Trouble in Trump land? Here is Gabriel Sherman at Vanity Fair: Even as it was happening on Friday, the Oval Office blowup between President Donald Trump, Vice President JD Vance, and Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy was being cast as one of America’s darkest moments on the […]
Walter Lippman worried about a time when people “cease to respond to truths, and respond simply to opinions—what somebody asserts, not what actually is.”
Check out Jeannette Cooperman’s essay at Common Reader on the late white-suited writer Tom Wolfe. She has some interesting thoughts on the so-called “New Journalism” of the 1960s and 1970s. A taste: Did Wolfe do such a good job capturing […]
More people will suffer and die in Ukraine because Trump needs his ego stroked
In case you missed it last night, the United States stopped military aid to Ukraine. This is what happens in Trump world when you don’t kiss the president’s ring. More people will die this week in Ukraine because Trump believes […]
Mike Pence calls Pope Francis “Holy Father” and all hell breaks lose in the conservative evangelical world
File this post under the “Anti-Catholicism is alive and well” category. Here is Pence’s tweet: This guy is questioning Pence’s Christianity: Not an evangelical?: And the hits keep coming: Jon Root invokes R.C. Sproul:
David Brooks on the Trump-Zelenskyy Oval Office exchange: “I was nauseated”
Watch:
“No one is going to pay you to do things that can be done as easily as having AI write your essays for you. How are you going to acquire skills that may actually be valuable?”
Jim Cullen, a history teacher at Greenwich County Day School and a Current contributing editor, talks to his class: We’re in my “Money and Morals” elective, where we’ve been reading Hernan Diaz’s Pulitzer-Prize-winning 2022 novel Trust, a fun-house mirror of postmodernism […]
A new Gilded Age?
Are the robber barons back? Here is Politico historian Joshua Zeitz: At his second inauguration, as President Donald Trump promised to usher America into a new “golden age,” he was surrounded in the Capitol Rotunda by a handful of tech […]
Alumni magazines are on the rise
We receive eight different alumni magazines in our household. I read all of them. I am always looking for good stories and great writing. According to a recent piece at Inside Higher Ed, colleges and universities throughout the country are […]
What is DEI anyway?
Here is Conor Friedersdorf at The Atlantic: On President Donald Trump’s first day back in the White House, he issued an executive order ending diversity, equity, and inclusion in the federal government. Its sweeping language forbids DEI “mandates, policies, programs, preferences, […]
History saves us from ourselves
My piece in yesterday’s Sunday edition of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette. A taste: Today the study of history is used as a cudgel in the culture wars. Activists on both the left and the right cherry-pick from the past to […]
On Retirement
Alan Jacobs is taking the Baylor buyout: When I retire, in December 2026 (though I will be paid through May 2027), I will have been teaching for forty-four years — and I love teaching as much as I ever have. […]
Film clip of the day
Gene Hackman, RIP
Did God answer Franklin Graham’s prayer? Evangelicals respond to what happened today in the Oval Office
What an embarrassment for the United States of America. Watch: Some American evangelicals are responding: Did God answer Franklin Graham’s prayer?:
Why we need National Park Service rangers
Donald Trump and Elon Musk are making heavy cuts to the National Park Service. We covered that here. But I wonder if Trump and Musk really understand all that National Park Service rangers do every day. Clarissa Moll does. Here […]
A social critic “struggling to break free”
Over at Commonweal, George Scialabba reviews Musa al-Gharbi’s We Have Never Been Woke: The Cultural Contradictions of a New Elite. It’s a largely negative review. But what struck me the most was Scialabba’s final paragraphs: I don’t mean to dismiss We […]
Song of the Day
What is going on at The Washington Post opinion page?
Did The Washington Post just become The Wall Street Journal? It sure seems like it. Here is Michael Schaffer at Politico: On Wednesday morning, outgoing Washington Post Opinion Editor David Shipley huddled with his soon-to-be former staff. Barely an hour earlier, owner […]
The Bluffton University merger with the University of Findlay will not proceed
I gave lectures at both of these schools earlier this month and everything sounded like the merger between Bluffton University and the University of Findlay was moving along as planned. Bluffton’s president resigned yesterday. And today this was announced: Here […]
Seeking common ground: A day with students and faculty from Georgetown Day School
Last week I spent the day at Messiah University (where I have taught history for 23 years) with students, faculty, and the Head of School from Georgetown Day School (GDS), a prep school in Washington D.C. This is the fourth […]
Martin Marty’s graduate students
The late church historian taught an all-star lineup of graduate students at the University of Chicago: M. Barbara Akin (1970, History)+Catherine Albanese (1972)Robert Alvis (2000)Richard Anderson (1973, History)R. Scott Appleby (1985)Yaakov Ariel (1986)James Ash (1976)+Paul Baglyos (1997)Craig Barnes (1992)Marvin Bergman (1990)James Block (1999, CSThought)Eileen Brewer (1984)James Bundy (1979)Jonathan Butler (1975)Stephen Carleton (1975)+Dennis Castillo (1990)Robert Choquette […]