Sunday, May 31, 2026
Saturday, May 30, 2026
By the Numbers
This blog began on December 28, 2005.
As of this morning, it has had a total of 24,650,928 visits.
Many thanks to all of you and especially to those who come by often.
[Now if only a fraction of those who like and support the blog purchase a copy of Pilate's Magician, then there will be big smiles all around.]
First Paragraph
I have an ingrained fear of auctions dating back to the third year of my life. In that year my father attended an auction as a means of passing an aimless afternoon, and he came away from it the bewildered possessor of thirty hives of bees and all the paraphernalia of an apiarist. Unable to rid himself of his purchase, he became perforce a beekeeper, and for the next two years I lived almost exclusively on a diet of soda biscuits and honey. Then the gods smiled on us and all the bees died of something called foul brood, enabling us to return to some semblance of a normal life
- From The Boat Who Wouldn't Float by Farley Mowat
Fitted to a Smith-Corona
William Kennedy suffered first the indignity of nonpublication, then the commercial reproach of poor sales before, in his mid-fifties, becoming one of the most admired novelists in America with the publication of Ironweed, which won the 1984 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. When success came, he was confident enough to enjoy it. He bought a Jaguar, made some celebrity friends, gave lots of interviews. But he never left Albany, New York, the setting of nine of his novels, for very long. Nor could fame keep him away from his writing desk. A journalist for many years at the San Juan Star and the Albany Times-Union before committing fully to fiction, he was fitted to a Smith-Corona like a jockey to his thoroughbred. All that was missing were the shirt garters and the fedora.
Read all of Jonathan Clarke's essay on William Kennedy in City Journal.
The Brilliant Idea from the Night Before
This morning I reviewed a brilliant idea that I'd had the night before.
I'd jotted it down and then typed it up in anticipation that the polished version would look even more brilliant today.
Upon review, it was not only bad, but award-winningly bad.
So bad that I will not only drop the idea but will purge it from my computer.
If possible, salt would be plowed into its ground.
What was its key problem?
The idea would have been a great answer if it had been matched to the right question.
This morning, I pinpointed the right question.
Delay can be a powerful ally.
Friday, May 29, 2026
The Pope on A.I.
Magnifica Humanitas: Pope Leo XIV on safeguarding the human person in the time of Artificial Intelligence.
Nitish Pahwa on the Pope's views.
[Photo by Chad Greiter at Unsplash]
Imagine Belonging to This Club
The members of The Literary Club were Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, James Boswell, Adam Smith, Edward Gibbon, Joshua Reynolds, Richard Brinsley Sheridan, Oliver Goldsmith, and David Garrick.
To its members, it was simply known as "the Club."
[Source: The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age by Leo Damrosch.]
Thursday, May 28, 2026
The Scientific-Technological Elite
My Substack essay on Ike's 1961 warning.
My bet is on Ike and Huxley.
[Photo by Andrea De Santis at Unsplash]
Wednesday, May 27, 2026
Tuesday, May 26, 2026
The Magazine Shuffle
Magazines rise and fall and many seem to linger in a state of limbo.
Some, such as The Atlantic, can be excellent and ridiculous in the same issue.
When I was a young student of Government (the University of Arizona refused, in those enlightened days, to call it Political Science), I read The Nation, The New Republic, Time, National Review, Newsweek, The American Spectator, and U.S. News & World Report in order to get an array of viewpoints and soon added Commentary magazine to the mix after seeing a recommendation by Daniel Patrick Moynihan.
Esquire magazine was eagerly awaited back in the pre-woke days when it had writers such as Gay Talese and Tom Wolfe.
Nowadays, when newspapers are more inclined to confirm biases than to report the news, it helps to scour an even wider range of opinions, and some journals are rather eclectic.
Some current members of my stack include: The Arizona Republic (my local paper), City Journal, Commentary, Compact, Fortune, Quillette, The Free Press, The Chronicle of Higher Education, The New Criterion, The Spectator, The Tablet, UnHerd, The Wall Street Journal, and Washington Examiner.
The quest continues.
