If you … intend to be first in, and hit your enemy in the belly, and kick him when he is down, and boil your prisoners in oil (if you take any!), and torture his women and children, then people…

So. Another decade behind us, another in front. Journalists love nothing more than the opportunity to gaze analytically in either direction. “Fills up the paper,” we used to say, back when newspapers needed constant filling to complement the ads on…

Memorizing the Middle English of Geoffrey Chaucer — as required in the senior English curriculum of long ago — I found sheer repetition the ticket to success. Whan that Aprille … whan that Aprille … whan that Aprille … over and over…

Pretty much every American lacking a cemetery address understands the purpose of the rhetoric of the House Judiciary Committee’s report this week on impeachment: “betrayed the nation,” “threat to the Constitution,” “engaged in a pattern of misconduct.” And so on….

A history professor I once studied under tended to offer a weary response to technical, and highly dispensable, questions of the sort that arise in weary seminars. To wit: “But what’s that got to do with the price of eggs?”…

The Anglican Church of Canada clutches its throat at the prospect of — Lord have mercy — shutting down its ministries and works 20 years from now. You know — putting up the “Closed” sign, the public demand for said…

Beyond the Trump impeachment mess, which is due to be settled one of these days — I think in Trump’s favor, but what do I know? Beyond the impeachment mess, I was starting to declare, sprawl before us … what,…

“Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord” — a pretty flat declaration as reported by the Apostle Paul, leaving few gaps for politicians to fill at their own discretion. But you know politicians. Here we go with the…

Beto O’Rourke’s pullout from the presidential race leaves the Democrats with, oh, a mere dozen and a half or so candidates available to run the country. The country’s corresponding task is to keep awake for the remainder of the race….

So you’re surprised? Sorry not to join in the sentiment. Our eyes, our instincts have noted silently the growing disappearance of religious commitment, as revealed in a new survey by the Pew Research Center. The famous “nones” — whose interest…