The rest of the country hardly considers Portland, Maine, an urban center. In Maine, it is, though, and especially so from where I live, in the northern half of the state. One recent spring, I spent an April weekend in Portland, my first sojourn into a major city in almost a year. (It had beenContinue reading "Urban Fashion Team"
Off the Wall
November 10, 2016 - note to Mike Rowe Hey Mike. You’ve been very quiet. Everything OK? I just wanted you to know that I voted for you. I was also hoping you might explain what the hell happened on Tuesday, and say something to make me feel better about my fellow man. Thanks, Carol Savoy HiContinue reading "Off the Wall"
To My LGBT+ Friends, etc.
To my LGBT+ and Muslim friends, my friends whose skin is lighter or darker than mine, my friends whose preferred language is not English, my friends who are currently women, and my friends who have mental and physical challenges that don’t afflict me: Greetings. I have been tasked to explain to you, (all but theContinue reading "To My LGBT+ Friends, etc."
Freedom
The passage below, about freedom, a hard-won human condition, is taken from Memoirs of a Superfluous Man by Albert Jay Nock, published in 1943, beginning on page 313. Like the general run of American children, I grew up under the impression that mankind have an innate and deep-seated love of liberty. This was never taughtContinue reading "Freedom"
Congress Solves Your Problems
Soon after World War II, Congress began trying to solve all your problems for you. Up until then, if you had a problem, (if you were around then), you understood that you had a responsibility to solve it, and government understood its role to assure that you had the same chance as anyone else atContinue reading "Congress Solves Your Problems"
Democracy or Republic
The Constitution, Article IV, Section 4, declares “The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government.” Nothing in the Constitution suggests that this country was ever intended to be a democracy. The critical difference is in the matter of rights. John Adams captured the essence of the differenceContinue reading "Democracy or Republic"
The Individual Who Can Think and Create
In the words of AJN: Our society has made no place for the individual who is able to think, who is, in the strict sense of the word, intelligent; it merely tosses him into the rubbish heap... Intelligence is the power and willingness always and disinterestedly to see things as they are, an easy accessibilityContinue reading "The Individual Who Can Think and Create"
Demagogue and Demaslave
Henry Louis Mencken was a contemporary and acquaintance of Albert Jay Nock. In The Superfluous Men, a volume of comparative essays compiled by Robert M. Crunden (ISI Books, 1999), Mencken is described as "an enormously prolific writer and editor of newspapers and magazines" who "had great impact on college students and the educated young adultsContinue reading "Demagogue and Demaslave"
Village Idiot Refuses to Look for a Job
"I refuse to look for a job in this economy until the government makes the minimum wage a living wage." Thus spake an unidentified twenty-ish male follower of the "occupy movement" who was shown just long enough to spout this idiotic conviction on one of the network news broadcasts in the fall of 2011. IfContinue reading "Village Idiot Refuses to Look for a Job"
Opposing Interests
The State is no proper agency for social welfare, and never will be, for exactly the same reason that an ivory paperknife is nothing to shave with. The interests of society and of the State do not coincide; and any pretense that they can be made to coincide is sheer nonsense. Society gets on bestContinue reading "Opposing Interests"
Albert Jay Nock 