Saturday Good Reads - July 11, 2026

It’s one of those immediate political litmus tests. The White House Domestic Policy Council issued a report on the National Museum of American History, aka the American History Museum on the Mall in Washington, D.C. Using the museum leadership’s own words and actions, the report said this: “Museum leadership has explicitly adopted an ideological framework that no longer treats the American story as a shared national inheritance to be taught or celebrated, but as a political instrument to divide, dispirit, and discourage our citizens.” Predictably, the blue side of politics and the news media were outraged; the red side of politics said, “Tell me something I don’t already know.” You can read the report yourself and decide. It’s 112 pages, but the executive summary is succinct. 

If you were asked to name the Founding Fathers, you would probably say George Washington, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson. You’d think a minute, and add Benjamin Franklin and James Madison and perhaps John Hancock, he of the large signature on the Declaration of Independence. And there are others, of course. But another one, who didn’t sign the Declaration and wasn’t featured in stirring patriotic poems or songs, deserves better recognition for his more-than-significant contributions to the American cause. And his name was George Whitefield.

 

More than 30 years ago, media and education critic Neil Postman (1931-2003) warned against the proliferation of media technology, including the use of computers and related devices in classrooms. It took us more than 30 years to begin to learn he was right. I read sevral of his books, and I still have a copy of Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology (1992). Emily Wenneborg at Front Porch Republic just read another Postman work, Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985), and she discovered the theme and ideas it contains have gone supernova.

 

More Good Reads

 

Faith

 

Ministry After the Boomer Apocalypse – Derek Rishmawy at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

God is Love – Bradley Birzer.

 

Love God with All Your Imagination: A Call for Christian Storytelling – Kathryn Butler at Desiring God.

 

Life and Culture

 

Anti-family propaganda has devastated a generation of women – Kate Marland at Canada’s National Post.

 

Classical Education is for Everyone – Nadya Williams at Mere Orthodoxy.

 

American Stuff

 

The World Cup has revived American soft power – Toby Young at The Spectator.

 

Citizen Kane, Orson Welles – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.

 

America 250

 

‘A powerful piece of propaganda: the bloody 1770 image that fueled the American Revolution – Deborah Nicholls0Lee at BBC.

 

John Paul Jones and the Invasion of England – Keli Holt at Just Enough History.

 

Writing and Literature

 

25 American Catholic Novels (1776-2026), Part 1 and Part 2 – Craft + Practice.

 

Poetry

 

The Geography of Memory: Saving Scents to Save Sense – Sandra Heska King.

 

“I Hear America Singing,” poem by Walt Whitman – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

British Stuff

 

Lost Spitalfields – Spitalfields Life.

 

My Own Writing This Week

 

Two poetry reviews at Tweetspeak Poetry – Commodore Rookery by Christy Lee Barnes and Instructions for Use by Arlene Demaris. And a remembrance / reflection at Dancing Priest: Communicating Through the Chaos. 

 

I’ll Fly Away – The Village Chapel

Painting: A Girl Reading, oil on canvas by Alexej Alexejewitsch Harlamoff (1840-1925).

Suffering and praise

After James 5:13-20 

Do you suffer?

Sing praise!

Do you ail in body

or heart? Sing

praise! Do you

hurt? Is your

heart sick?

Sing praise!

 

Praise is not

the first thing

we think of

when we’re sick,

when we suffer.

But to sing praise

is an act of

submission,

acknowledging

the One,

celebrating

the One, even

as we suffer.

He is there.

His is always

there.

 

Photograph by Road Trip with Raj via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Friday Readings

 

“Balloon Flower,” poem by Claudia Lee Hae-in – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

 

You Can Forgive Someone and Still Lock the Door – Lara d’Entremont at A Mother Held.

 

“Glorious Things of Thee Are Spoken,” hymn by John Newtson – Anthony Esolen at Word & Sing.

 

“The Book of the World,” poem by William Drummond of Hawthornden – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

Poets and Poems: Arlene Demaris and “Instructions for Use”

I’ve read poems that are filled with tenderness. I’ve read poems that have an edge. But I can’t think of a collection I’ve read that have both tenderness and an edge. 

That is, until I read Instructions for Use: Poems by Arlene Demaris. Not only does she write poems that are tender with understanding, she also drops any idea of rose-colored glasses and smacks you with often-shocking reality. And what you realize is that this is life, with the good and the bad mixing together into one lump of what it means to be human. Or as Demaris writes, we forget “how much of us is salt water, how much of us is music.”

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Thursday Readings

 

“Brancusi’s Golden Bird,” poem by Mina Loy – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Poet Laura: One Fine July Day – Donna Hilbert at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

Lifetime Lease – poem by Seth Lewis.

 

“Song of Marion’s Men,” poem by Wiliam Cullen Byant – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

“Omaha Beach” and “Common Sense” – poems by Bradford Skow at Society of Classical Poets.

