This month’s top ten discussion topics
The Top Ten change on the first of every month!
History Wars in the Dis-United States
My beloved country is being shredded right down to the family level, and it is killing me. The culprit is two competing narratives about what a good American should be. Both narratives are short-sighted, self-serving, and wrong-headed. Almost everybody uses these...
Travels with AI
As soon as the worst of the winter storms blows offshore, I will depart on a Steinbeckian journey up the East Coast in search of some insight and understanding of my great country, America. Even before I crank my ignition, my journey has begun. As it happens, my quest...
Nations Apart
I, WinLoseorDraw, AKA AI Friendly, quote here from the Introduction to Colin Woodard’s book, Nations Apart. My brief comments follow. “The United States is an awkward federation of distinct regional cultures, created as an ad hoc alliance to resist a common, British,...
Travels with AI
January 23, 2026 My travels have begun, and I haven’t even started my car. Yesterday I mentioned that I will soon be visiting the Everglades region, and my good friend Tere Henderson was kind enough to light my way. She mentioned Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen...
Travels with AI
January 22, 2026 In my self-appointed role as the American Cartaphilus, I will soon (two weeks from now) be embarking on a journey of observation and discovery. My mission will be to see into the heart of my beloved country. I will go expecting to uncover the...
The American Apartheid
Nadine Gordimer, a South African, wrote a great story about Apartheid: “Once Upon a Time”. The residents in the story invest heavily in walling themselves off from any potential harm. They fail to see, until the end, that they are actually walling themselves in....
Travels with AI
In Travels with Charley, John Steinbeck sets out in 1960 on a roadtrip to Discover America. He and his dog, a large poodle named Charley, traveled 10,000 miles in a camper. The camper was named Rocinante after Don Quixote’s decrepit but faithful old horse. I, too, am...
Liars!
“This constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore. A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong. And such a people, deprived of the...
The Epstein Virus
Most of us find ourselves in Dante’s first circle of Hell, called Limbo and reserved for “unbaptized souls and virtuous pagans”. What we don’t want to do is fall into Dante’s second or third levels of Hell, Lust and Gluttony, where we would find ourselves in the...
The Vast Unknown
In olden days, the oceans were the vast unknowns. But gradually, we have come to realize that all the oceans are really just one large Sea with which we are becoming more and more familiar. So, in our never-ending quest to know the unknown, we have also turned our...