[November 16, 2023] Sometime in early 2002, two Soldiers from my Engineer unit said something that shocked me. They said that they wished they had been on one of those planes that Muslim terrorists used to kill nearly 3,000 innocents on 9/11. Several officers and I were sitting around talking about preparing to go to war in Iraq.… Read More »
[November 15, 2023] A common theme of mine is that for propaganda to succeed, it must rely on strong leadership. Predictably, propaganda is associated with war since many of a nation’s strongest leaders are in their military services. Of course, it is not limited to wartime and often makes the most insidious contributions in peace. “In wartime, truth… Read More »
[November 14, 2023] After the Hamas terror attacks on Israel, killing more than 1,400 civilians, I wrote an article that proposed the only way to stop Palestinian violence was to utterly destroy their culture of death (October 17). And yet few thinkers have dared to agree. But I found one of them, John Hinderaker, at PowerLine (November 13). … Read More »
[November 13, 2023] While the World’s attention is focused on Israel and its war with Hamas and, to a lesser extent, on the Russia-Ukraine War, something is happening in North Korea. The Hermit Kingdom is known for odd diplomatic overtures. Lately, however, they have begun shutting down their embassies worldwide. Suspicions are mounting that North Korea is facing… Read More »
[November 12, 2023] The rain was coming down hard. The night was hot. For that reason, I was allowed to sleep in Bigmama’s twin bed on the first floor, next to an open window; only the screen kept out the night air. An old, oscillating fan blew a breeze over me; occasionally, a spit of rain would come… Read More »
[November 11, 2023] I grew up in the city of Philadelphia. We lived on a long narrow street lined with small row homes attached by a party wall. There were 23 homes on each side of the street. We knew everyone on our block and all the surrounding homes on the streets that made up our neighborhood. Our… Read More »
[November 10, 2023] I didn’t know it then, but I grew up privileged. Not with money, or status, or owning a big house or car or lots of clothes, but by being in the company of ordinary men, combat veterans from World War II and the Korean War, as well as those who served to protect us at… Read More »
[November 9, 2023] Susan Vass, better known as Ammo Grrrll from her writings on PowerLineBlog serves us a dose of common sense today, the 85th anniversary of Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass). Her topic? It is about being scammed, knowing you are being scammed, and telling people you love being scammed. This is how she begins: “…think… Read More »
[November 8, 2023] We’ve all seen supervisors who give excuses for employees who are failures in their jobs. Like the alcoholic whose family enables the alcoholic’s drinking behavior, leaders are also enabling failure in other leaders. Whatever the reason or excuse, there is an emerging trend in U.S. institutions where leaders fail to take quick, effective action to… Read More »
[November 7, 2023] It was a big big room, dark and eerily quiet. I entered the first-grade classroom on the first day in the autumn of 1959 in a little town with no traffic lights, Mer Rouge, LA., deep in the antebellum south. The teacher showed an 8mm color home video of her class from the previous school… Read More »