We have mobile phones, but we still have a landline. And according to caller ID, the most common caller we get on that line is someone I’ve grown rather fond of. His name is “Spam Risk.” He’s gotten crafty; he sometimes changes his name to “Medical Clinic,” or that of a local grocery chain, or just a location. But he is, and always will be, “Spam Risk.” He deserves his own short story or novel. But there might be hope for this unwanted intrusion; Gary Saul Morson describes it at The Wall Street Journal (story unlocked): A Modest Proposal to Deal with Spam Calls.
It might be because I’ve lived a long time. But what I do not get, at all, is this fascination for and support of socialism. Perhaps it’s because I’ve read The Gulag Archipelago, and I remember when it was published. Ot the killing fields of the Kymer Rouge in Cambodia in the 1970s. Or the brutal suppression of the “Prague Spring” in Czechoslovakia in 1968. For those who think it could never happen here, well, they never thought it would happen in lots of places. Bradley Birzer, writing at The Imaginative Conservative, looks at the resurgence of socialism here.
Family history is rarely handed down intact, or even handed down at all. I was told a few things about my paternal grandfather, for example, mostly about the crazy songs he liked to sing and the expressions he used. A story about my great-grandfather, however, was handed down, an epic Civil War story. I based my novel Brookhaven on that story. Except the handed-down story turned out to be almost entirely wrong. But the reality told another kind of story – about a father who lost two sons and a son-in-law in the Civil War and was terrified that his youngest would be called up, so he took steps to protect that son as long as he could. At Front Porch Republic, N.P. Curtin writes about the importance of family stories, and keeping the family history alive.
More Good Reads
Life and Culture
On visiting Auschwitz – Andy Owen at The Critic Magazine.
Art
How to Wreck a Museum – Caitlyn Flanagan at The Free Press.
The Gallery in Our Minds – Jeffrey Streeter at English Republic of Letters.
American Stuff
Booknotes: Researching Your Civil War Ancestor – Civil War Books and Authors.
Anthony Fauci’s Vaccine Deceptions – Vinay Prasad at The Free Press.
This High School Wouldn’t Fix Its Antisemitism Problem – Rupa Subramanya at The Free Press.
America 250
The Road to Yorktown – Kelu Holt at Just Enough History.
The Hessians Were Supposed to Quickly End the American Revolution. Instead They Endured Years of Battles and Suffered Thousands of Casualties – Greg Daugherty at Smithsonian Magazine.
Writing and Literature
The Brothers Karamazov in a Nutshell – Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative.
Exogenesis, Alexandria, and the Renewal of Language – Tessa Carman at Front Porch Republic.
Why We Still Read Novels – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.
British Stuff
Tom Vowden, Stained Glass Conservator – Spitalfields Life.
Faith
No Screens at Church – Rebecca Skabelund at Front Porch Republic.
When Did the Church Begin? – Anthony Faggiano at Reformed Dogmatika.
Poetry
“The Shooting of Dan McGrew,” poem by Robert Service – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.
“If I Could Tell You” by W.H. Auden – Read by Tom O’Bedlam
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