As did you all, I read with great enjoyment Craig’s “Tickling The Wire” post, which set me to ruminating upon his observation that our bad-tooth, grisly-and-bubbling-infections-and-finally-death past is a mere camera-flash away from us. This, of course, set me to contemplating the wild, colorful career of Donald McBane. As one does. You see, Donald McBane should have […]
Mattias Tannhauser — Man Of The Hour
August 23, 1572 — St. Bartholomew’s Eve. Man of Commerce and Soldier of Fortune Mattias Tannhauser rides into Paris, where all hell is about to break loose. At a tavern called The Red Ox, he pauses to take his repast and reflect upon the state of affairs in his adopted country… “Tannhauser had abandoned all involvement and […]
That Noble Northern Spirit
“I have in this War a burning private grudge — which would probably make me a better soldier at 49 than I was at 22: against that ruddy little ignoramus Adolf Hitler … Ruining, perverting, misapplying, and making for ever accursed, that noble northern spirit, a supreme contribution to Europe, which I have ever loved, and tried to present in […]
‘The Marke Of His Manhood’
The quality we admire most at The Running Iron Report is resilience. Nobody escapes the injuries, the wrecks, the traumas big and small that life dishes out. The 21st century therapeutic culture, which often valorizes victimhood, has led us astray from old, heroic virtues, and indeed casts them in a negative light. But those are the […]
Manning Up Is Hard To Do
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good […]
‘You’ve Got To Play On’
Decided to go with something a little lighter and more uplifting than usual for this week’s Running Iron Report column. If you can call broken bones and a torn scrotum “light and uplifting.” Blame Rullman and my brother John. * Last Sunday, Craig and Pete Rathbun and I sat down at the Figure 8 to record a podcast on “Stories […]
Beware The Outrage Trolls
“A tongue can accuse and carry bad news The seeds of distrust it will sow But unless you’ve made no mistakes in your life Be careful of stones that you throw… — Hank Williams, “Be Careful Of Stones That You Throw” * This is how this rolls: Somebody, somewhere, with an ax to grind digs […]
The Kids Are Alright
One of the perils of doing the work that we do at The Running Iron Report is that there’s a tendency to focus on the negative. While we’re certainly about diagnosing the illnesses of the Empire, our true purpose is scouting out a path to a worthy, honorable way of living in these strange times. We cannot afford […]
The Myth Of Rugged Individualism
No matter how a man alone ain’t got no bloody fucking chance. — Ernest Hemingway, To Have And Have Not On March 1, 2017, I did something dumb. Call it an error of judgment. The winter had been hellacious: Unusually cold and one heavy snowstorm after another. We were measuring the stuff in feet, not inches. […]
The Barbarian Virtues
“Over-sentimentality, over-softness, in fact washiness and mushiness are the great dangers of this age and of this people. Unless we keep the barbarian virtues, gaining the civilized ones will be of little avail.” — Theodore Roosevelt — Rough Rider; President of the United States We all know we’ve lost something. Our culture has lost its […]
