June 29, 2016

The Artlessness of War: Don’t Name Thy Enemy

The measure of intelligence, Einstein reputedly observed, is the ability to change. By this measure, how can one not find Obama woefully wanting? It is one thing to assume the presidency and eschew the phrase “radical Islam” on the presum...

February 1, 2013

The American Appetite for Deception

The "Feejee Mermaid," reputed to be a "specimen of a veritable mermaid" from the South Pacific, was one of the more outlandish wonders exhibited by P.T. Barnum.  In a painting outside the museum where it was on display, the mermaid was depicted ...

August 18, 2012

Twilight of the Olympic Idols

This new Olympic flame behold, that once burned bright in Greece of old; with happy hearts receive once more these Games revived on London's shore. Thus begins the Pindaric ode composed by Oxford academic Armand D'Angour, commissioned by Boris J...

October 29, 2011

The American Devolution: Some Perspective on Present Discontent

Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, the perennial French diplomat, once quipped that those who have not lived in the eighteenth century before the Revolution do not know the sweetness of living.  If the self-appointed representatives of the ...