June 2023
61 articles published this month.
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Notes From My Journal
Rising Above the Book-Banning Debate
The 100 Best Children’s Books of All Time Well-managed intellectual propaganda begins with the curation of children’s books. Educators understand that ideas formed in childhood, and especially ideas about how…
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Worth Quoting
Ray Bradbury On The Dangers Of Illiteracy
“There are worse crimes than burning books. One of them is not reading them.” – Ray Bradbury
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News & Views
Take Away My Liberty, but Don’t Touch My Pronouns
[caption id="attachment_27194" align="alignnone" width="300"] Lee Aldrich [/caption] When you are convicted of felony murder in America, you lose a bunch of your rights, including your constitutional right to…
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Fun and/or Interesting
Have You Ever Seen…?
Have you ever seen a Belgian Malinois? A friend of mine brought his to the Swamp House at Paradise Palms. He threw a ball into the lake. The dog sprinted toward it like he was shot out of a cannon, and then…
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Readers Write
So, Where Do I Stand on the Transgender Issue?
Question from JL: “I’m having a little argument with a friend about your stance on the transgender movement and transgender people. Based on what you’ve written recently, which is never explicit, he thinks you…
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Postscript
Quaydarius Davis: He’s Got Moves
I don’t follow football. I played it in high school, but I prefer to watch basketball, because it’s so easy to see the amazing athleticism of the players without the pads and with fewer people on the field…
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Notes From My Journal
Why the Teachers Union Hates Poetry Recitals
There were two things my siblings and I were required to do on Sunday mornings. Go to church and recite a poem. The former was a rule adhered to by all the kids on my block. The poetry? My friends thought it…
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Worth Quoting
Salman Rushdie On Poetry's Revolutionary Power
“A poet’s work is to name the unnameable, to point at frauds, to take sides, start arguments, shape the world, and stop it going to sleep.” – Salmon Rushdie
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Worth Watching
A Thousand and One
Written and directed by A.V. Rockwell Starring Teyana Taylor, Will Catlett, Josiah Cross, Aven Courtney, and Aaron Kingsley Adetola Premiered Jan. 22, 2023 (Sundance) Released in theaters (US) Mar. 31, 2023 A…
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Introducing...
Iam Tongi
Tongi, an unknown kid from Hawaii, won Season 21 of American Idol. His audition, just months after his father died – an emotional rendition of James Blunt’s “Monsters” – had the judges in tears. Challenge…
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Fun and/or Interesting
Test Your Knowledge of Famous Artists
The topic was promising. The first question was easy. I thought for sure I was going to get a perfect score. I was wrong. Click here to try your hand at it.
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Postscript
Bud Light's Marketing Strategy Before The Controversy
JF sent this as an example of how Bud Light promoted itself “before they got caught up in the culture wars.” Click here.
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Notes From My Journal
Memories of Maiduguri
“Never shall I forget his deep-throated laughter as he told me that ‘the rascals’ would kill him.” – Taki DZ wanted to travel to Maiduguri in Nigeria, where his father was a visiting scholar at the university…
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News & Views
Everyone Wants to Be a Victim in America Today – Even Skinny People!
It’s no longer cool to win a gold medal or graduate cum laude or start a successful business or climb Mt. Kilimanjaro. In today’s America, the only sure way to get attention is to figure out and complain about…
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Worth Considering
The COVID Response: What We Got Wrong — June 23, 2023
The NYT’s COVID Tracker Is Back! It seems that the NYT has resumed making updates to its COVID tracking pages. CA forwarded the first one to me, showing that there are still 684 deaths per week attributed to…
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Readers Write
More on the death of Cormac McCarthy
From AS… “Last night, in honor of Cormac McCarthy’s passing, D and I watched The Road. We both read the book years ago and didn’t remember most of the details. As the movie rolled, my memories of the book…
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Postscript
Two Decades of Practice Distilled Into Minutes
He says it took him 20 years of practice to get to this point. I believe it! Click here.
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Notes From My Journal
Father’s Day, Mother’s Day: What Does It Mean Anymore?
This weekend was Father’s Day. The Ford-Fitzgerald clan has nine fathers – five in my generation and four in the following one, of which three, along with spouses and offspring, were together at the Swamp…
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News & Views
Sleeping Man Shoots Himself in Self-Defense
I’m trying to decide what to make of this story… or what the Illinois DA was thinking. A 62-year-old man is facing firearms charges in Illinois after authorities say he accidentally shot himself in the leg in…
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Worth Watching
The (Rare) Cormac McCarthy Interviews
As I mentioned in my tribute to Cormac McCarthy in Friday’s issue, he was famously private, and turned down most of the interview requests that came his way. But between 1968 and 1980, when he was starting…
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Worth Reading
Your Next (First?) Cormac McCarthy Novel
Reading the mailbag responses from Friday’s issue, I was surprised that some readers had never read anything by McCarthy and asked me for suggestions. It’s difficult to do that because of how varied his books…
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Fun and/or Interesting
What Would You Like to Do That You Haven’t Yet Done?
G sent this in. It’s a short interview with Bill Murray. I hadn’t seen it before, and when I watched it, I was surprised. It’s thought-provoking, but also touching. This is Bill Murray speaking without his…
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Readers Write
From HB, in response to my book reviews in which I mention The Mules, my book club
“I recently read, or perhaps I reread (?), The Natural by Bernard Malamud, in good part because the movie with Robert Redford has always been one of my baseball favorites and the book popped up at a local book…
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Postscript
Big Girl. Big Moves
This is a clip featuring high school girls that felt bullied and spent a year learning to dance to regain their confidence. Front and center is an amazing performance by a girl that was bullied because she is…
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Notes From My Journal
Cormac McCarthy, RIP
Cormac McCarthy, RIP Cormac McCarthy is gone. Sad. I didn’t know him personally. I never even heard him speak Unlike most bestselling authors, McCarthy didn’t do book signings or media interviews to promote…
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Worth Considering
Totalitarianism: What, Exactly, Does It Mean?
