Returning, hopefully wiser

It has been nine months since I posted. For a variety of reasons I stopped, despite enjoying having a platform that was truly my own. I was linking largely to my National Review pieces, as well as some from other sites, but I don't think I had thought about what I really wanted from a blog.

I like to think that I'm of perhaps the last generation that did not feel the need to express every thought, or random synaptic firing, in a public venue; that writing should be thoughtful and careful, and most of all, should have something to say. The extraordinary opportunities the internet brings for publication have been as liberating as they have been corrosive of reasoned thought, measured expression, and useful discourse. A blog is often too easy a spot to rush out hasty opinions and drop the filter between one's private life and one's public persona. I know too many people, some of them friends, who already do that, and do it successfully enough to make a career out of it.

I never meant for this blog to host original articles, especially those connected to my professional career. Those I am happy to publish elsewhere. But, I did think it could serve as a vehicle for me to archive my own work and create a record of those things digital that I found interesting or useful or merely diversionary.

Now, I think I may be ready to accept this blog as a type of digital notebook. If I can record some of my own thoughts as they develop, draft out ideas for future articles, reflect on what I've done, then it seems to me a useful exercise.

For now, in the spirit of archiving, I will spend some time linking to the pieces of mine that I like which have come out in since last May. After that, we'll see. 

Honoring America's World War II Air Forces on V-E Day

Today, the capital witnessed a once-in-a-lifetime display of dozens of America's most famous WWII warplanes. In honor of the 70th anniversary of V-E Day, the skies over the National Mall were filled with amazing aircraft like the P-38, F4U, B-17, and B-29 for the "Arsenal of Democracy: World War II Victory Capitol Flyover." Thousands turned out to watch, and I sat just in front of the U.S. Capitol, cheering like everyone else. It felt like being a part of the history which is so much still in our national consciousness. I write about it in more depth over at National Review.

On Human Origins, Neanderthals, and Dogs

As a relatively new dog owner, one of the most fascinating areas of anthropological research to me is the human-canid connection. I had a beagle growing up, in middle and high school, but was a typically disengaged teenaged owner. Now, however, as the "father" to a German Shepherd-Lab-Border Collie mix, I'm surprised to have developed very strong and personal feelings that unless one owns a dog, in some ways one is not fully human. I don't mean in a biological way, of course, but in an anthropological or sociological way, the same way I feel about having children. To me, that unit of parents-children-dog seems perfectly balanced, even natural, though I certainly wouldn't criticize anyone for having neither children nor dog (nor for being unmarried, for that fact).

There is a reason, however, that we call dogs "man's best friend." And science has steadily been providing the supporting evidence to understand what that really means. It is closer to being proved that the human-dog relationship did in fact help make us human. A brand-new book by Penn State anthropologist Pat Shipman, The Invaders, makes that case that a homo sapiens--wolf-dog alliance during the late Pleistocene Era helped ensure the survival of modern humans, and thereby of human civilization.

The book is primarily an attempt to answer the question why did the Neanderthals go extinct in Eurasia, thereby leaving the recently-arrived Homo sapiens as the only hominin on earth? Shipman's argument turns in no small part on the partnership between two apex predators: early humans and wolf-dogs. This allowed for more efficient and lethal hunting, which benefited both species, and permanently altered Eurasia's ecosystem.

I will be doing a full review of the book for The Claremont Review of Books later this year, but for now, I walk my dog in full appreciation that we are carrying on an alliance that may be as old as 40,000 years.

Mad Max at the Baseball Dome

What would it be like to live in a dystopic future? To play professional sports in an empty stadium, like Rome after the fall?

Yesterday, America found out, as the Orioles and White Sox contested in front of 45,000 empty seats in Baltimore. A failure of governance that caused the shut down of a major American city, and the bizarre spectacle of baseball with no fans allowed inside the park, for their own safety. A one-time occurrence or a harbinger of the future? I write about it here.

HistoryWatch: Gibbon's Birthday

On this day in 1737, Edward Gibbon, the greatest Enlightenment historian was born. Last year, I was in Rome on the 250th anniversary of the famous day he decided to write a history of the "decline and fall of the City."

You can find a brief celebratory piece marking that anniversary here. 

Nuclear Deja vu

What could possibly be the odds that the grandson and namesake of the man who dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima is now in charge of America's nuclear bombers? This takes historical rhyming to a new level. A short piece on Brig Gen Paul W. Tibbets IV is here. 

Some Life Lessons, Courtesy of Baseball

Every spring, hope returns to millions of baseball fans. Growing up a Chicago Cubs fan, that moment of expectation was particularly powerful, given what usually transpired during the rest of the Cubs' season.

Yet the real hope that baseball gives is tied to life lessons: on hard work, responsibility, and the occasional heroics. At no time do these lessons, and the optimism that comes from them, appear more powerful than when a heralded rookie gets his shot in the Major Leagues. Early this year, that lesson was provided by the Cubs' Kris Bryant. I wrote about him and the larger meaning of his call-up to the Show here.