Month: January 2022

This is an important book. It talks knowledgeably about guns and the nasty relationship between the NRA and American politics. This co-dependence has helped bring carnage to the country’s streets and schools for too long. Today, any discussion of guns raises the adrenalin of outrage by opponents and proponents much in the same way as…

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/10/sports/ncaafootball/uga-national-championship-bulldog.html The BIG DAWG, a champion for these times, OUR NATIONAL CHAMPION! Woof, Woof!

Given my career teaching history, I feel compelled to say a few words concerning the current brouhaha about the teaching of history. As a subject, history is usually not given much attention until some politician or political partisan stumbles on to something they can use to push their cause. Right now, history is important in…

The last couple years I’ve had lunch with several friends who voted for Trump in 2016 and continued to support him in 2020. They were good friends whom I’d known for years. We’d never really talked about politics other than a casual reference to issues we might have in common. Then the Trump presidency changed…

The first year anniversary of the attack on the Capital last January 6 promises political fireworks and nonsensical polemics. Democrats, many independents and others will see the date as a failure of our democracy and be critical of those who perpetrated the awful actions of that day. Others, led by Republicans, will downplay the attack…

Like most of you, I grew up at a time when there were not today’s “culture wars,” opposition to getting shots to stay healthy, or attacks on the nation’s capital with the intent to overturn a presidential election. I also had the good fortune to spend a career teaching and writing about history without fear…

I have mixed feelings about being back on St. Simons for the winter. The weather has been splendid with temperatures in the 70s and 80s and plenty of sun. Who could complain, it’s winter. Still, there’s a nagging sense that all is not well in paradise. It was over two years ago at this time…

This essay is copied from yesterday’s Globe and Mail (Ontario Edition). It is an opinion piece, titled “Divided They Fall,” taken from Stephen Marche’s latest book, The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future. Submitted by George Shafer, Almonte, Ontario. The question facing those who care about the United States is how, not if,…