[Photo by Philippe BONTEMPS at Unsplash]
More Scribbling
[Not my desk but you get the idea. Photo by eleonora at Unsplash]
I have some Substack essays to complete and a second novel that was set aside while Pilate's Magician was completed.
My assumption was that little book could be quickly done. [Guffaws in the hallway. Snorts in the den. Gunshots in the street.]
Now my office is recovering from the avalanche of paperwork surrounding the novel and yet the second book may also - will also - produce its own mountain ranges.
The task includes explaining a system where defense attorneys argue that their clients are guilty and physicians don't blink at the conscious, smoothly designed, murder of their "patients."
It sounds like something out of Orwell or Huxley but much more traditional.
All about power. And that always makes it trickier.
Bear with me.
[And if you haven't read Pilate's Magician, whatsamatta you?]
Monday, May 25, 2026
Sunday, May 24, 2026
Saturday, May 23, 2026
Rescuing New York City
New York City has a talent pool and structural problem.
And the solution can be found by studying what happened in an Arizona desert city in 1942.
[Photo by Triston Dunn at Unsplash]
Friday, May 22, 2026
First Paragraph
This is the story of a group of extraordinary individuals, a constellation of talent in eighteenth-century London that was known simply as the Club. Though not a large group, its members made brilliant contributions to our culture that are still celebrated today. But there was another, perhaps even more important, requirement for Club membership: you had to be good company - ready to talk, laugh, drink, eat, and argue until late into the night at the weekly meetings at the Turk's Head Tavern. Unlike some later clubs, it had no premises of its own, but met in an ordinary London pub.
- From The Club: Johnson, Boswell, and the Friends Who Shaped an Age by Leo Damrosch
Thursday, May 21, 2026
What Would You Have Told Pontius Pilate?
If I were still teaching ethics workshops, I would, despite my obvious bias, add "Pilate's Magician" to the reading list and ask, "What should the Roman lawyer have told Pontius Pilate?"
The Most Mysterious Cruise Line Out There
The most mysterious cruise line out there may not be a cruise line at all.
It's Artificial Intelligence.
AI touts the equivalent of exciting experiences and smooth waters, but its advocates get vague when you ask for a detailed description of the final destination.
This doesn't mean that there will never be a satisfactory description. It simply means that the current description is one we've often seen:
TO BE DETERMINED.
Stay within sight of shore.
[Photo by Peter Hansen at Unsplash]
Wednesday, May 20, 2026
Tuesday, May 19, 2026
Monday, May 18, 2026
Keep in Mind
“Don't listen to those who say, you are taking too big a chance. Michelangelo would have painted the Sistine floor, and it would surely be rubbed out by today. Most important, don't listen when the little voice of fear inside you rears its ugly head and says 'They are all smarter than you out there. They're more talented, they're taller, blonder, prettier, luckier, and they have connections.' I firmly believe that if you follow a path that interests you, not to the exclusion of love, sensitivity, and cooperation with others, but with the strength of conviction that you can move others by your own efforts, and do not make success or failure the criteria by which you live, the chances are you'll be a person worthy of your own respect.”
― Neil SimonFine Writing. Original Perspectives.
When was the last time you visited Sippican Cottage?
Well, that's too long?
[Obligatory Maine moose photo by Lesly Derksen at Unsplash.]
Sunday, May 17, 2026
Saturday, May 16, 2026
Friday, May 15, 2026
Greatness
A Large Regular has a reminder of the record and service of Ted Williams.
And yes, Ted Williams also served as a combat pilot during the Korean War.
At Which Point Will A.I. Reality Kick In?
I recall developing a workshop on the Americans with Disabilities Act. It was packed with practical information and case examples and was designed to prepare employers for when the ADA went into effect.
The class was ready well before the law would kick in.
We sent out notices to a wide range of employers and heard nothing. Not one call. Not one scrap of business.
Once the law went into effective, of course, the phone began to ring. The requests were urgent, if not panicked.
No mention was made of the previous warnings.
People had procrastinated. No one had wanted to be an early adopter.
An example of the Pearl Harbor mentality: wait until you're dodging bombs and the crisis is undeniable.
Now consider Artificial Intelligence. It's sort of like an unscheduled Halloween. We can hear noises in the bushes and howls in the night, but we're not exactly sure when it will come a-knocking or what an AI-altered workplace will resemble.
