It is a key piece of America’s foundational myth that, unlike the world’s mono-ethnic societies, we are “Immigrant Nation,” welcoming of any and all souls “yearning to breathe free.” …

I loved the Queen. This appreciation starts here, from love. I have loved the Queen — Britain’s Elizabeth II — my whole long-ish American life. Which is strange (or not): Britons are always amused when another American professes love for their Queen, and professes it emphatically. There are legions of…

In the week since President Joe Biden’s speech in Philadelphia — titled “The Continued Battle for the Soul of the Nation” — there has been much criticism about the “political” and “partisan” nature of the speech. Certainly this was the Republican response, but also various reporters and commentators echoed this…

[With the awareness that many families are grappling with the mental health issues of their children — depression, anxiety, thoughts of suicide — I offer the following discussion. Where once the threat to youth was external — car wrecks, drugs — now it is internal, say experts: the hopelessness engendered…

Love — romantic love — has been a central theme, maybe the central theme, of the Modern age’s most popular art-form: the movies. And why ever not? One of the revelations of a life lived long enough is that the old truism really is true: Love really does make the…

Interesting how a book’s meaning alters from reading to reading. When I first read Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, in 2005, it was after my diagnosis of cancer. Beset with fear, I asked a friend who’s a classics scholar for guidance from the ancients; she suggested the Stoics, specifically Marcus Aurelius. More…

“When Republicans retake control of Congress in November.” This prediction — nay, foregone conclusion — dominates way too much air-time and column-space. We have been hearing it for months now. But: Don’t count those ballots before they are cast. Democrats have only begun to fight (right, Democrats?). And that fight…

Sometimes, a lightning bolt striking “over there” can reverberate over here. A new appreciation of something called “the rules-based international order” took hold of — seized, really — the American public with the invasion of Ukraine by its superpower neighbor, Russia. …

In Herman Melville’s brilliant novel Moby-Dick, the mad Captain Ahab knows he will prevail in his “monomaniac” pursuit of the Great White Whale at that precise moment when he sees — when he knows for a certainly — there will be no resistance put up by his first mate, Starbuck. …