Peter Biles, a fiction writer and essayist, discovered freedom in writing when he stopped worrying about “literary style” and instead focused on telling a story. He writes about it at Front Porch Republic: “Writing for the Common Good.”
Regardless of what you think about the new Administration, something extraordinary happened at the AI Summit in Paris: Vice President J.D. Vance gave a speech that the Europeans clearly disliked but needed to hear, and it is one fine speech. I watched it and I read the transcript, and it’s a speech like what used to be given when political leaders actually gave intelligent speeches. I didn’t know that, a year ago when Vance (then a first-term senator) spoke to largely the same group in Munich, he was essentially ignored and treated with disdain over a message their own peoples were telling them. Not this time. You can read the transcript of his Munich speech here.
Of all the news pouring out of Washington with “the Great Upheaval,” two items in particular caught my eye. The U.S. government has directly and indirectly been funding Hamas for years, including $2.1 billion since the terror group killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 250 hostages on Oct 7, 2023. The second concerns the Environmental Protection Agency, and the now-infamous “we’re dumping gold bars off the Titanic” caper, as one EPA staffer described it to an undercover journalist. The gold bars have been found, and the story and the antics involved are extraordinary even by Washington standards.
The stories about USAID, EPA, and the other targets of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) are resonating in some pretty unexpected places, like with former officials of the Obama Administration. We are witnessing a sea change the like of which we haven’t seen in our lifetimes.
More Good Reads
British Stuff
Two-tier policing is a feature, not a bug – Ryan Christopher at The Critic Magazine.
Art
What we learned from the show of Monet’s London paintings at the Courtauld – Martin Bailey at The Art Newspaper.
Writing and Literature
Hemingway’s Faith – Robert Lazu Kmita at The Imaginative Conservative.
Writing Exile and Reading Homeward – Matt Miller at Front Porch Republic.
American Stuff
Abraham Lincoln in Connecticut – Andrew Fowler at Yankee Institute.
My Statement to Congress – Matt Taibbi at Racket News.
Statement on the Censorship-Industrial Complex – Rupa Subramanya at The Free Press.
American Strong Gods – N.S. Lyons at The Upheaval.
Faith
The Conundrum of Celebrity Christians – Robb Brunansky at The Cripplegate.
Marketing Jesus: The Promise and Peril of ‘He Gets Us’ – Samuel D. James at The Gospel Coalition.
Peter Harrison’s Challenge to the Secular Mythos – James Ungureanu at Church Life Journal.
Keep Calm and Stay Friends – Tim Challies.
Poetry
“Our Little Ghost,” poem by Louisa May Alcott – Midge Goldberg at Poems Ancient and Modern.
Lost Beauty – poem by Ed Mayhew and artwork by Ally Gordon at Rabbit Room Poetry.
Life and Culture
Fake papers are contaminating the world’s scientific literature – Frederick Joelving at Popular Science.
News Media
News or Narrative: The Battle for Truth – John Stonestreet and Timothy Padgett at Breakpoint / Colson Center.
Felt My Heart Breaking – Andrew Duhon
Painting: Young Boy Reading, oil on canvas by Henri Labesque (1865-1937).
1 comment:
I watched Vance's speech, too, Glynn. Everyday, I thank God for him, our president and their DOGE team for finding and rooting out the waste, fraud and abuse in our federal departments. America needs a clean house!
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