Communicating Through the Chaos

If I had any doubts from the job interview, the first day on the job was confirmation. The next few months underscored it. If I could summarize it one word, my job as Director of Communications for St. Louis Public Schools was all about chaos.  

Every day was chaotic. Little if anything could be anticipated or planned for. I often looked at the office telephone (and my Blackberry; that was the phone we used) as the enemy. You answered a call, and your day instantly changed.

 

I learned that I wasn’t the only one dealing with chaos. The man brought in to take over the district’s finances (which were a train wreck; the district was not only technically but actually bankrupt) was a former corporate CFO.  He dealt with impossible tasks every day. His wife later told me that she worried most about public meetings – Board of Education meetings, town halls, outreach meetings – because anything could and often did happen. She would look for me making a statement on TV news, and then she knew her husband was okay.

 

The district had all the problems of an urban school system – money problems, crime, declining educational standards and test scores, dropping enrollments, school consolidations. An outside management firm had been brought in to try to transform the district; school closures, budget reductions (the communications budget was reduced from $1 million to $20,000, and that had been spent by the time I arrived).

To continue reading, please see my post today at Dancing Priest.

Photograph by Wayee Tan via Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Wednesday Readings

 

Beyond the Modern Myths of Ancient Athens – Arlene Saxonhouse at Church Life Journal.

 

Winston Churchill, American Patriot – Michael Lucchese at Acton Institute.

 

“Malefactors of Great Wealth” – Burton Folsom at The Coolidge Review.

 

Writing My Novel on My Phone (and Through Grief) – Ros Hill at Writer’s Digest.

 

The Road Vanished Before We Reached Dinner – Riyanka Paul.

 

Poets and Poems: Christy Lee Barnes and “Commodore Rookery”

We just finished watching our youngest son’s wife navigate the first two stages of motherhood – pregnancy and childhood. She was a trooper, and I spent a lot of time in simple, quiet awe. And now our and her families have been blessed with fraternal twin boys. 

Poets have addressed motherhood probably ever since poetry first existed. Elizabeth Barrett Browning (”Mother and Poet”) and Christina Rossetti (“To My Mother”) come to mind, but even Edgar Allen Poe wrote “To My Mother.” Other poets who’ve written about mothers or motherhood include Gwendolyn Brooks, Sylvia Plath, Nikki Giovanni, Sharon Olds, Louisa May Alcott, Langston Hughes, Maya Angelou, William Blake, and Sara Teasdale.

 

Christy Lee Barnes navigates the territory of motherhood in her 16-poem chapbook, Commodore Rookery.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

10 Things Poets & Writers Can Do with the Small Moments – L.L. Barkat at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

Always, there is this fear of others falling – poem by Andrew Roycroft at New Grub Street.

 

“I Felt a Funeral in My Brain,” poem by Emily Dickinson – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

The Book – poem by Robert Cording at Rabbit Room Poetry.

 

Gleanings – poem by Scott Edward Anderson at Every Day Poems.

Some Monday Readings - July 6, 2026

The ex-Dominion – David Warren at Essays in Idleness. 

The untold story of Brexit – David Shipley at The Critic Magazine.

 

No Faith Worth Defending – Carl Trueman at First Things Magazine.

 

Where Did Lincoln Deliver the Gettysburg Address – Allen Guelzo at The Golden Thread. 

 

Fake World: Everything You Think Is a Lie – Joel Miller at Miller’s Book Review on Philip K. Dick’s The Penultimate Truth.

 

Journey’s Jonathan Cain releases patriotic rock anthem, reveals meaning of ‘Don’t Stop Believin’’ – Leah MarieAnn Klett at The Christian Post.

 

“We Always Leave Things Unfinished” – Alexander Sorondo at Big Reader Bad Grades.

 

St Bartholomew the Less, the Chapel and Parish Church of St Barts – A London Inheritance.

 

The age of Friedman – James Piereson at The New Criterion.

 

Photograph: Author Philip K. Dick (1928-1982).

Swearing is out

After James 5:7-12 

I don’t know how

to say it any plainer.

Don’t swear. Above

all else, don’t swear.

Don’t swear by heaven,

don’t swear by earth.

Don’t swear in any

other way. Do

something novel;

do something that’s

revolutionary. Let

your yes be yes; let

your no be no. In

that way, you will 

avoid condemnation.

Do the righteous thing,

now. Do the Godly

thing, now. Don’t swear.

 

Photograph by Usman Yousaf at Unsplash. Used with permission.

Some Sunday Readings

 

If God Meant Everybody, Why Did He Say Neighbour? – Seth Lewis.

 

Choose Better Words – Melissa Edgington at Your Mom Has a Blog.

 

The Presbyterian Revolution: The Faith That Founded America – Rob Pacienza at the Institute for Faith, Work, & Economics.