops being responsible to become a rights holder. It's mental communism: no one needs a party card to think the state should do everything, that success is suspect, and that anger is a right. A country that thinks like that doesn't produce wealth; it produces resentment.

- Brivael Le Pogam

October 7: Never Forget

 

Tomorrow is October 7

 

Time to Re-Watch

 

Amid All of the Artificial Intelligence Talk

 This is a time for us to be rehumanized; i.e. to rediscover what it means to be more than a success formula or a project completer.

What will this require?

More poetry, more beauty, more patience, and more attention to the intangibles.

It will require more time in the white spaces between the boxes on the org chart and, with that, a greater sense of what people want and what they fear.

When the Frost Is on the Punkin

This has become an Execupundit tradition:

Kent Risley with a marvelous recitation of the poem.

[Photo by Nik at Unsplash]

Reminders of Civilization

 

What?

 

Find Something Beautiful Today

[Photo by Clark Van Der Becken at Unsplash]

Good News

 Success magazine is still in business.

How the Democrats Drifted Left

City Journal reviews "Nothing Left: Confessions of a Democratic Operative" by Evan Barker.

A View from Britain

 

There are Times

 There are times when Europe resembles an insane asylum in an art museum.

Hot Times in Europe

 

Plus:

• The Strange Death of Europe; Islamophilia; The War on the West; On Democracies and Death Cults by Douglas Murray.
• Reflections on the Revolution in Europe by Christopher Caldwell.
• While Europe Slept; and Surrender by Bruce Bawer.
• America Alone; After America; and Lights Out by Mark Steyn.
• The Tyranny of Guilt; and An Imaginary Racism by Pascal Bruckner.
• The Great Replacement; Enemy of the Disaster; You Will Not Replace Us!; and Remigration: The Bourne Speech by Renaud Camus.
• Submission; and Annihilation by Michel Houellebecq.

Great TV Show Themes: A Series

 

True

What nature delivers to us is never stale. Because what nature creates has eternity in it.

- Isaac Bachevis Singer

Brutal

Clive James · Poem: ‘The book of my enemy has been remaindered’

An Imaginary Racism

Let us recall that the goal of a wise politics is to prevent discord and avoid war. But anti-racism, which has become the civil religion of modern times, has been transformed into a permanent war of all against all, a rhetoric of recrimination.

- From An Imaginary Racism: Islamophobia and Guilt by Pascal Bruckner

An Extraordinary Person

 

America.gov

Check out the new streamlined site for the United States government:

www.america.gov

[Photo by Nik Guiney at Unsplash]

Hmm

 

I Keep Hearing That This Is Very Good

 

In Time for Your Press Conference

 The Roger Stone Collection.

Good Times Way Down South

 

Teaching a Workshop. Back Soon.

 

[Photo by Changbok Ko at Unsplash]

My Thoughts on Progress

In one part of the world, they are launching rockets into space and returning them to Earth. In another part, they cannot prevent rubber boats from crossing the English Channel.

On Order

 

I'm on a Pascal Bruckner Book Binge

 

Looks Promising

 

In the Stack

 

Just In

 

Beware of Intellectual Bullies Who Believe They Have a Monopoly on Truth

 

My Substack is up.

Bravo!

Patrick Rhone's The Cramped has a lot of great stuff.

When Signs of Decline Are Applauded

 

The Sovereign Individual: 30 Years On

The Sovereign Professional is taking another look at a book that influenced many of us and is finding good and bad.

An excellent update. Check it out.

Back By Popular Demand

 

Write Against the Lines

In recent years, the number of "scriptwriters" produced by our universities far exceeds the number of drama and English majors.

Their advice is the equivalent of the old grade school admonition: "Stay within the lines."

But it's applied to other subjects and they determine the lines.

[Photo by Yoann Siloine at Unsplash]

The BBC Covers the Ireland-Israel Game

Beneath contempt.

Let's consider this impartial BBC story from start to finish.

Find Something Beautiful Today

 

[Photo by Mathieu Odin at Unsplash+]

Painful

 

Bring back Wallace Beery and Robert Newton.

Beware the Technocrats

Spiked has a message for us all. 

I've dealt with many of them and yes, they can be dangerous.

Napoleon

 

Reasonable Question

 What do you mean you haven't read this?

