I turn fifty-eight this Wednesday. I have been planning for retirement with something closer to obsession than diligence: watching accounts I cannot influence, building calculators to predict a future that has no obligation to cooperate with them, and treating Social Security as the floor beneath the floor. I never trusted the state enough to loveContinue reading “The Body as Verdict”
Tag Archives: FDR
July 4, 2026
Normally I would append this personal observation as a coda. My post on the Imperial Presidency below is too clean, too intellectual; a register I hide in when I need to process something that has not yet resolved itself emotionally. For all the veneer of historical distance, the current public discourse feels shallow to me,Continue reading “July 4, 2026”
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”
Protective Arts 