As my Gentle Readers might have expected, I received quite a lot of feedback on the previous piece. I wasn’t surprised by the tone of it. Disappointed, perhaps, but not surprised. The mass warfare of World War II, in which many thousands of noncombatants died, should have taught us something. The atomic bombings, …
Category: nation-states
Apr 26 2024
Unspeakable Or Unthinkable?
There are things that must be said. Some of those things are terrible to contemplate. Fortunately, there are a few people, at least, who are willing to say them. I aspire to be numbered among them. Just now, the premier speaker of the unspeakable is Tucker Carlson: For those who don’t watch …
Jun 27 2023
The Great Retreat
What follows will be rather lengthy, I fear. So if you have other obligations that mustn’t be postponed for too long, please see to them before embroiling yourself in this piece. Among other things, it will embed quite a lot of citations from other, better known writers. As I know this displeases some readers, …
Jul 06 2022
New Things To Fear
Thankfully, the COVID-19 fear porn has exhausted its bite. In consequence, we who ask only to be left alone are beginning to peer “behind the curtain.” What we’re seeing is both astonishing and terrifying. Feel free to dismiss what follows as the ravings of a paranoid septuagenarian. I’m tempted to dismiss them myself …
Apr 05 2022
The Power Continuum
As the status quo is quoing along steadily just now, I thought I might resurrect an earlier Fran and write about one of my earlier areas of inquiry: power as exercised in the anarchic world of the “international order.” Commentators on geopolitics often refer to the distinctions between “hard” and “soft” power. Mostly, …
Mar 02 2022
Were He Not a Ruthless Killer, This Might Garner Some Sympathy
Some background first. On FB, Wretchard introduced an Elon Musk tweet to the video below with the comment: Some ideologies see ‘no people’ as the most humanitarian outcome. Naturally such a line caught my attention. Then this was how Musk introduced the video: Pretty good summary, although national pride is underweighted relative to economics. Latter …
Sep 05 2021
Long, Long Ago…
…back in the dark days before the Internet, there was a brilliantly scripted, star-studded movie, titled Network. It was scripted by Paddy Chayevsky and directed by Sidney Lumet. If you haven’t seen it, repent of your sins and beg, borrow, or buy the DVD. (If you don’t have a DVD player, buy one of …
Fran’s Recent Novels
Margaret’s Recent Novels
