Tuesday 29 November. A good night of sleep. Now I feel equal to it. After class yesterday, I ventured into the heart of Rome. There I found my way to the statue of Bruno in the Campo di Fiori. He, a Renaissance humanist, heretic, and memorization master, was burned at the stake in 1600, for […]

Journal of a journey to Rome. I’m teaching a capstone humanities course for a Catholic university. 25 students. They have been there all semester, staying in a convent that has plenty of room for the campus. My job is to show them things about Rome that they might not otherwise have the opportunity to see. […]

I had the honor today to hear the world renowned Lakota flute player and hoop dancer Kevin Locke perform in Bismarck. He’s in his 60s now. He has been performing all over the world since he was in his early twenties. He’s a national and international treasure. Someone I know, who knows these things, says […]

To the skeptics, the detractors, the cynics. I know many of you have little respect for the Standing Rock Sioux (Lakota) in the ongoing Dakota Access Pipeline crisis. Your views by now are pretty well known: a) the Sioux leadership should have been at the negotiating table long ago, when it might have made a […]

When Thomas Jefferson defeated John Adams in the presidential election of 1800, Adams was bitter for several reasons. First, he was an important American patriot and revolutionary who believed he deserved to be re-elected by the American people. He could not understand why someone of his historical significance would be retired after a single term. […]

As the election lurches toward us I find myself in a deep sadness, even a depression. Probably Mrs. Clinton is going to win. If she does, it will not give her a mandate or even a reasonably good chance of proving herself as President. She will be wounded from the moment she declares victory. If […]

By now we all know that Donald Trump is a loose cannon. He says things he cannot possibly mean in order to whip his national constituency into a frenzy of xenophobia, islamophobia, race hatred, American-firstism, and the zeal to depart 11-15 million illegal immigrants. His misogyny, both in the words that come out of his […]

As perhaps you know, the Native Americans encamped on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation felt that they were perhaps being sprayed with tear gas yesterday, September 28, 2016. They were not. Although Morton County law enforcement brought armored vehicles and a range of other paramilitary devices to the scenes of protest, the spray plane turned […]