“A Letter from the Editor”

The following was submitted to the New York Sun on September 3rd:

“As if I didn’t have enough to distract and depress me. A newly energized and enabled Russia, back to its murderously mischievous ways. A faith based fascism that slaughters with divine sanction. Global warming and pendemic obesity (which may be the cause of global warming). And a swarming lot of miscreants, malefactors and mediocrities otherwise known as Congress. I won’t start sitting shiva yet but the loss of the New York Sun would be a loss to those who still value ideas and ideals. The Bolsheviks and bedwetters at the Times can hardly be expected to fill the void, they are the void.”

That a newspaper many (though not enough) of us have come to regard as essential can’t survive suggests a culture and intellectual climate in decline.

Who you gonna call?

Having a simplistic understanding of a simpler age, some residents of New Orleans imagined they’d have the need and the right to defend themselves and their property in the wake of Hurricane Gustav, and the effective absence of civil authority.

It’s one of those NRA inspired urban myths, and a gross misreading of the notion of unalienable rights, among these, life ….

I suppose if you were splitting hairs that might entail possessing the means (firearms) to make survival at least a plausible probability.

Recent history, sometimes referred to as experience, teaches us that self-reliance can also be a civic virtue. When we defend ourselves we defend society against the chaos and collapse that capitulation invites.