No Kings

Public virtue cannot exist in a nation without private, and public virtue is the only foundation of republics. But virtue must be vigilant lest it become tyranny. -John Adams, Discourses on Davila This Saturday (10/18/25), Portland filled with 40,000 protesters. The “No Kings March” is meant to remind those in power that sovereignty belongs toContinue reading “No Kings”

The Wadhams Surname

In Genetics and New England Pathology, I sketched a possible line to medieval England to illustrate a simpler truth from population genetics: the number of ancestral positions doubles geometrically, while the number of people who actually left you DNA shrinks via pedigree collapse. From this follows an unsettling comfort: living humans are orders of magnitudeContinue reading “The Wadhams Surname”

China is the Paper Tiger

Business is war, and war is business. — Sean Connery as Captain John Connor, Rising Sun (1993) In the early 1990s, Rising Sun captured an America unsettled by Japan’s economic ascent. Beneath its murder mystery plot lay a parable about national confidence; the fear that Japan’s discipline and precision might eclipse Western improvisation and ingenuity.Continue reading “China is the Paper Tiger”