As a result, although I'm researching what I need to tell clients, I recognize that most of them will dally until the wolf is through the window and jumping for their throat.
In the meantime, of course, I'm advising them to read these well-written and practical books by Nicholas Bate:
How to Beat ChatGPT: How to Not Say AI Killed My Job
Old School: Future-proof yourself. AI-proof your career
They may give them the self-confidence to face reality instead of hiding in the corner.
[Photo by Steve A Johnson at Unsplash]
Thursday, May 14, 2026
Indoctrination at Penn State Law School
This is not traditional liberalism. It is hard-core leftism. And Penn State is a public, not a private, university.
A Recent and Eclectic Conversation with a CEO
Among the subjects in our 40-minute meeting were Human Resources challenges; classical education versus that in the usual public schools; the poetry of T. S. Eliot, Edna St. Vincent Millay, and Elinor Wylie; Dave Shiflett's book on religion (Exodus); the importance of introspection; and the benefit of memorizing "The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere."
The meeting ended with a plan of action.
The Felt Loss of Center
Perhaps the most painful experience of modern consciousness is the felt loss of center; yet, this is the inevitable result of centuries of insistence that society yield its form. Anyone can observe that people today are eager to know who is really entitled to authority, that they are looking wistfully for the sources of genuine value. In sum, they wish to know the truth, but they have been taught a perversion which makes their chance of obtaining it less every day. This perversion is that in a just society there are no distinctions.
- From Ideas Have Consequences by Richard M. Weaver
Wednesday, May 13, 2026
First Paragraph
In May 2023, Russian conscript Ruslan Anitin surrendered to an armed robot. Miles away, Ukraine's 92nd Mechanized Brigade controlled this cheap but effective grenade-equipped drone. It spent the previous hours hunting the man's comrades. The two Russian soldiers with Anitin were dead. After sustaining serious injuries, one detonated a grenade near his head; the other shot himself. Anitin chose differently, pleading with his unseen enemy for mercy. After some deliberation, the Ukrainians decided Anitin's intentions were genuine. They spared his life, directing him by drone across no man's land and into captivity as a prisoner of war.
- From Mobilize: How to Reboot the American Industrial Base and Stop World War III by Shyam Sankar and Madeline Hart
Tuesday, May 12, 2026
A New Transparency
Let's replace the American Cultural Revolution with A New Transparency.
[Photo by Anna King at Unsplash]
When the World Went Mad
Consider this: The world was at peace on June 28, 1914, when Archduke Ferdinand was assassinated.
Thirty-seven days later, it was at war.
Amazing.
For a great book on the subject, see The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 by Christopher Clark
Monday, May 11, 2026
"Dateline: Greeneland": The Politics of the Intelligence Thriller
We feel we know this world because it has been described for us not only in histories of the period but also, more atmospherically, in the thrillers of Eric Ambler (A Coffin for Dimitrios, Journey Into Fear), the “entertainments” of Graham Greene (Orient Express, This Gun for Hire), and films like Casablanca and Arch of Triumph. It is a world of secret policemen and spies, frontier incidents and concentration camps, refugees and collaborators, honest journalists and corrupt newspapers. It is outwardly civilized—it boasts piped water, fast cars, and the radio—but there are Vandals and Visigoths under the smart suits and Balenciaga dresses.
Read the rest of John O'Sullivan, writing in the Winter 2006 issue of The New Criterion.
Sunday, May 10, 2026
Saturday, May 09, 2026
First Paragraph
My name is Bruce Medway. I live in Cotonou, Benin, West Africa, along that stretch of coast they used to call the White Man's Grave because it was hot, humid, and full of malaria. It still is, but we don't die so easily now. Air conditioning and quinine have made us smell better and more difficult to wipe out.
- From Instruments of Darkness by Robert Wilson
Friday, May 08, 2026
Commencement Wishes
I will conclude my remarks by wishing all of you graduates, no matter what career path you choose, the best of luck with your job searches, bearing in mind that the final fulltime Applebee’s post has just been filled by an MBA from Stanford.
