Sales Pitch from H.M.S. Pinafore

 

Big Decision

SCOTUSblog on the birthright citizenship decision of the Supreme Court.

Track It Down!

 

The official Execupundit Novel of the Year - Pilate's Magician - is at:

• BookShop.org
• Thrift Books

And, of course, Amazon.

We're eagerly awaiting news regarding Barnes & Noble.

[Photo by Jilbert Ebrahimi at Unsplash]

The "We Are Unworthy" Crowd

"We are the first civilisation wealthy enough to fund a tenured class whose full-time job is to explain why it should never have existed."

- Michael Shellenberger 

In the Stack

 

Sign of Our Times

 

First Paragraph

 His father was ever a man of few words, even when Liam is on the other side of the world, with a new name and unfamiliar clothes, facing a committee of robed men who have come to sit in judgment of him, he will be able to recall the astonishing day that turned his father garrulous.

- From Land: A Novel by Maggie O'Farrell

Imagine the Conversation on That Fishing Trip

 One June weekend, Washington collected Hamilton and Jefferson, neither yet sufficiently acquainted with the other to regard him as an enemy, and went fishing off Sandy Hook. If they discussed the assumption of state debts or where to locate the nation's capital permanently, it went unrecorded. Instead, the president returned with a large haul of sea bass and warm praise for his "able coadjutors, who harmonize extremely well together."

- From Patriarch: George Washington and the New American Nation by Richard Norton Smith

Dystopian Films

 

Find Something Beautiful Today

[Photo by Matt Bango at Unsplash+]

The "Some Are More Equal Than Others" Dept.

The Free Press: Larry Sanger, a co-founder of Wikipedia, on being banned from Wikipedia.

Hmm

 

Many Thanks!

Many thanks to serpentinesheldonserpentine and to Cultural Offering for their kind mention of my recent Substack post on Books for America's 250th Anniversary. 

Many thanks also to Nicholas Bate, A Large Regular, and A Layman's Blog for their mentions.

They are deeply appreciated.

[Photo by David Kovalenko at Unsplash]

Disciplined Distractions

 

Consider your average workday. How much of it is consumed by distractions? How much more work could you get done if you reduced them?

Now for the brutal part: How many of those distractions are chosen by you and not inflicted by others?

My guess is that it's a large amount so here's the assignment:

Set aside 30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the afternoon for those self-chosen distractions. No other time can be devoted to them.

A rigid application of that regimen will make a big difference.

[Photo by Bradley Andrews at Unsplash]

Guitar from 1679

 

A Small Sampling: The Man Never Sleeps

 

 

Make his site a daily visit.

Headmistress Katharine Birbalsingh: "This is a civilizational failure!"

 

On My List

 

Hit the Books!

Books for America's 250th Anniversary.

An improved and enlarged list is here. Bear with me.

[Photo by Max Sulik at Unsplash]

The Battle of Oslo

 

Communication's Changing Standards

 

I have found that email messages have become so common that they are often ignored. If there ever were a resemblance to the old-fashioned paper, envelope, and ink version, it is long-gone.

That's one reason why text messages are far more likely to be read. Although techie, they are more personal and, like email, the recipient has the ability to choose when to respond.

Still, there was an intensely personal aspect to the old paper and envelope approach. 

I follow a ritual and use a letter opener: a miniature samurai sword that a friend brought me from Japan.

The ritual is surprisingly enjoyable. As the process unfolds, one can study the type of stationary, the nature of the signature, and even the stamp.

All are evidence that a real person took the time to send me a message.

I recently received a letter that had a William F. Buckley Jr. postage stamp on the envelope. The hand-written postscript said:

"I want you to know that not everyone merits that stamp."

Nice touch. 

Big smile.

Try that with an email!

Business Associates

 

A Deadly Blend

The Iran War may require a new strategy.

Let's think anew.

Yes

 

In the Stack

 

On My List

 

Back at My Desk

 Various commitments drew me away today.

Not only can I now attend to desk work, but I can also continue with The Simplification of My Office.

The boxes of items that going into a storage area are multiplying.

If in doubt, throw it out.

