It’s a well documented fact that when I’m between projects or can’t write for some reason, I design book covers I don’t need. All of these were actual old covers that I simply modified to […]

It’s a well documented fact that when I’m between projects or can’t write for some reason, I design book covers I don’t need. All of these were actual old covers that I simply modified to […]
It’s a well documented fact that when I’m between projects or can’t write for some reason, I design book covers I don’t need. All of these were actual old covers that I simply modified to […]
My parents have been binge-watching the Paramount show Yellowstone, which is not about the infamous National Park but rather is a kind of cowboy Game of Thrones in the modern American West. I can’t stomach […]
Earlier this week, I summarized both Orwell’s and Umberto Eco’s views on a species of thought, which we might call ideological factionalism, that has always been with us but which seemed to be in retreat, […]
Yesterday I wrote about Orwell’s 1945 essay “Notes on Nationalism,” where nationalism meant a manner of thinking that could attach itself to more than just a state. Orwell says he chose the word because it […]
If you haven’t read Orwell’s “Notes on Nationalism,” it is a classic and a chief example of why he is a writer of the first class. The title is unfortunate, which he admits in the […]
Prior to WWII, the US had a marginal presence overseas. We now have over 800 military bases in 70 countries around the globe — more than any nation in history — including 174 in Germany, […]
People read passages from the Federalist papers in school, or an ancient treatise on Stoicism or whatever, and it informs their sense of how things were in the past, forgetting (or worse, never realizing) that […]
Celebrities don’t exist. Not really. They are characters in a public drama, which is why, whenever someone meets them — or rather, the person of the same name who plays them — there’s always an […]
Optimism — one of Superman’s often-overlooked superpowers.