4,822 words
4,822 words
2020 had been an odd sort of year. It wasn’t the longest year on record: that distinction belongs to 46 B.C., which Julius Caesar extended by decree to 445 days in order to bring the lunar calendar up to date with the solar year. Still, 2020 seemed like the longest year ever, as each month brought more madness than any year has a right to. (more…)
4,352 words
You have asked me whether you should join the military. Given what I wrote, you wonder, does a racially conscious white male have any business in the armed forces? (more…)
4,814 words
“There were many whose hearts told them that they should begin to tell the secret runes.” Thus begins an ancient manuscript written in Old Saxon. It may surprise the reader to learn that these are, in fact, the opening lines of the Christian Gospel in the version known as the Heliand, produced for the Saxons in the early ninth century, after their conquest by Charlemagne. (more…)
7,671 words
For decades, the opening lines of a poem by Sam Walter Foss entitled “The Coming American” hung in big steel letters at the Air Force Academy. Year after year, incoming classes of cadets would finish their six weeks of basic training by marching under the words BRING ME MEN. Up the ramp, they went onto the Academy’s impressive terrazzo flanked by modernist architecture, scene of the next four arduous years. (more…)