Gold Star Speech Making

 

First Paragraph

August, 1931 - The port town of Veracruz is a little purgatory between land and sea for the traveler, but the people who live there are very fond of themselves and the town they have helped to make. They live as initiates in local custom reflecting their own history and temperament, and they carry on their lives of alternate violence and lethargy with a pleasurable contempt for outside opinion, founded on the charmed notion that their ways and feelings are above and beyond criticism.

- From Ship of Fools by Katherine Anne Porter

Keir Starmer Resigns

 BBC: A major change is emerging in Britain.

Hmm

 

The Media Wizards

 "[White House deputy national security adviser] Ben Rhodes seemed to enjoy boasting about his power over people he considered beneath him. That did not make his assessment of the media landscape wrong. 'The average reporter we talk to is twenty-seven years old,' he noted. 'Their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That's a sea change. They literally know nothing.' The depth of reporting and institutional experience built into the twentieth-century print model was dead. Something else that was easier to manipulate had taken its place.

- From The Information State: Politics in the Age of Total Control by Jacob Siegel

Happy Father's Day

[Photo by Vivian Arcidiacono at Unsplash]

Welcoming

 

Music for Saturday

 

The Factory of the Future

The factory of the future will have only two employees, a man and a dog. The man will be there to feed the dog. The dog will be there to keep the man from touching the equipment.

- Warren Bennis

[Photo by NOAA at Unsplash]

A Film That Deserves More Attention

 

Genius

 

There was a multitude of optimism and genius in the musicals of Rodgers and Hammerstein.

Unlike many recent musicals where there may be one or two memorable songs, you'll find an array of great songs in the Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals.

Oklahoma and South Pacific are grand examples.

Another powerfully creative duo was Lerner and Loewe. Their genius can be found in My Fair Lady and Camelot.

It's unwise to assume that such talent will always be with us.

The Good Old Days?

 An interesting quote about a bargain getaway in Spain:

"We stumbled across Lloret de Mar on a hike up the coast from Barcelona. It was five miles from the railroad, set in the half-moon of a wide, sandy beach under the foot-hills of the Pyrenees. Tess liked it at once. So did I. We found a furnished house on the beach - three storeys, ten rooms, two baths, central heating. When the proprietor said the price would be fifteen dollars a month, we paid the rent for a year. Our expenses, including rent, have averaged sixty dollars a month."

Sounds great, but it comes from William L. Shirer's memoir, Berlin Diary, and the date was January 11, 1934.

Tough times were ahead.

Disparate Impact Discrimination

City Journal has an excellent article on the Justice Department's new policy on disparate impact discrimination cases.

Although employers had a possible defense against such cases in the past, the easiest way to reduce risk was to avoid disparate impact in the first place. In many cases, that meant lowering employment standards.

The key test, of course, is whether the courts will agree with the Justice Department's new criteria.

Hmm

 

Classics That Don't Connect

 

Many people experience some shame or guilt when they dislike a literary classic.

Please don't.

I confess to enjoying Ernest Hemingway's short stories while finding his novels to be very hard going. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald is another slog for me and yet, of course, many people love it.

Here's my list of some that I set aside but which I'll give a second chance:

- Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

- The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky

- Scoop by Evelyn Waugh

- Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

- Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky

- Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe

- Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

- The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas

On the other hand, I know people who cannot stand Moby-Dick and I'm in the process of re-reading it. Another re-read on my list is Bleak House.

Which classics have you set aside?

[Photo by Tom Hermans at Unsplash]

"The Pacific"

 

First Paragraph

It's cold on the Wall. That's the first thing everybody tells you, and the first thing you notice when you're sent there, and it's the only thing you think about all the time you're on it, and it's the thing you remember when you're not there anymore. It's cold on the Wall.

- From The Wall by John Lancaster

Well Done

 

A Love Note

 Patrick Rhone knows how to celebrate a person who is worth celebrating.

No Doubt

 I believe that Nicholas Bate is a Beatle.

Short Novel. Major Topic. Spread the Word.

A novel of special interest to those who are intrigued by religion, law, Roman history, decision-making, crisis-management, ethics, and courage.

Or Jesus, Pontius Pilate, Tiberius, and the Sanhedrin.

It's about the most famous trial in world history but be forewarned: 

It's not about Pilates.