And given copies to friends, relatives, passing acquaintances, and strangers.

Poetry Break

 Alfred, Lord Tennyson: "The Lady of Shalott."

Good Point

"Listening to people who have not been much heard before is a good idea, but agreeing with whatever they say is not."

- Nigel Biggar, The New Dark Age

Battle of Britain

 

Get a Look

This is a great chance to get a look at some of the Nicholas Bate (a.k.a. The Man Who Never Sleeps) novels.

I finally realized what Nicholas was doing during those years when he was flying between London and the Far East.

He was writing.

Great Stuff from Western Civ

 

New Perspective: The First World War

 Rapid industrialization not only allowed for the support of massive armies, it also introduced advanced technologies and weapons systems to the battlefield in numbers that would have been unfathomable to commanders in any previous war. Prior to Pickett's Charge, at the Battle of Gettysburg, Lee tried to break the Union line with a mere 170 guns. In contrast, during World War I, it was not uncommon for attacks to be supported by 5,000 artillery pieces. At Waterloo, Wellington had fired less than 10,000 rounds of artillery ammunition. At the Somme, Haig fired almost two million shells in preparatory fires alone. When the war began, Allied councils feared they could never match the $70 million in gold reserves Germany had set aside and kept in Spandau Castle specifically to finance any future war. By 1915, the Allies were spending that amount every twelve hours during a big push, and every two days when the front was quiet.

- From Pershing by Jim Lacey

The Arts Without Nonsense

 Check out The Base.

As Boss Tweed once said, "What are you going to do about it?"

 California runs the nation’s largest welfare system, devoting more than $180 billion annually to food, health care, and other programs for the poor and downtrodden. To sustain the arrangement, the state imposes the nation’s highest tax rates.

In theory, these programs are supposed to help struggling Californians. In reality, many serve large numbers of illegal immigrants. Today, California oversees a shadow welfare system that allows noncitizens to receive health care, rental assistance, college grants, tax credits, low-cost car insurance, and even smartphones on the taxpayers’ dime.

- Christopher Rufo in City Journal, September 2026

Chad O. Jackson

 

Party Time

I have an affection for the strange people who see things differently than the usual "smart bunch."

That's why a party with Flannery O'Connor, Stefan Zweig, George Orwell, Ray Bradbury, William Faulkner, Andre Gide, Ralph Ellison, Aldous Huxley, Agatha Christie, Mario Vargas Illosa, Graham Greene, J. R. R. Tolkien, William Golding, Ayn Rand, Mark Helprin, JK Rowling, Mark Twain, Herman Melville, Oscar Wilde, Raymond Chandler, Tom Wolfe, Jim Harrison, Hunter S. Thompson, Jack London, Charles Johnson, Zadie Smith, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Vasily Grossman, Zora Neale Hurston, James Joyce, Ambrose Bierce, and Dorothy Parker might be a lot of fun.

Or a street fight.

[Photo by Myriam Zilles at Unsplash]

Classic

 

Comparing Britain to Florida

Alister Heath in The Telegraph: 

It will guarantee a shock to your system, and jolt you out of any residual complacency. It will simultaneously energise you and plunge you into depression. You will be blown away by the growth, the clatter of construction, the siege of cranes across the skyline, the massive cars, the energy, drive and ambition, the wealth, abundance and cheap energy, the entrepreneurial go-getting, the ostentatious celebration of success.

Read the rest of the story.

[Photo by Juan Pablo Mascnfroni at Unsplash]

Autumn

 

Bureaucracy Lives

 "Can an appointment be made with the doctor prior to having the medical records?"

"No, you must have your medical records from the hospital before setting the appointment."

"Can't the specialist directly obtain the medical records from the hospital?"

"No, the patient will have to do so, and then an appointment can be set."

"Will it make a difference if the specialist and the hospital are in the same medical group?"

"Sometimes, but not in these types of medical cases."

"Aargh."

Europe's Suicide

To be on the side of the incomers was to be on the side of the angels. To speak for the people of Europe was to be on the side of the devil. And all the time there existed that strange assumption that Europe was simply letting one more person into the room. Whether that person was genuinely about to be killed in the corridor became immaterial. If he was cold, poor, or just worse off than the people inside the room, he too had the right to come in. Europe could no longer be bothered to turn anyone away. And so the door remained open to anyone who wanted to walk through it.

