History & Politics

I enjoyed watching the Japanese baseball players Yoshinobu Yamamoto and Shohei Ohtani on the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team last month. They played crucial roles to help the Dodgers win their second straight World Series pennant two months ago. They were heroes not only in Los Angeles but also in Japan. Two years ago I … Read more

It has come to this: — The elected Mayor of New York City, Zohran Mamdani, a Democratic Socialist of America (DSA) member who has not had any serious managerial experience in anything previously and recently rode a wave of populist enthusiasm into office. Mamdani represents the progressive edge of academic-style Leftism in the United States, … Read more

Almost 38 years ago I first read and enjoyed Ernest Hemingway’s “For Whom the Bell Tolls.” I read it avidly over a stretch of two or three days in September of 1987. I had just moved into my apartment to start as a student at UCLA. I remember it well. My oldest daughter herself will … Read more

Back on October 7, 2023 the Hamas terror group in Gaza unexpectedly burst across the border into Israel and killed some 1,200 Israelis. Others were reportedly raped, and 250 Israelis were kidnapped back to the Gaza Strip where most of them perished. I wrote about it a week later here.  That was over fifteen months … Read more

Brian Thompson, the UnitedHealthcare chief executive, was gunned down yesterday on a crowded Manhattan Street. A hooded man walked up to him and coolly shot him down in what was obviously a cold-blooded killing which had been carefully planned. The assassination seems to have been motivated by grievances against the health insurance industry, but facts … Read more

The American presidential election is twenty-one days behind us, but it seems much longer. Donald Trump handily defeated Kamala Harris, both in the popular vote and Electoral College, and the Republicans also have control of both houses of Congress. Supposedly it was going to be a nail biter of an election, with the female vote … Read more

Approximately 30 months ago I wrote about my amazement that the United States Supreme Court might reject decades of judicial precedent by overturning the landmark 1973 Roe v. Wade decision: ”Abortion and Roe v. Wade: A Flawed Legal Decision, a Necessary Health Policy”December 2, 2021 Then six months later after I wrote that initial essay, … Read more

I wrote over two months ago about how Donald Trump and the “burn it all down” faction from the GOP in the House of Representatives sought to derail any foreign aid measures to Ukraine. For weeks and weeks I would go to Google and type in “House vote for Ukraine,” and it seemed nothing was … Read more

I apologize in advance, dear reader, for bringing politics at length into one of my posts. Most Americans, myself included, are exhausted by recent political and cultural strife. A deeply polarized America is full of contention and division. I don’t wish to contribute to that mess. But politics is important, alas, and so I want … Read more

Or, Many Questions and Few Answers I read yesterday about how the landscape outside of Avdiivka was just littered with the Russian war dead. Ukrainian intelligence recorded phone intercepts of Russian soldiers calling to their relatives about how they are being sacrificed. “There’s no f—— ‘dying the death of the brave’ here,” one soldier explained … Read more

Yesterday had been a day almost completely taken up by tiresome parenting duties, and I was exhausted. By ten pm I was ready to crawl into bed, read for twenty minutes, and fall blissfully asleep. But I saw some breaking news bulletin about a “active shooter” in Lewiston, Maine who had killed numerous innocents in … Read more

I woke up seven days ago to see the awful news of the Hamas attacks on Israel.  The deaths of some 1,200 Israelis, mostly civilians, was celebrated by some, but I was horrified. But I would not rush to make judgements until at least a few days passed. Until initial panicked rumors passed around on … Read more

A year and a half ago I agonized over the approaching Dobbs v. Jackson decision by the Supreme Court. I had no problem seeing the flimsy legal parapets of Roe v. Wade torn down: that decision had always been highly suspect, with the 14th Amendment stretched beyond recognition and an “unenumerated” right to privacy in … Read more

I am currently watching the Friday Night Lights TV series with my younger daughter. I don’t really want to watch it, but my daughter loves having a show we can watch together. So each night we watch one episode while we cuddle on the couch.  This particular show has given us countless moments of discussion … Read more

So the House of Representatives this morning passed a bipartisan bill to suspend the $31.4 trillion debt ceiling and avert a government default while cutting federal spending. A compromise was constructed by President Joe Biden of the Democratic Party and House Speaker McCarthy of the Republican Party, and it had broad support from a coalition … Read more

Another horrible shooting took place last weekend in Allen, Texas. Another deranged individual decided, for God knows only what reason, to show up somewhere in public armed to the teeth and start shooting strangers. They would commit random murder against as many as they can, before the police or anyone else nearby, puts them down. … Read more

This Internet experiment – my person webpage – is pretty much as old as the World Wide Web itself, having been started in late 1996. So I have had occasion to watch the popular use of the Internet develop over time, and have commented on how it has changed, for the good and the bad. … Read more

Lawyers Depending on how you look at it, I have been blessed and/or cursed to have been born into a family of lawyers. My father, various uncles, brother-in-law, cousins, my cousin’s husband – there are lawyers everywhere in my family tree. My brain tells me to respect lawyers. They play a vital role in society, … Read more

I have not posted about the war in Ukraine since around the time it started, but it has been in my thoughts. I think back about the prospect of a Russian invasion of Ukraine over a year ago, and the predominant feeling now is sadness – the vast loss of life since Russian troops invaded … Read more

Recently I was showing a video of the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor in late 1941 – with Japanese CGI dive bombers zooming down on unsuspecting American battleships, and actors recreating the panicked scene with bombs exploding around them – as my audience watched the violent action unfold. Then I stopped the video and said … Read more

Jeez, you would think it, yes? After long years of COVID restrictions and a “Green New Deal” – along with the massive government spending, runaway inflation, and a deteriorating economy – and stupid Native American “land acknowledgments” and permissive criminal justice “reform” in big cities with mushrooming murder rates and LGBTQIA2S+ mania and college loan … Read more

The midterm elections are only one week away. My dad claimed these would be the “most important elections in his lifetime,” and he said he would be up late watching the returns on TV. My father was heavily invested emotionally in the outcome of the vote – he very much desired that his party would … Read more