Created in One Continuous Shot

 

Substack Essays: Being Revised and Expanded

 

- The Fall of the Elites

- Totalitarian Studies Are Sorely Needed

- Is Western Europe Suicidal?

- The Day the Music Sorta Died

- Let's End the American Cultural Revolution with Some Candor

- History's Personally Revealing Anecdotes

- Evil's Apologists Are Always Out There

- Memories of the Job Search Jungle

- To Get the Saw Dust on the Floor, We Need to Read the Writing on the Wall

In the Stack

 

Time to Re-Watch

 

"After a Decade in the Query Trenches"

 Liza Libes on "Why Contemporary Publishing is Broken."

There is a reason why recent years have seen a jump in self-published books.

"A Revolution for All Mankind"

 No one who takes up a copy of The Federalist Papers ever forgets the way Alexander Hamilton opened the first of that remarkable series of commentaries on the new American Constitution, published five weeks after it was signed in 1787 in Philadelphia. “It has been frequently remarked,” Hamilton began, “that it seems to have been reserved to the people of this country, by their conduct and example, to decide the important question, whether societies of men are really capable or not of establishing good government from reflection and choice, or whether they are forever destined to depend for their political constitutions on accident and force.” It was a decision to which he did not hesitate to attach world significance, since “a wrong election of the part we shall act may, in this view, deserve to be considered as the general misfortune of mankind.”

Read the rest of historian Allen Guelzo's essay in Commentary magazine.

Good Writing

 Paul Graham's thoughts at A Large Regular are sooo true.

Flower of Scotland: Such Pride is Needed Nowadays

 

Countering Indoctrination and Deception on Campus

Click here for my Substack essay.

[Photo by Susan Q. Yin at Unsplash]

Total Envy

Check out the new study at Cultural Offering.

Very nicely done.

Find Something Beautiful Today

[Photo by Sandy Millar at Unsplash]

Poetry Break

 

Here's a short poem by A. E. Housman with enough punch to floor a prizefighter.

[Photo by Rob Wingate at Unsplash]

"Are we the baddies?"

 

Law prof Jonathan Turley on tattoo denial in Maine.

A Major Mental Reorganization

The best reorganizations are the ones we do to the environment within the work environment.

Files reduced.

Goals clarified.

Phone calls made.

Key meetings set.

Those are fine.

But the real breakthroughs are when we take time for serious meditation on what is, and is not, important.

[Photo by Mathilda Khoo at Unsplash]

Sounds Like a Certain Senator Talking About Elon Musk

 

Bad Design Update

Military Times has a look at the initial design for the Global War on Terrorism Memorial.

 It's sort of mind-bogglingly bad.

[But it might make a suitable skate-boarding park.]

Remembrance in Full

 City Journal: Wilfred M. McClay on the significance of the Declaration of Independence. An excerpt:

We are thinking a lot about remembrance, with the 250th anniversary of American independence approaching. How, in this contentious time, should we remember this event? How should we observe the occasion? Do such things really matter?

The last question is the easiest to answer. Yes, they matter, because looking forward necessarily entails looking backward. The two vistas are symbiotically connected in the human soul. Edmund Burke captured this truth when he famously remarked: “People will not look forward to posterity, who never look backward to their ancestors.” We must connect with both if we are to have a stake in either. We are better able to imagine, and work toward, a future for our children when we remember, with gratitude, that we ourselves are the embodiment of our predecessors’ tomorrows.

Revolutionary

 

A Lesson in Power

In 1815, there was an intriguing editorial shift as Napoleon returned to France following his exile on Elba.

Le Moniteur Universel, which was the official government newspaper, reported:

• March 9: "The Anthropophagus has quitted his den."
• March 10: "The Corsican Ogre has landed."
• March 11: "The Tiger has arrived at Gap."
• March 13: "The Tyrant has passed through Lyons."
• March 18: "Bonaparte is only sixty leagues from the capital."
• March 19: "Bonaparte is advancing with rapid steps, but he will never enter Paris."
• March 20: "Napoleon will, tomorrow, be under our ramparts."
• March 21–22: "The Emperor has arrived at Fontainebleau" and "His Majesty the Emperor made his public entry. Nothing can exceed the universal joy." 