- Douglas Murray, The Strange Death of Europe

Martin Mull

 

Robots, Planets, and Neat Stuff

 A new future?

Ever Present Dangers

 

Patience and Thought

We live in an action-oriented society, one stressing motion and quick decisions, and often it is not until later in life that one begins to appreciate the importance of patience.

While pondering a related essay, I have been noticing how many times in my youth involved checking multiple boxes and meeting an array of deadlines. 

In retrospect, I would have benefited from a frequent routine of long walks and slow cups of coffee combined with heavy doses of introspection.

Those practices once were wrongly regarded as goofing off.

That's no longer the case for me.

[Photo by Daiga Ellaby at Unsplash]

Saving Britain

Spiked: Peter Hitchens on the state of Britain.

The Best Sherlock

 

The Diversity of Like Minds

 Yet featured in the pageantry of the day are the speeches, lasting well into the afternoon, that disfigure it. Student orators have a say; the president speaks; various deans congratulate their charges; invited guests add their voices. And every one of them intoned the talk of the left wing of the Democratic Party. Not a single Republican was to be heard - not even heard of, not even a mention of Donald Trump (that I heard), for no speaker bothered to state views opposed to their own. Present and future Republicans and conservatives were gratuitously slighted and left with a sour taste of having their good will imposed upon. At commencement the university exposes its beliefs, showing whom it honors and for what. Harvard's honorary degrees went only to men and women of the left, all speaking to the goals and practices of diversity and the opinions of the left.

- Harvey C. Mansfield, Where Harvard Went Wrong: Fifty Years of Commentary That Fell on Deaf Ears

Find Something Beautiful Today

 

[Photo by The Now Time at Unsplash]

Terror's Excuse Makers

My new Substack essay explores how people are rationalizing the monstrous.

[Photo by Obi at Unsplash]

First Paragraph

Europe is committing suicide. Or at least its leaders have decided to commit suicide. Whether the European people choose to go along with this is, naturally, another matter.

- From The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam by Douglas Murray

Great TV Show Themes: A Series

 

As Media Heads Explode

Politico: A new security agreement between Denmark, Greenland, and the United States is expected to be signed next week.

Got a Raving Review in the WSJ

 

Defending Your Right to Agree with Them

I had dinner with a Harvard Law Professor, who expressed disbelief that I expected him to vote for any faculty applicants who held views he considered wrong. When I noted that I regularly vote for faculty candidates who hold opposing views, he just shrugged and said that, if he rejects their views, he cannot vote for those views to be taught to students.

- Jonathan Turley

Jimmy

 

First Paragraph

Anti-colonialists often talk about 'the colonial project', as if an empire such as the British one was a single, unitary enterprise with a coherent essence. Then they characterize that supposed essence in terms of domination, despotism, oppression, racism, white supremacy, exploitation, theft or unconstrained violence. In this way they imply that its driving motives were lust for power, delight in domination, racial contempt and greed.

- From Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning by Nigel Biggar

Back By Popular Demand

 

Secession

The Telegraph: The Village of Piddington is now the Principality of Piddington.

I doubt if they'll be the only ones to take that path.

Offline Clubs

Cultural Offering has the details.

A brilliant idea.

Update: The Offline Clubs site.

First Paragraph

 The crisis came toward the end of October 1918, in a forested area most Americans had never heard of, the Meuse-Argonne. For almost a month, over a million American soldiers pounded their way forward against forty German divisions, defending positions so impenetrable that American soldiers wondered if the devil himself had designed them. Already, 100,000 Americans had fallen and General "Black Jack" Pershing's assault divisions were on their last legs. The German line showed no sign of cracking, and there was widespread speculation that the American army might be the first to break.

- From Pershing: Lessons in Leadership by Jim Lacey

Maigret: New and Old

 I honestly prefer Pierre Lambert, Detective, and hope he gets to the big screen.

Canadian "Justice"

There's a lot of deep thinking north of the border.

Especially if you're a defendant.

Great Moments in Advertising

 Jennifer Sey examines the hypocrisy in the attacks on Sydney Sweeney.

