It’s the blecks (1): Guns. My biggest email bag of the month came after I hypothesized, in the March 23rd Radio Derb, that the enthusiasm white Americans display for owning guns, unusualamong Western nations, is connected to the other distinctive thing about our country: the presence in it, from the beginning, of a large black... Read More

Steven Runciman’s 1951 History of the Crusades is nowadays regarded with some skepticism by serious scholars; but it’s the one I was raised on, and it’s wonderfully cynical. And for cynics, the story of the Children’s Crusade is especially satisfying. This Crusade was led by Stephen of Cloyes, “a shepherd-boy of about twelve years old,”... Read More

There is an old joke, known I am sure to most of my listeners, about the Second Coming. That instinct to look busy is common to all bureaucratic organizations, including of course the federal government. It seized President Trump this week. On Wednesday, February 28, he held an hour-long televised session at the White House... Read More

My impression is that the U.S.A. is a much more hysterical country than it used to be. You can, in your imagination, conjure up the way particular human types will react to some public event. How would a thoughtful, law-abiding, middle-class family man react? How would a vinegary old maid react? How would a ditzy... Read More

Another school shooting, another flurry of pointless arm-flapping from the commentariat, every commentator mounting his favorite hobby-horse and galloping off to the races. Most popular: Stricter federal gun control! Couple of problems with that, most notably: It’s not what Americans want. Alex Tabarrok at Marginal Revolution tweeted out a very nifty little video showing the... Read More