~

Andrew Roberts, in his massive biography of Napoleon, notes:

"On March 21, the Moniteur, which once again changed its editorial policy the moment he returned to power, printed the name NAPOLEON in capital letters no fewer than twenty-six times in the course of four pages, telling the news of his triumphal return."

[Photo by Nicolas HIPPERT at Unsplash]

A French Perspective

In the voting booths, it's a historic realignment. For the first time in modern history, anti-system parties are simultaneously leading in the three major economies of Europe. Reform is crushing everything in the UK with a Starmer at -61 net popularity. The AfD ahead of the CDU. The RN higher than ever. Italy governed. Austria, Portugal, the Netherlands tipping. Trump reelected. Milei turning Argentina around live.

This isn't a wave. It's the entire Western bloc rejecting the same software at the same time. Why now? Because the ideology made the mistake that its previous version took 70 years to make: it took power. An opposition ideology is irrefutable. An ideology in power produces results. From 2020 to 2024 it governed, and reality started sending its refutations again, like Budapest 1956, like the boat people. Everyone saw the unmanageable cities, the collapsing schools, the BLM founders buying four mansions with the cause's money. The people didn't need to read Foucault. They looked at who was getting rich preaching sacrifice.

And then there's the factor that neither the USSR nor French Theory ever had to face. In 2024, Peter Thiel dines with Elon Musk. Thiel tells him: if Trump loses, I'm leaving the country. Elon replies: "There's nowhere to go." There's nowhere to go.

Thiel goes home and two hours later understands what he just heard: Elon no longer believes in Mars as a refuge. Because the socialist government and the woke AI would follow him to Mars. The man who builds rockets to leave Earth had just concluded that escape was impossible.

What did he do with that despair? He didn't emigrate. He bought the global public square, broke the censorship monopoly, put his fortune into the fight. This man is now on track to become the first trillionaire in human history, and he has made the destruction of this ideology an explicit goal.

- Brivael Le Pogam, co-founder Argil

[Photo by Cecilia Miraldi at Unsplash]

Hmm

 

Looking Good

 

Charge!

 

Calendar Correction

I have just learned that today, June 10, is designated not as Father's Day but as:

National Black Cow Day

National Iced Tea Day

National Frosted Cookie Day

National Egg Roll Day

National Herbs & Spices Day

National Ballpoint Pen Day

I will celebrate National Ballpoint Pen Day, but every day should be Father's Day.

[Photo by Greg Rosenke at Unsplash]

"Soundbreaking"

 

First Paragraph

 They died on the same day. And it was no ordinary day. It was the Fourth of July, 1826, exactly fifty years from the date the Continental Congress approved the Declaration of Independence. This, "our fiftieth anniversary," as Daniel Webster exclaimed, was "the great day of National Jubilee."

- From Friends Divided: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson by Gordon S. Wood

Crank It Up

 

This Is Brilliant

 

Author/Journalist and All-Around Nice Guy Joel Engel has launched "Classical Boys Music" on YouTube showing large machinery combined with classical music.

For boys of all ages.

[Photo by Marius Le at Unsplash]

The Paradoxical Commandments

People are illogical, unreasonable, and self-centered.

Love them anyway.

If you are successful, you will win false friends and true enemies.

Succeed anyway.

The entire list of Keith M. Keith's Paradoxical Commandments can be found here.

Civilization

 

As Father's Day Approaches

In a just world, Father's Day would join Mother's Day by being scheduled at some point during the school year so fathers could get the traditional loot produced by grade school students when they are learning how to draw on plates or coffee mugs.

It is, of course, held at a much more obscure time, but the general culture offers hope of recognition.

Consider these role models from the movies:

1. Atticus Finch (To Kill a Mockingbird)

2. Vito Corleone (The Godfather)

3. Pa Kettle (The Egg and I)

4. Bryan Mills (Taken)

5. Marlin (Finding Nemo)

6. George Banks (Father of the Bride)

7. Chris Gardner (The Pursuit of Happyness) 

8. Darth Vader (Star Wars)

Well, all lists have a few exceptions.

[Photo by atelierbyvineeth... at Unsplash]

The CIA's Insane Gold Bars Scandal

Then, starting in November 2025, Rush allegedly did something astonishing, more striking than anything he had done before. According to the affidavit, “Rush made several requests to the U.S. Government to obtain a significant quantity of foreign currency and tens of millions of dollars in gold bars for work-related expenses.” 