"The Lie About Islam, Europe, and the Dangers We Face"

 The Economist would not have written, in 1935, that the Comintern and the League for the Prohibition of Cruel Sports were symmetrical extremisms requiring equal vigilance. It would not write today that the Chinese Communist Party and the Falun Gong are symmetrical authoritarianisms. In every other domain, this magazine understands that variables such as scale, state sponsorship, and institutional depth matter; that a movement with a coherent multigenerational strategy is not the same kind of thing as a collection of aggrieved amateurs. On this subject, uniquely, the analytical standards slip. It is worth asking why.

Read all of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's essay in The Free Press.

The Issue of Our Times

 

Great TV Show Themes: A Series

 

Rainfall and Irrigation

 There has long seemed to a connection between washing your car and rainstorms.

Since I live in Phoenix, that theory means I should wash my car every day, but I've noticed another theory to consider: flood irrigation.

I live in an older section of Phoenix that has irrigation. Every two weeks in the summer and far less so in the winter months, my lawn is flooded with water from the irrigation canals.

That means I never sprinkle the lawn but depend solely on the irrigation. There are reports that this system uses less water than the homes with sprinklers, but who knoweth? It's a handy system and, unlike the old days when I did my own irrigating, there are professional irrigators who turn on and off the pipes going into the lawns, so the water flows from one lawn to another.

Rain is predicted this week. So is my irrigation. We'll take it whenever we can get it.

Back By Popular Demand

 

Nitwittery Update

Vandalize the Churchill statue in London and you will be found Not Guilty.

The Power of Words: From "Under Milk Wood"

 

It's a Great Time to Discover the Genuine You

My Substack is up on thwarting the negative trends of our times.

[Photo by Viktor Forgacs at Unsplash]

Great TV Show Themes: A Series

 

Let's Hear It for Late Bloomers

 

On Order

 

My Desk Has Much in Common

Cultural Offering has a video on Louis L'Amour's Desk of Hidden Wonders.

Beware of people who have clean desks.

But Aside from That

The Free Press: "Yes, AI Might Really Kill Us All." 

Find Something Beautiful Today

[Photo by Sunguk Kim at Unsplash]

Great TV Show Themes: A Series

 

Hey Ho, Hey Hey! Western Civ Has Got to Stay!

Civilization is always found at Stephen Landry's Blog and The Hammock Papers.

[Photo by Constantinos Kollias at Unsplash]

The Oyster Months

Several bloggers I know have been referring to "The Oyster Months."

Being a native Arizonan, I've heard Cinco de Mayo mentioned far more than "Oyster Months."

But now I know.

Politics and Wrestling?

 A scary possibility at A Large Regular.

More Small Project Week Progress

 The story continues at Rhoneisms and the results are impressive.

When Weimar Was Falling

 

Germany's Turn

If all opposition to the migration crisis can be said to be the work of German neo-Nazis, then Europe is lost. Because no party of opposition will be untainted. If Germany can be saved, then Europe can be saved. But in order for that to happen, people—including the international press—need to listen to what is actually happening in Germany, take notice, and recognize the situation as it is, not the strange Nazi-haunted fever dream that they curiously seem to wish it to be.

- Douglas Murray

Built for the Wild

It's out now. Here are the details. I'm reading it this weekend.

First Paragraph

A cold wind blew off Hanging Dog Mountain and I had no fire, nor dared I strike as much as a spark that might betray my hiding place. Somewhere near, an enemy lurked, waiting.

- From Jubal Sackett by Louis L'Amour

Keep Your Accent. Belong to a Place.

 

The Untold Pre-History of 9/11

Chris Naylor examines the pre-history of 9/11 in The National Interest. An excerpt:

"The attacks of September 11, 2001, which marked the dawn of the new millennium and appeared to many like a wholly new phenomenon, were, in fact, the culmination of decades of changing terrorist tactics, systemic aviation vulnerabilities, and institutional failure to recognize and address known threats."

[Photo by Getty Images at Unsplash+]

"Let's Roll"

Commentary magazine's Seth Mandel: "Schools Should Teach the 9/11 Heroism of the American People."

Never Forget

 

9/11 Boatlift

 

"The discrimination is ongoing"

New York Post: The U.S. Justice Department goes after UC Berkeley Law School for illegal discrimination.

High time.

