According to a new poll released today by The Wall Street Journal, Joe Biden (46%) and Donald Trump (46%) are running neck and neck in a potential 2024 presidential matchup. But when support for Green Party candidate Cornel West is […]
Way of Improvement
Historian Drew Gilpin Faust: “Education asks you to change”
I am trying to get former Harvard University president Drew Gilpin Faust on The Way of Improvement Leads Home Podcast, but I think her publicist is ghosting me! 🙂 I am hoping that Faust might be willing to consider smaller […]
Vivek Ramawsamy: “Ignorant”
Today at The New York Times, David French lets loose on the upstart GOP presidential candidate. Here is a taste: As The Times has documented in detail, Ramaswamy is prone to denying his own words. But his problem is greater than […]
Stanford and Cal in the ACC? It “all feels wrong.”
USC, UCLA, Washington, and Oregon in the Big Ten? Stanford and California in the Atlantic Coast Conference? Arizona and Arizona State in the Big 12? Oklahoma and Texas in the SEC? It’s the end of the world as we know […]
Springsteen rocks Met Life Stadium
He’s back in Jersey! Blogness on the Edge of Town has the set list and the rest of the videos.
What is popular this week at Current?
Here are the most popular features of the week at Current: Here are the most popular posts of the last week at The Way of Improvement Leads Home blog: Here are the most popular posts of the last week at The Arena blog:
The Author’s Corner with Thomas Blake Earle
Thomas Blake Earle is Assistant Professor of History at Texas A&M University at Galveston. This interview is based on his new book, The Liberty to Take Fish: Atlantic Fisheries and Federal Power in Nineteenth-Century America (Cornell University Press, 2023). JF: […]
Nicholas Kristof on “Rich Men North of Richmond”: “Liberals are properly attentive to racial injustice but have a blind spot about class.”
It is the #1 song in America right now. Have you heard it yet? On his You Tube channel Oliver Anthony, the writer and singer of the song, says: Watch: Here is Nicholas Kristof, a liberal columnist at The New […]
Nikki Haley is “no moderate on abortion.” Nikki Haley is “no pro-life champion.”
When I heard former South Carolina governor and United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley talk about abortion at the first GOP presidential debate earlier this month I wrote: Nikki Haley, the only woman on the stage, was the most reasonable and […]
Frank Thompson died a hero. His brother, historian E.P. Thompson, “spent his life wondering why.”
This is a fascinating story about the life of one of the 20th century’s great economic and social historians and the memory of his brother. Here is Madoc Cairns at The New Statesman: When they told Frank Thompson they would […]
Evangelical roundup for August 31, 2023
What is happening in Evangelical land? Roman Catholics becoming evangelicals in central America. A grocery store, a bar, and evangelical church in rural Brazil. Italian evangelicals pray for Christians in Pakistan. David French is teaching at David Lipscomb University: More […]
The opposite of toxic masculinity is heroic masculinity
Here is a taste of Caitlin Flanagan’s recent piece at The Atlantic: The opposite of toxic masculinity is heroic masculinity. It’s all around us; you depend on it for your safety, as I do. It is almost entirely taken for […]
An introduction to Antonio Gramsci
The Italian communist was one of the most important thinkers of the 20th-century. If you are new to Gramsci, Mark Engler and Paul Engler’s piece at Dissent is worth your time. Here is a taste: Too often, mainstream political analysts […]
What is your AI policy? A Penn professor explains why he doesn’t have one.
Everywhere you turn these days professors are talking about how to handle students who use ChatGPT to write their papers. Over at The Washington Post, historian Jonathan Zimmerman explains why he doesn’t have a policy on the matter. Here is […]
“Not every title can be ‘electrifying’, ‘essential’, and ‘revelatory.'”
Over at The Atlantic, Helen Lewis addresses the practice of book blurbs. Here is a taste: And that reveals another dirty secret of the blurb: They’re not addressed to you. “The biggest thing to understand is that blurbs aren’t principally, or […]
Trump’s 2024 calendar
It’s going to be an interesting year. CNN has mapped it out: January 15 – E. Jean Carroll civil defamation trial begins; Iowa caucuses January 23 – Possible New Hampshire primary February 8 – Nevada caucuses February 24 – South Carolina primary February […]
Commonplace Book #280
American socialists, like all Christian socialists, had to cope with the fact that socialist rhetoric about abolishing capitalism evoked fears of class war and proletarian smashing. Christian socialism, wherever it took root, sought to mitigate this threat. Marxists, radical democrats, […]
The American Historical Association responds to the Florida African American history standards
Here is AHA Executive Director Jim Grossman: The Florida Board of Education approved new standards of instruction in African American history on July 19, 2023. A firestorm of protest erupted immediately from a range of public figures (including the vice president of […]
Trump’s court trials are his campaign
This morning we learned that U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan has scheduled Donald Trump’s election interference trial to commence on March 4, 2024. The next day fourteen states will hold GOP primaries. This day is often called Super Tuesday and […]
The books John McPhee never wrote
92-year-old John McPhee talks to the Commonweal podcast about his creative non-fiction, “big” writing projects, his “desk drawer projects,” and his new book. Listen here.