The Long Trail of Posts

Back home, of course, we have other problems, not least of which is testing the winds, sticking to the shadows, and leaning into the whispers to avoid becoming Canned Goods ourselves. There is more truth in that than many would …
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It was a meal to celebrate a series of victories–over the madding world that overburdens modern humans with regulation and minutia, crushes us under the weight of absurdity, and tries like hell to prevent us from escaping the reservation to …
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A friend of mine recently told me that he can’t handle a Joe Biden speech — it’s literally painful to watch. They’re all like that for me. I thought about it for a minute and realized that the last presidential …
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I’m not romantic about coyotes, at least not in the way that absolves them of their predatory nature, and so becomes blind to that nature and ends up doing them a disservice. I see a lot of people do that …
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We live in strange times, which I realize is something of an understatement. But given the rarity of understatements in the current climate I am now a full-bore and unapologetic campaigner for understatements wherever, and whenever, I can find them …
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Occasionally we get lucky and stumble across interesting works of art buried deep in the cultural mud—where they would probably stay—if folk like us weren’t out there dirt-fishing for hidden gems …
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But even teaching, which allowed the greatest latitude for my manias, often provoked my inner Younger Bear, and so I found myself frequently on maneuvers against the robotic administration, or dropping a lecture on Wendell Berry to teach my students …
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Things aren’t as complicated as we’ve made them. If you don’t want to get fat stop eating so much and go for a walk. If you don’t want to destroy your liver and wreck your personal relationships stop drinking. That’s …
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At the febrile height of the French Revolution — the political event that created the modern world — the General Council  of the Paris Commune issued a kind of passport for citizens who could demonstrate that they were politically reliable …
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Blackouts are good when you don’t want to get bombed, but I’m in the trenches like everybody else and if I want to light a cigarette I’m going to light it. That’s late stage trench-madness and severely pisses off the …
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It’s the most important Christmas story in American history. The Battle of Trenton, fought in the early morning hours of December 26, 1776, saved the American revolutionary cause. After a series of devastating defeats in New York through the summer …
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These days I’m reduced to taking coffee at a place where the coffee is actually good, but the ambiance feels like a hospital waiting-room. Another reason I don’t love the place is that I frequently see a lunatic woman there …
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I’ve been spending a lot of time in the 18th Century, prepping for the Frontier Partisans Podcast series on Pontiac’s War (1763–64). If, as medievalist Dan Jones says, history is always a conversation between past and present, I guess I’ve …
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It’s fine, I’m sure. Nothing to worry about. (CNN)—The US scientists who created the first living robots say the life forms, known as xenobots, can now reproduce — and in a way not seen in plants and animals. Formed from …
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One longs for politicians with the wisdom and foresight of Ben Franklin, the raw intelligence of Jefferson, or the sheer tenacity of John Adams. These were careful, competent, and extremely brave men, willing to risk everything they had and whose …
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There is, I suppose, a Heraclitian aspect to our film because nothing is fixed in the outback. The petroglyphs weather and the granite grows its rinds of colorful lichen, the courses of creeks and rivers change in drought or in …
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A couple of weeks ago, the newspaper I work for published a very sad letter to the editor. The writer was mourning the death of his oldest friend, his loss made the more painful because they had become estranged. Over …
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Look, I’m NOT a medievalist. Sure, I’ve posted a thing or two here and on Frontier Partisans about medieval plagues and warfare and misrule and such — as one does. Actually, my most recent post was on the Ottoman Empire …
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