Year: 2026

This weekend two stories in the news caught my attention. The first was Peggy Noonan’s column in The Wall Street Journal* and the second was David French’s column in The New York Times.** Both addressed Trump’s corruption of religion to bolster his power and importance. Noonan was her conciliatory and entertaining self while pointedly criticizing…

I am sitting here at the keyboard looking out over the marsh toward Sapelo Island and the horizon. The marsh is the defining feature of this coastal stretch, expansive and alluring in its promise of adventure. I’m at the FishCamp, a rustic cabin near Darien, Georgia, roughly 25 miles north of St. Simons Island. It…

Since the 2024 election, the nation has rushed headlong toward its own destruction under the auspices of a rogue president and a dysfunctional government in Washington. American politics has succumbed to an arteriosclerosis that has polarized the electorate and given rise to a political class intent on keeping power at any cost in its support…

At the recent No Kings rally on St. Simons, I met Pat Wilver, Democratic candidate for the coastal district being vacated by Buddy Carter. Though I had missed his speech to the assembled crowd, I had an opportunity to chat with him about our mutual interest after he noticed my Appalachian Trail cap. My wife…

It was a blustery day on St. Simons, but that did not stop the critics of the president from coming out to let their feelings known. Preceded by an earlier protest in Brunswick on the mainland, the St. Simons gathering was especially well attended and outspoken. Friends and neighbors came together with homemade signs and…

The president’s recent assignment of U. S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement officers (ICE) to help Transportation Security Administration agents (TSA) at U.S. airports during the government shutdown begs our attention. It is extraordinary and deserving of scrutiny for what it says about the administration’s mindset about governing and for where it might lead in the…

Two stories jumped out at me as I read The New York Times. One was the obituary of Robert Mueller and the other was a short piece about people in Odessa, Ukraine. The death of Robert Mueller was a prominent headline. He is especially remembered as the special counsel overseeing the investigations of alleged Russian…

Increasingly, I find myself thinking about the nameless people who are the victims of violence brought about by shameless politicians and authoritarian leaders. The Ukraine War, the Israeli destruction of Gaza and the Iran War have killed or maimed thousands of people, civilians and others whose fate has put them in the middle of geopolitical…

I have long worried about Russian aggression as a threat that never seems to be fully addressed. This has been highlighted by the ongoing war with Iran. The threat of Iran as a sponsor of terrorism and potential nuclear power has taken on an urgency which somehow needs to be addressed immediately, while Putin’s Russia…

If you turn on the television or pick up a newspaper, all the news is about the war with Iran. So far the bombing’s only success has been the “obliterating” of all other headlines. It is as if the world has taken a time out so that Americans can rush headlong into the abyss of…