Kant writes: only three [forms of sovereignty] are possible: namely, either only one , or some in association, or all those together who constitute the civil society possess sovereign power (…

What is the human will?How does the will interact with reason?Does the will follow reason’s lead, or is the will the ultimate decider?If the will is indeed the ultimate decider, how does it go about…

In late December 2015, Otto Warmbier boarded a flight to a place most people only understand through headlines—North Korea. A 21-year-old college student from Ohio, Otto wasn’t a journalist or a spy.…

Kant says that a virtuous persons has the happiness of others as an end. Note that this is not an end in the sense of a goal which we try to achieve. For the goal can’t be that all others are happy .…

child labourers, Pennsylvania, 1910, photo by Lewis Hine in the National Archives A couple of people have asked me, after I’d written several times about what I call the…

In the last week I've found myself in two situations where I had to explain that despite all the crap I've been through, I wouldn't change a thing. That I love who I am, and I'm the product of…

Researching a Pennsylvania ancestor in 1926? WWI draft cards, the 1920/1930 census, SS-5 applications, and passenger lists make this a records-rich year. (153)

A collection of beautiful, high-resolution photolog scans reveals a colorful world of pastel-colored cars and whimsical signage.

The latest results from the National Folklore Survey for England A quarter of people say the summer or winter solstices are of spiritual significance to them personally, according to the National…

INTRODUCTORY NOTE: This article does not argue one way or the other as to whether Mark 16:9-20 was originally part of the Biblical text. Helpful articles both for and against are available on the…

The story of post-revolutionary Iran has been one of missed opportunities and of a government betraying its people, explain the authors of a new history of the period

A clip from an essay on Zhaungzi's approach to virtue.

Many visiting European novelists wrote disparaging things about America. Georges Duhamel (1884-1966), author of America, the Menace, was probably the meanest of the French writers. The harshest…

The pillars of Cincinnati society shook in 1910 as two very wealthy and very much respected women tussled over a man neither had ever met. The man in question was Abraham Lincoln, and he had been…

We are exiting the age of reason and reentering the age of faith. In 1651, in the aftermath of a century of religious war, Thomas Hobbes set out to end the age of faith. Leviathan would swap the…

Green thoughts Churchyards. I’ve been in a lot of them in my time and mostly I can concur with the narrator of Samuel Beckett’s First Love , ‘Personally I have no bone to pick with graveyards, I take…

Explore the Buttolph Collection from the New York Public Library's archive of historic menus.

This snapshot is labeled Four Generations, 1905 - with no names or locations! It is glued to the back of the paper that has the 1906 wedding cake and 1901 Frank Hankins photos. Since those photos are…

Lots of words in this book on the history of photography in New Zealand.

It turns out the term “whitebread”, used to insult white American racists/nativists has some actual history, involving actual… white bread?!

A newly-manufactured (and already weatherworn) torii stands in front of the reinstalled monument. Along the waterfront in the Port of Hualien stands a monument dedicated to the memory of Eguchi…

For me, the best book critiquing the “nudge” agenda is Robert Sugden’s The Community of Advantage. As he writes from within the field, Sugden engages with the most technical arguments while avoiding…

I've been taking my tarot study more seriously this year and observed that being separated from all my books while I was in NJ for a month forced me to reflect on my personal interpretations. We just…

Two hundred fifty years ago — give or take a couple months, since it had to be sent by sail and not e-mail — a bunch of uppity colonials provided a convenient checklist of objections to their…

Orginal post: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Johann Henrich Nölken , son of Johann Henrich and Maria Catharina (Wenneman) Nölken, was baptized in Glandorf 4 March 1766 1 and died there 5 September 1839. 2…

Every interview with Christian Wiman is chock full of poetry and aphorisms to think with, and this one is no different. Especially grateful for this, though: Simone Weil says, “There are two…

A history of the Jewish Labor Bund, Here Where We Live Is Our Country plots the arc of the organization from the tsarist Pale of Settlement, to interwar Poland, into war-torn Warsaw and somehow,…

1832 map of Ipswich, Massachusetts This is the 11th Revolutionary War ancestor I have written about in this series. My 5th great grandfather Amos Burnham was born on 13 July 1735 in Ipswich,…

Today's is the last post covering Chapter 2. This is part of my endeavor to review Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari one page at a time . After a brief respite from…

If I say one hundred prayers a day in the silence of Katounakia and you say three prayers amidst the tumult of the city and your professional and family obligations, then we are equal. St. Ephraim of…

These are additional resources for a talk delivered at the annual conference 'On History and Literature' held in Calcutta in July 2025.

            As communist countries transitioned to capitalism, numerous existing institutions lost their relevance and countries found…

By Michael KelleyThe novelist Kurt Vonnegut who is best known for his work, Slaughterhouse-Five, argued that there are only a few basic stories that are common to all mankind. Those basic stories…

Without moral ambition, argues Bregman, you just end up as a money maximizing consultant. Or working for big tech on the trend du jour. Overall I found this book to be not especially groundbreaking,…

A symbol of freedom standing atop the United States Capitol seems like the perfect representation of American ideals. But what if one of the people most responsible for bringing that […] The…

Io Galileo Galilei figlio del q. Vincenzo Galilei da Fiorenza, dell’età mia d’anti 70… dovessi lasciare la falsa opinione, che il sole sia centro del mondo, et immobile, e che la terra…

It's been awhile since I've made a state level map of any of the US States, but I got a recent request to map the State of New Mexico, and figured it was time to put another feather in my cap! New…

My DayOne journal entry reminds me that it was six years ago today that after far too many years of waffling, I finally drafted a letter to the leaders at our evangelical church letting them know we…

lingthusiasm:Lingthusiasm Episode 117: What makes for beautiful writing, scientifically speakingSometimes, a phrase seems to leap off the page and lodge into your mind, crisp and shining like a…

A distinguished historian gallantly tried to rescue Article the First from absurdity. The post How a distinguished historian tried to salvage the would-be first amendment appeared first on…

The cliff known to the Lakota people as Six Grandfathers, now known as Mount Rushmore. From Wikimedia, public domain.   Glenn Branch has pointed out that there is now a paper in the philosophy…

On February 28, 1979, my paternal grandfather, Alex, sent a letter to the management of Northwestern Steel and Wire on its 100th anniversary: I wish to extend my congratulations to your company on…

Jungian psychology is the study of the psyche—the totality of the mind, soul, and unconscious processes that shape human behavior. Why do we see ourselves one way while behaving another? Why can we…

Old Fort Niagara is a bit of an unusual site for me to cover. Despite being at the mouth of the Niagara River on Lake Ontario, it's not really a coastal fort, because 20 miles up the Niagara River is…

Welcome to our weekly study! Each week, our reading plan will take us through three different parts of the Bible: a psalm, a passage from Proverbs, and a few chapters from another book as we journey…

This is a dharma talk I gave at the New Paltz Zen Center on June 19, 2026. It was during a meditation retreat which will end with our student Monshin’s first dharma talk. Play the audio below,…

The Binding of Isaac is a very strange story. I’m not talking about the video game with the same name, but instead the original biblical story.