This month’s top ten discussion topics
The Top Ten change on the first of every month!
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Recommendations for Buckley by Sam Tanenhaus, a biography. You will learn a lot about who the man was. The why of the man requires some extrapolation from the facts. The most relevant facts are these: Bill Buckley, Jr. grew up in his father’s household. Bill Buckley...
Can’t Nobody tell Us Nothin’
It has been said we are in a “pre-paradigmatic moment.” A time of deep flux, where the foundations of shared understanding that have held true for decades, centuries, or even longer have become unsettled. And we are on the verge of some mind-boggling societal changes...
Hamilton and Jefferson
Thoreau and others voiced a sentiment later adapted into a reassuring speech given by President Roosevelt on the eve of getting the United States entrenched in the Second World War. “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” Whether or not you agree with...
The Epstein Lesson
The United States government knows everything there is to know about Jeffrey Epstein. The investigations were completed and sealed by Executive order of both Republican and Democrat administrations. Everything is known, but nothing is being divulged. Is government for...
Hesiod
The ancient Greek, Hesiod, believed the men and women of his time had declined severely from a Golden Age when we had lived in peace, abundance, and harmony. Mankind had fallen so far, he believed, as to have needed the assistance of a band of heroes like Achilles and...
Sentience and Sapience
The debate about the future of Digitized Intelligence often incorrectly centers on the question of Sentience. For the record, Sentience is defined in terms of feelings, perceptions, and emotions, attributes that even the lowliest of animals demonstrably have and that...
Carville Versus Cain
James Carville appeared on the Will Cain show. Will Cain attempted to castigate the entire Democrat Party and all the people in it by saying how terrible it is that their policies have led to protesters impeding traffic and waving Mexican flags in Los Angeles. Mr....
John Steinbeck’s America
In 1960, John Steinbeck decided he wanted to tour America. He packed a few essentials and his dog, Charley, into a camper he had named Rocinante, after Don Quixote’s horse. Why did he go? A skeptic might answer that he was a writer, and, by natural inclination, went...
Government Waste
Elon Musk knows how to do political theater, but the intended rhetorical message is way off base. Yes, the government in my beloved country, America, is wasteful and inefficient, but the chainsaw approach is the wrong idea. You don’t fix the plane with a chainsaw when...
L’état c’est moi
Now that Donald J. Trump is officially our president once again, we are confronted by two distinct possibilities. Will his blitzkrieg on inefficient and wasteful government and government spending turn out to be the set of reforms of which our beloved country has so...