A revealing video in which the Dean is discussing strategies:

Well Done

My ancestor Moses Montefiore, a British magnate, knew everyone from sultans to tsars in the Victorian era. In the 1820s, he befriended Muhammad Ali, Turco-Albanian ruler of Egypt. Nowadays, I admire how Moses coped with anti-Semitism. Attending a royal dinner, a bigot denounced him: ‘I just visited Japan which I loved because Japan has no Jews and no pigs!’ ‘Then you and I should go to Japan together,’ answered Montefiore. ‘So they have one of each.’

- S. Sebag Montefiore

Opening Lines

 Pete Kitchen was the connecting link between savagery and civilization in Arizona. He was a rough charcoal sketch of a civilized man. He came to Arizona in 1854, and farmed rich, broad acres on Potrero Creek near its junction with the Santa Cruz. During the bloodiest days of Indian warfare his name was a household word among the white settlers, and to the wild Apache he was "more terrible than an army with banners." His hacienda, situated on the summit of a rocky hillock overlooking the valley in every direction, was as much a fort as a ranch-house.

- From "Pete Kitchen" - a chapter in Pioneer Portraits by Frank Lockwood

Classic

 

California, Land of Opportunity

 City Journal on the Nigerian chief who made millions in Medicaid.

Looks Orwellian

 

The Second Worst Chancellor in History

 From First Things in February 2025: Christopher Caldwell reviews the memoirs of Angela Merkel.

We Have Real Enemies

 City Journal: Tal Fortgang on what we have forgotten about 9/11.

Why Churchill Still Matters

 

Walk Around the Lift

There comes a point when you have to step back and get a larger gestalt. Have a cigarette and walk around the lift. Any mechanic will tell you that it is invaluable to have other mechanics around to test your reasoning against, especially if they have a different intellectual disposition.

~

Even on the relatively primitive vintage bikes that were our specialty, some diagnostic situations contain so many variables, and symptoms can be so under-determining of causes, that explicit analytical reasoning comes up short. What is required then is the kind of judgment that arises only from experience; hunches rather than rules. I quickly realized that there was more thinking going on in the bike shop than in my previous job at the think tank.

- Matthew B. Crawford, Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work

Why the AfDs Wins in Germany

 Christopher Caldwell explains in First Things.

You may have seen his book on the problems in Europe.

On My List

 

Crank It Up

 

Small Project Week

 The Rhone household is onto something both small and big, starting with a spice drawer.

The Bad Old Days

 

A Dubious Quest for 'Reparatory Justice'

 If European abolitionists did not become saints overnight, African chiefs who insisted on business as usual were hardly Satanic. They were instead agents following a brutal social logic: So integral was enslavement to the internal workings and moral order of most African communities in that period that it is difficult to conceive of their functioning without it. Historically, a pre-colonial African kingdom that did not extract slaves from a vanquished vassal was as rare as one that did not regularly engage in slave raids. In the 1840s, Gezo, king of the West African state of Dahomey, told the importuning British, “The slave trade is the ruling principle of my people. It is the source and the glory of their wealth.… The mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery.” In this, he echoed a sentiment that was not uncommon for the time.

Read all of Ebenezer Obadare's essay in Commentary magazine.

Work Work

 

From "Taken": The Importance of Skills

 

The Case Against College Degrees

MoneyWise: Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs argues for the trades.

Unusual Jobs: Utah Fish and Game

 The Panhandle region placed 172 GPS radio-collars on 6-month old elk calves in the Coeur d’Alene and St. Joe River drainages since 2015.  A couple reasons we collared so many elk was to determine survival rates and for those elk that didn’t make it, find out why they died.

Check out their elk mortality study.

Labor Day

 

Have a great one!

Find Something Beautiful Today

[Photo by Getty Images for Unsplash+]

Definitely!!!

 

Available on Amazon.

Yep

 

"What critics keep getting wrong about capitalism"

 Vincent Geloso goes after The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy's "takedown" of capitalism.

Check it out.

Diversity of Dispositions

 A good diamond cutter has a different disposition than a good dog trainer. The one is careful, the other commanding. Different kinds of work attract different human types, and we are lucky if we find work that is fitting. There is much talk of "diversity" in education, but not much accommodation of the kind we have in mind when we speak about the quality of a man, or woman: the diversity of dispositions.

- Matthew B. Crawford in Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Inquiry into the Value of Work

Good Times in Paris