- Dave Barry
The Real Job Description
In many (perhaps most) cases, the real job description is covered by these words: "Other duties as assigned."
First Paragraph
We have an epidemic. The virus is known to travel on paper and transmit over the keyboard: it jumps from old lawyer to young lawyer, preys on the inexperienced and insecure lawyer, and thrives in the imprecise and indifferent lawyer. It spreads like wildfire in college towns and institutions of higher learning. And it mutates! Oh boy, does it mutate. Turning verbs into nouns. Adverbs flourish. Adjectives and jargon run free.
- From Zen and the Art of Persuasive Writing by Hon. David Weinzweig
Thursday, May 07, 2026
Wednesday, May 06, 2026
The Hunger for the Real
But the obituary might have been premature. Malls are staging a quiet comeback. According to the New York Times’ DealBook newsletter, higher-end retail malls are growing, driven in large part by demand for in-person shopping experiences by Gen Z (ages 14–29). According to the consumer research firm Ipsos, “58 percent of shoppers aged 18–34 said they shop at malls often, twice the rate of adults over 55.”
Read all of Christine Rosen's column in Commentary magazine.
[Photo by Caroline Hernandez at Unsplash]
Tuesday, May 05, 2026
She Thought She Was Going to Study Literature at Columbia
Liza Libes had a big surprise awaiting her in the Columbia English Department.
The Little Grey Cells
The art deco airport shown at Nicholas Bate's blog has been featured in at least one episode of the great Hercule Poirot detective series.
Monday, May 04, 2026
Nitwittery Update
Check out the Rolling Stone/Eric Clapton story on Cultural Offering.
The would-be commissar pool in this country is disturbingly large.
First Paragraph
The manuscript of Kaputt is a tale of its own, and it seems to me that the secret history of the manuscript is the most appropriate preface for the book. I began Kaputt in the summer of 1941 - at the beginning of the German war against Russia - in the village of Pestchanka in the Ukraine, in the home of a Russian peasant, Roman Suchena. Every morning I sat in the garden under an acacia tree and worked while Suchena, squatting on the ground by the pig sty, sharpened his scythe or chopped beets and cabbages for the pigs. The garden adjoined the House of the Soviets which was occupied at this time by a detachment of Hitler's SS men. Whenever an SS trooper came near the hedge, Suchena gave a warning cough.
From Kaputt by Curzio Malaparte
Sunday, May 03, 2026
Saturday, May 02, 2026
First Paragraph
At ten o'clock of a rainswept morning in London's West End, a young woman in a baggy anorak, a woolen scarf pulled up around her head, strode resolutely into the storm that was roaring down South Audley Street. Her name was Lily and she was in a state of emotional anxiety which at moments turned to outrage. With one mittened hand she shielded her eyes from the rain while she glowered at door numbers, and with the other steered a plastic-covered pushchair that contained Sam, her two-year-old son. Some houses were so grand they had no numbers at all. Others had numbers but belonged to the wrong street.
- From Silverview by John Le Carré
[This was his last novel.]
Friday, May 01, 2026
President Trump Should Be a Lincoln, not a McClellan
In the 1864 presidential election, George McClellan, the Democratic nominee, favored bringing the southern states back into the Union without the abolition of slavery.
Abraham Lincoln, the Republican nominee, favored both the abolition of slavery and restoration of the Union.
Since it was clear that slavery was a major cause of the Civil War, restoration of the Union alone would not have addressed the core problem.
A similar situation exists today in the war with Iran. Any solution that fails to replace the extreme and murderous theocracy that has oppressed the Iranian people; an odious cadre that has fostered terrorism since the fall of the Shah; will fall short of the necessary resolution of the matter.
President Trump should follow the example of President Lincoln and ignore those who would turn him into a McClellan.
[Getty Images for Unsplash+]
Spreading the Word
Now that Pilate's Magician is out there, I'm hearing from some marvelous people who are spreading the word.
The novel is neither dry nor preachy, but after one woman joked that she would be getting a new yoga mat along with the book, I've been tempted to add a new marketing slogan:
"It's not about Pilates."
So far, the award for dedication goes to the man who called from New Orleans to tell me that he was taking it to his Alcoholics Anonymous meeting.