Posted on

The Canon for Sale: How Congress Handed Literature to a Homeschool Company

On March 17, 2026, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce passed H.R. 7661, a bill that would strip federal education funding from any public school whose libraries contain “sexually oriented material.” The bill’s formal title is the “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act,” and it was introduced by Representative Mary Miller of Illinois on February 24, 2026, days after the State of the Union address. Eighteen Republican cosponsors signed on. No Democratic members supported the bill. The legislation now awaits a vote on the full House floor.

Continue reading → The Canon for Sale: How Congress Handed Literature to a Homeschool Company

Posted on

The First Thing They Burn: Why War Always Comes for Beauty

When the Mongol army sacked Baghdad in 1258, they did not stop at killing the Caliph. They threw the contents of the House of Wisdom into the Tigris. Manuscripts on astronomy, medicine, mathematics, philosophy, and poetry turned the river black with ink for days. Killing people was not enough. What those people had made, what they had thought and dreamed and rendered into form, that had to be annihilated too. Kill a generation and you end a bloodline. Destroy what a generation built and you erase the proof that the bloodline mattered. This is strategy, not collateral damage. Invading armies have always understood something about beauty that peacetime democracies pretend not to know: beauty is power. A public display of beauty is a sovereignty claim, and no occupying force has ever been able to tolerate one.

Continue reading → The First Thing They Burn: Why War Always Comes for Beauty

Posted on

The Precarious Republic: Understanding the Fascist Threat to Modern Democracies

What if it doesn’t take years, or even months, for a democracy to collapse—but only a few short weeks? The idea that a stable republic could fall in ninety days may seem exaggerated, until you look at the historical record. Then it becomes a haunting possibility. Fascism doesn’t always arrive with fanfare or fire. Sometimes, it walks in through the front door, wearing a suit and a smile, welcomed by the very institutions it plans to dismantle.

Continue reading → The Precarious Republic: Understanding the Fascist Threat to Modern Democracies

Posted on

The Star-Mangled Banner: Houston, We Have a National Anthem Problem

We have a national crisis with self-indulgent performances of “The Star-Spangled Banner” in the USA. Our national anthem is being mangled by bad taste and poor singers when presented at the beginning of public sporting events.

What used to be a revered practice with hats off and hands held over hearts has now become a gross performance opportunity for a sub-par singer to take our anthem and mangle the melody in order to “show off” just what a wide-range they do not have.

The problem none of these horrible performers realize is that they cannot sing in tune, they fumble out of key, and they are ruining a closely beloved song that should never really be sung live in public because it is too easy to ruin the song with an awful, cat-strangling, performance.

The effort should not be in the song attempt, but rather in the respect we provide the song by allowing it to be heard plainly and properly as intended.

Continue reading → The Star-Mangled Banner: Houston, We Have a National Anthem Problem

Posted on

Killing without Due Process

The government of the United States wants to legally reserve the right kill you — assassinate you, even, and without legal representation — if you are perceived as a threat to national security.  This is new and chilling news, and the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the ACLU, are trying to fight in court for those targeted for killing.

Continue reading → Killing without Due Process

Posted on

Facebook is Running Out of Space

I am fascinated by how we know, learn and propagate information into the icy aging of our future.  This week I had a flood of email in my Facebook Inbox — from only my friends in Germany — suggesting the social networking service was running out of server space. 

Continue reading → Facebook is Running Out of Space

Posted on

Red Scare in Twilight's Last Gleaming

Every so often, we need to stop, decompress from the tension in our present lives and look back at the human traps that were set in order to punish the foreign and the strange — and then we must vow to never let that happen again.  Today, let us look back in fury at the “Red Scare” that throttled everything good about America after World War I.

Continue reading → Red Scare in Twilight's Last Gleaming

Posted on

Blocking the USNS Impeccable in the South China Sea

On Monday, China decided the USNS Impeccable was inappropriately “surveying” their people and China set about to set in place a blockade — an incarceration at sea — to prevent the United States from their alleged unlawful action. 

Continue reading → Blocking the USNS Impeccable in the South China Sea

Posted on

All the Down Days

America is shrinking.  We’re officially in a recession — for the last year without officially knowing it until yesterday — and the influence of the USA abroad is waning and is in danger of completely failing.  Is there really a bits worth of difference between “recession” and “depression” in the eye of the mind?

Continue reading → All the Down Days

Posted on

When Security Agreements Mean Torture

Amnesty International is reporting a new security agreement between the USA and Iraq would lead to the torture of over 16,000 detainees:

Continue reading → When Security Agreements Mean Torture