Yesterday, the Stars & Stripes Washington Nationals Baseball Cap arrived. Baseball teams started wearing patriotic baseball caps on national holiday weekends a few years ago. (And yes, the Toronto Blue Jays have their own patriotic cap, with the Maple Leaf instead of the Stars and Stripes.) Despite my love of the Cubs :cubs: I don’tContinue reading “A Tale of Two Baseball Caps”
Tag Archives: History
On the Tea Party and Their Place in History
Just when I think politics can’t get any stranger, a Congressional candidate in Alabama seems to be advocating armed rebellion. What bothers me is the bewildering lack of historical understanding on display here. Railing against a progressive income tax? Thomas Paine was in favor; read The Rights of Man where he devotes an entire chapter.Continue reading “On the Tea Party and Their Place in History”
On Historical Musings and the Grand Union Flag
I receive interesting mail on occasion. Recently, I got a letter from George W. Bush’s Presidential Library. That went in the garbage. That was followed by a letter from John Boehner; he thinks taxes are too high, when the federal tax burden now is lower than at any time in the last fifty years, goingContinue reading “On Historical Musings and the Grand Union Flag”
On Writing a Weekend To-Do List
The weekend is at hand. This morning, on the train, rather than muse on the gloominess of the world, I wrote out a “To Do” list for the weekend. I write out “To Do” lists for the office most mornings; my cubicle neighbor can’t see the point, but I like thinking through what I’m doing,Continue reading “On Writing a Weekend To-Do List”
On Let It Be, Forty Years On
Forty years ago today, The Beatles’ Let It Be arrived, and an era came to an end. The band had already disintegrated in the summer of ’69. Paul McCartney announced that he had left the band in April, before the release of his solo album McCartney. It wasn’t just a Beatles album, it was theContinue reading “On Let It Be, Forty Years On”
On Senator Judd Gregg’s Ahistory Lesson
Dear Senator Judd Gregg: I read with some interest your recent comments on the Founding Fathers and the need for supermajority votes in the United States Senate. I believe you said: The Founding Fathers realized when they structured this they wanted checks and balances. They didn’t want things rushed through. They saw the parliamentary system.Continue reading “On Senator Judd Gregg’s Ahistory Lesson”
On Health Care Reform, Then and Now
Saturday mornings I have a routine. I get up. I fix coffee. I eat a bowl of cereal. I listen to Weekend Edition Saturday on NPR. This has been my routine for pretty much the past three years; prior to that, I always worked on Saturdays, and thus Weekend Edition wasn’t something I could listenContinue reading “On Health Care Reform, Then and Now”
On Passages
Yesterday, Howard Zinn passed away. Today, J.D. Salinger. I’ve read both men’s work. I would not characterize myself as a fan of other, though I respected what they both wrote, even liked much of it. Salinger I read, like most people, in high school. I didn’t find his work as revelatory as my classmates did.Continue reading “On Passages”
On a Letter to Myself, Aged Sixteen
Dear Allyn, aged sixteen, In many ways, you and I are strangers. The passage of twenty years will do that, making strangers of even the closest of friends, and you and I are closer than friends, family, even brothers. You are me at sixteen, I am you at thirty-six. Twenty years. You may find itContinue reading “On a Letter to Myself, Aged Sixteen”
On Historical Revisionism and 9-11
The Orwellian mindset of the Bush Administration lives on. According to Mary Matalin, George Bush “inherited the most tragic attack on our own soil in our nations history.” Ms. Matalin, who was President on September 11, 2001? It wasn’t George Bush’s predecessor. Ms. Matalin, who was given a Presidential Daily Briefing on August 6, 2001Continue reading “On Historical Revisionism and 9-11”