“The essential characteristic of totalitarian governments is that 100% of the population lies 100% of the time.” Dr. Jordan B. Peterson That’s what Dr. Jordan B. Peterson said in this interview. (Or something…
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News & Views
Finally, Some Social Justice for Green Activists
From ArtNews: A Vatican court convicted two environmental activists of aggravated damage for gluing their hands to an ancient statue in a Vatican museum during a climate change protest last August. They were…
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Fun and/or Interesting
History Quiz: Important Inventions
The first question was so easy, I thought I might ace the others. No. I barely got half of them right! Try your hand at it here.
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Readers Write
From KM…
“Hey Mark, “I just had RS on my podcast today and you came up a couple of times... I wanted to send you a message to say thanks for the positive impact you’ve had on me… to say I enjoyed our talk…. I was just…
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Postscript
The Professor Returns To Breaking Ankles
It’s been a while since I saw The Professor in action. He’s back and still breaking ankles. Click here.
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Notes From My Journal
Pickleball. Where Did It Come From? How Long Will It Stay
The first time I saw a pickleball court was about five or six years ago. Half the size of a tennis court, it was clearly invented for older people. And then, when I saw the game being played, with the plastic…
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Fun and/or Interesting
No matter what you think of the PGA/LIV merger…
If you like golf, the following might amuse or edify you. PW, a Myrtle Beach friend, sent it. (I think he did the research himself.) Other than seeing my high school buddies once a year in Myrtle Beach, my…
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News & Views
Is it Just Me, or Is the Cold War Getting Warmer?
Am I the only one that fears the US is getting closer to a nuclear war with Russia? Or could it be that everyone else in America believes that a nuclear war is one that we can survive? Or even win? In some…
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Worth Reading
From the Smithsonian – a New Book: My Friend Anne Frank
Hannah Pick-Goslar, who died last year, was a childhood friend of Anne Frank. In 2021, she partnered with Dina Kraft, to write an autobiography of her life as a child in Germany and then in Amsterdam, where…
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Arts & Letters
Things Worth Remembering: T.S. Eliot and the Passage of Time
In a recent Sunday column for The Free Press, Douglas Murray shared a literary gem he has memorized and the story of how it shaped his life. Click here.
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Worth Considering
The COVID Response: What We Got Wrong — June 14, 2023
Moderna and Its Investors Made Billions Selling a Fake Vaccine I’ve been critical of our government’s handling of the COVID epidemic since the beginning. And I think every criticism I had in year one was…
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Introducing...
John Mulaney
He’s a stand-up comic. And very smart. He has a unique style, a unique way of telling stories, and a unique imagination. Plus, he wears a suit. Click here to enjoy a collection of some of his bits.
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Readers Write
Re my observations about Richmond, VA, in the June 9 issue…
“Richmond is one of our favorite cities! Things we love about it are the people, the river, the wonderful world-class art museum (of course), central location (between DC, the mountains, and the beach), four…
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Postscript
A feel-good story to brighten your day…
Click here.
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Notes From My Journal
We were traveling this last week…
Four days in LA visiting the grandkids, and three days in Richmond getting to know a city we’ve never been to. Here are some impressions: Glendale, LA When in LA, K and I often stay at the Glenmark Hotel in…
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Worth Reading
How to Improve Your Understanding of Everything
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) They say the best way to learn is to teach. Because teaching something you think you understand will help you understand how much you really don’t know. That’s been true for me –…
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Worth Quoting
Richard Feynman On Self-Deception And Scientific Integrity
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool.” – Richard Feynman
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News & Views
Beat This!
I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro in February 2010. (I’ve written about that ordeal several times.) After a four-day slog, our little group was finally at 19,000 feet, just a few hours away from reaching the apex, and…
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Fun and/or Interesting
500 Years of Female Hair Styles
I fell into another YouTube rabbit hole last week. This time, I probably saw two dozen video clips of women doing amazing things with their hair. My favorite was this one, a fast-motion history of women’s…
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Readers Write
From KK re my review of Holy Spider in the June 2 issue
“Thank you for your spot-on recommendation of the film Holy Spider. When I mentioned it to my wife, her intense entomophobia made her cringe. After I read her your critique, she agreed to watch, and we both…
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Postscript
Do you have a backup system for your Tesla?
This guy does. Click here.
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Notes From My Journal
Rules: Who Needs Them?
A fair amount of what interests me these days has to do with the experience of aging. So today, I wanted to write about how my thinking about liberty and bureaucracy has changed over the years. In getting my…
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News & Views
Don’t Judge Them! And Don’t Call Them Pedophiles!
Have you heard about the new class of oppressed and marginalized people? Unrecognized (until now) victims of societal prejudice? They call themselves MAPs. An acronym for “Minor-Attracted Persons.” Yes, we…
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Worth Watching
How Much Do You REALLY Like Good Movies?
As an industry rule, movies should be 90 minutes long. A well-respected director can get away with 80 minutes on the downside and 120 on the upside. But viewers shy away from movies that are longer than two…
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Worth Reading
Why should we consider the soul mortal?
From Diaries of Note, an interesting entry by Wanda Gág, an author and artist who, in 1928, published Millions of Cats, a bestselling children’s book. Twenty years earlier, when she was 22, she wrote this…
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