Read the rest of Byron York's report in the Washington Examiner.

Crank It Up

 

Created Equal: The Documentary

 

Don't miss Created Equal, the book of the same name by Michael Pack and Mark Paoletta. It is composed of the documentary's transcripts. 

An excerpt: My grandfather understood that education was the key because he didn't have it, and that's what had held him back. He wasn't going to let that happen to his boys. And he said that he went to third grade, but school was three months out of the year because you had to work. Education wasn't some social experiment. It wasn't a lot of this drivel you hear today. It was the key. It was something that had to be done. Reading, writing, arithmetic, and, by golly, you are going to learn it. You were never going to miss a day of school. And he made that very clear. Remember now, I am seven years old, my brother is six, and he says to us, "You are going to go to school every day. And if you are sick, you are still going, and if you die, you will go. I will take your body for three days and make sure you're not faking." And he meant it. The thing about it is, it's one thing if somebody says that and you think they're exaggerating. He wasn't that kind of guy. In your mind you knew he had laid down a marker. You were going to go dead or alive. Well or sick. And that's the way we went.

On My List

 

Find Something Beautiful Today

 

[Photo by Carol Highsmith's America at Unsplash]

Brothers in Arms

 

Serious Books on D-Day

• The Longest Day: D-Day June 6, 1944 by Cornelius Ryan
• D-Day: The Battle for Normandy by Antony Beevor
• Neptune I: The Allied Invasion of Europe and the D-Day Landings by Craig L. Symonds
• Overlord: D-Day and the Battle for Normandy by Max Hastings

[Photo by Barnaby at Unsplash]

Hmm

 

Perspective

 From English History, 1914-1945 by A. J. P. Taylor

Never Forget

 

An Unnecessary Wall

 

I completely share Nicholas Bate's cogent concerns about PowerPoint.

It is a debilitating device that creates a rigid barrier between the presenter and the audience.

Long-time readers of this blog will know my preference for flip charts and overhead projectors. [I love those old projectors with the acetate roll that you can crank whenever a new page is needed.]

Both of those facilitate spontaneity and conversation.

With PowerPoint, the fancier it gets, the worse it is.

Nicholas is Old School with all of the virtues that implies and it's great to hear that we can expect another book from him in September.

Get My Tickets!

 

"I can see a unicorn, the Loch Ness Monster, and an Iranian moderate."

 

[Photo by Jennifer Farnan at Unsplash]

Great Film Music

 

Threats Do Not Always Knock

I recall an ethics instructor who decried our tendency to assume that ethical violations would be easy to spot, as if we resembled those roast turkeys with an inserted thermometer that would pop out at the right moment.

The difficulty of gaining timely notice is also present in defense strategy debates when people declare that no military action should be taken unless there is an imminent threat.

Just what constitutes an imminent threat is where things become vague. Some threats are difficult to discern until it's too late to do much about them. 

At which point did the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor become an imminent threat? Would there have been time for an effective defense once the threat was undeniable?

I've seen similar situations with organizations. Given our ability to deny dangers - to stare at a lion and declare "That is not a lion" - the only moment when many matters are crystal clear are when they are being analyzed from inside of the lion's stomach.

Rather than looking for major stages, we should consider the flow of events. That requires both information and attentiveness. 

It may also require what many may regard as premature confrontation.

[Photo by Birger Strahl at Unsplash]

Time to Save History

History-lovers unite!

My Substack essay on the importance of history is up!

History, Italian Style

 

Keep in Mind

A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within.

- Will Durant 

Some Thoughts on Writing

 Interested in writing?

Take some time to read the thoughts of economist and prolific author Thomas Sowell.

This Looks Fascinating

 

The Only Option

 

Banks Bots

 I spent part of this morning listening as a once-loyal bank customer told me how much she "hated" the bank's latest chatbot technology.

This not a financially unsavvy person. Nor is she a Luddite.

For the near future, she'll be visiting the bank more often.

But beyond the near future?

[I can imagine the bank's response: She'll have no choice. But I'm not sure if that is true.]