The nation was shocked when Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin collapsed during a recent Monday night football game. For several days the Hamlin story shared top billing in the American news cycle with Kevin McCarthy’s bid for Speaker of the […]
Archives for January 2023
Marjorie Taylor Greene: mainstream Republican
As the Republican members-elect of the 118th Congress tried to select a Speaker of the House last week, Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene, an election denier, former QAnon follower, and believer in Jewish space lasers, backed Kevin McCarthy on all […]
Jim Cullen on Bruce Springsteen’s first album
Columbia Records released Greetings from Asbury Park on January 5, 1973. Jim Cullen, the dean of Springsteen scholars, reflects at The Washington Post: Fifty years ago this week, a scruffy young artist from New Jersey released his first album. In […]
The latest American export: insurrections
The United States loves to export its political ideals and practices to the rest of the world. The latest export seems to be antidemocratic insurrections. Here is a taste of Anne Applebaum’s Atlantic piece: “What the Rioters in Brazil Learned […]
Why Everyone Is Watching Yellowstone. And Why You Should Too.
Can anything disarm our ignorance of the people we think we know?Â
It Twitter goes away, “how will people find quick justice?”
Here is a taste of Atlantic writer Kaitlyn Tiffany’s piece, “Twitter Was the Ultimate Cancellation Machine.” Whatever else it is, Twitter is a place where the average person can subject others to their displeasure. They have been mistreated by Southwest […]
Authors I am teaching this semester
Today is the first day of classes! Based on this list of authors, try to guess the two courses I am teaching this semester: Antiquity: 18th Century: 19th Century: 20th Century: Late 20th and 21st Century
REVIEW: Religious War and Religious Peace
What if religion is not responsible for religious wars?
Was America founded as a Christian nation? Historian Allen Guelzo weighs-in
Here is the prize-winning historian at John Piper’s Desiring God website: John Randolph of Roanoke (1773–1833) had no confidence that America was, or ever had been, a Christian republic. Six months after the close of the War of 1812 — […]
The Author’s Corner with Mark Dillon
Mark Dillon is Associate Justice of the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court, Second Judicial Department. This interview is based on his book, The First Chief Justice: John Jay and the Struggle of a New Nation (State […]
Evangelical roundup for January 9, 2023
What is happening in Evangelical land? Evangelical publishing in Romania. Evangelism on CNN. Evangelicals prefer praying over Bible reading. The highest paid ministry executives include J.C. Watts, Hal Lindsey, Matthew Crouch, Franklin Graham, Charles Stanley, Gordon Robertson, Kelly Shackelford, Michael […]
When You Measured the World
The past finds us. The lights come on.
Sunday night odds and ends
A few things online that caught my attention this week: George Will on Princeton University’s John Witherspoon statue Joanne Freeman provides some context for debacle in the House of Representatives this week. Carlos Lozado reviews Kevin Kruse’s and Julian Zelizer’s […]
Historian Joanne Freeman on the near scuffle between Mike Rogers and Matt Gaetz
Here is part of what I wrote last night after the fourteenth ballot for Speaker of the House: Before the end of the vote, McCarthy had to walk up the aisle to talk to Matt Gaetz to try to get […]
“Just say the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the Republican congressmen.” –Donald Trump
Kevin McCarthy, with the help of Donald Trump, is Speaker of the House. Here is what some of the members of the House Select Committee on January 6th are saying: Liz Cheney: Adam Kinzinger: Adam Schiff: Jamie Raskin:
Tweet of the Day
Context:
On January 6, 2021 there was violence on the House floor. Violence almost broke again on January 6, 2023
As I started this post at 11:14pm on Friday night there were still six people standing in the way of Kevin McCarthy’s speakership. They were Andy Biggs (AZ), Lauren Boebert (CO), Eli Crane (AZ), Matt Gaetz (FL), Bob Good (VA), […]
Blogging the 12th vote for Speaker of the House
A lot happened in this vote. McCarthy picked-up fourteen votes. There are now seven who oppose him. He needs three of these votes to become Speaker of the House. 12:20pm: I find it shocking that Mike Garcia (R-CA), while nominating […]
Current: a “little magazine” for the digital age
I am often asked to describe Current. It is not a blog, although The Way of Improvement Leads Home blog (and a future blog–stay tuned) is part of it. It is not a Substack, although you can subscribe to it […]
Matt Gaetz: “If Democrats join up to elect a moderate Republican, I will resign from the House of Representatives”
Up until this point in the GOP battle for the Speaker of the House, compromised Florida congressman Matt Gaetz has been treating the whole affair as if he is a high school kid playing some kind of game, perhaps the […]