1 One hundred seventy-six years ago today, John Louis O’Sullivan, a journalist, coined the term “manifest destiny” to justify annexation of the Texas and Oregon territories by the United States. O’Sullivan was a native New Yorker, educated at Columbia University… Read More ›
republicans
Where Are They Today?
NEWTON LEROY “NEWT” GINGRICH Born in Harrisburg, Penn., in 1943, Newt Gingrich, a former history professor, writer, and documentarian, now 78 and living in McLean, Va., was quite the talk of Washington in his day. He earned a BA in… Read More ›
Banana Republic USA
William Sydney Porter, better known as O. Henry, had moved to New York City in 1902. A year earlier in a short story, Porter coined the phrase “banana republic” to describe a fictional Central American nation called Costaragua. In 1904,… Read More ›
Around the Novahood
OUTFOXING THE CRITTERS Many traditions represent nostalgic calls to remember cherished moments or events of the past. Some traditions, however, are prized by the few and evoke sentiments of a type of noblesse oblige of past class structure. Out of… Read More ›
Voting Nullification
Except for the continued inanity of conspiracy theorists and theories about the theft of the 2020 presidential election, we may be grateful in this post-Thanksgiving moment that our ballots in that contest mattered and prevailed. Virginia turnout was 75% of… Read More ›
The Itinerant Vigilante
Don Quixote was not a vigilante in the literal sense of the term. His self-appointed mission was essentially to revive the romantic qualities of medieval chivalry as a knight errant wandering in search of adventures. An ideal knight represented a… Read More ›
ICYMI……….November 15, 1919
One hundred two years ago today, the US Senate for the first time invoked the cloture rule to limit debate on pending legislation, i.e., to end a filibuster. Filibuster derives from a Dutch word for “freebooter,” related to piracy and… Read More ›
Aborting Democratic Elections
There is a corollary to the adage about power and corruption. Election victories cause visions of power to infect reason. Virginia’s newly elected attorney general, Jason Miyares, announced that he would seek legislation from the General Assembly authorizing his office… Read More ›
My Words, Not Yours
2 November 5, breaking news, the head of the University of Florida reversed the earlier decisions barring the professors from testifying. Watch this space. If you hadn’t noticed, there is a well-organized… Read More ›