A life in words

  • Dump Trump

    Can we as a nation finally be done with Donald Trump? He doesn’t just talk nonsense—these days he actively spews the worst of ideas, verging on Hitlerian. For example, today in an official campaign press release candidate Trump proposed barring all Muslims from entering the country: Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and…

  • France and America

    France is a lovely country. Paris, a delightful city. The attacks last week were a disgusting expression of an empty ideology that hurts its practitioners and its victims both. The outpouring of support and solidarity that people around me have shown for France frankly caught me by surprise. It seems we’re past the old pettiness…

  • Timpanogos

    Timpanogos

    I’m terrified of heights. For nearly all of my life this instinctive fear has kept me far, far away from yawning chasms, precipitous drops, and freaky precipices. But somehow, in recent years, I’ve found myself called by the allure of high places—their very horror makes them weirdly attractive, and they’ve become a challenge, a quest.…

The common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it. It serves… to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection [and] opens the door to foreign influence and corruption….George Washington, Farewell Address