Last week, I referred to the genesis of the Second Amendment, and its original intent. The volume of listener response, stunned at hearing facts I mentioned in passing, made me realize it was time to revisit this subject in greater depth. I'd done just that a few years ago, but there are lots of new readers on this blog post, and besides, in this "information age," facts can get buried under so-called information. Some scholars still disagree with aspects of this finding, but it's pretty well-documented history, thanks to the work of Roger Williams School of Law professor Carl T. Bogus in 1998, as well as that of historian Richard Hildreth as early as 1840 (on the antebellum South), and in 1995 of Clayton Cramer, on the Second Amendment basis for the Black Codes adopted after the Civil War, requiring emancipated Africans and African Americans (but not whites) to obtain...
I have been virtually inarticulate with anger, nauseated with rage, over the revelations that Rob Porter, White House secretary and special aide to White House Chief of Staff Marine General John Kelley, had a long history of apparent violence against women. A former wife. Two ex-wives, in fact. Two ex-wives plus a former girlfriend. As I write this, news breaks that a fourth woman may have come forward. I’ve been so livid over this, and over the White House reaction, that I couldn't find my way “in” to write about it. So many, too many, elements of disgust. Some commentators focused on Porter’s lack of a security clearance despite his handling of the most sensitive classified documents—because the FBI wouldn't grant clearance to a man with a history of such violence. We now know the White House knew about Porter months ago. This man is now dating Hope Hicks, a former...
On January 22, the world lost a great writer. That word, ”great,” is tossed around like cheap confetti, but in this case it's the unadorned truth. This country, too, lost one of its sharpest consciences, a citizen who ceaselessly reminded us that freedom was everyone’s birthright and fighting to keep it was our job, yours and mine. This writer was political in the deepest sense—not through jargon but through her own esthetic genius and the sweat of her craft. Ursula Kroeber Le Guin was born in 1929 in Berkeley, California. She died at age 88 in Portland, Oregon, where she had lived for many decades. She’s survived by her husband of 63 years, historian, writer, and superb gardener, Charles; and their three grown children, two daughters and a son. She's also survived by 23 novels, 12 collections of her more than 100 short stories, five books of essays, 13 books...
