When I was in college, taking upper division at Cal State University Northridge (a place of no particular fame or note, other than being one of those public unis which used to provide a fair education at relatively low cost) I had a lot of time between some of my classes, and spent many hours in the stacks of the Oviatt Library. On discovering the microfiche newspaper archives, squirreled away in the basement, I undertook a project to read, or at least skim one of them every daily issue from 1935 to 1945, on reels that covered two weeks at a time. I had already skimmed many of the bound periodicals of the weekly news magazines available Time, Life, Newsweek and the like because I had an interest in the period, they were available and what better way to agreeably pass the time between classes? (Both carried the comic strip Terry and the Pirates, which I found fascinating.) I wound up with the Chicago Tribune, after a trial of the Los Angeles Times, because the pages of the Times were scanned from side to side on the reels of microfiche, which made me slightly motion-sick to skim at speed, whereas the Tribune pages were scanned from top to bottom.
Blogging
Archive Post: Pax Romana
(A snippit at Sarah Hoyt’s place reminded me of this post, from 2006 at my original milblog.
The stone ruins of Imperial Rome underlie Western Europe and the Mediterranean like the bones of a body, partially buried, yet here and there still visible and grandly manifest above ground, all but complete. From Leptis Magna in North Africa, to Hadrian’s Wall in the contentious border between Scotland and England proper, from Split in the Former Yugoslavia, to the 81 perfectly preserved arches of the ancient bridge over the Guadiana River, in Merida that part of the empire called Hispania and in thousands of lesser or greater remnants, the presence of Rome is everywhere and inescapable. The same sort of cast- concrete walls, faced with pebbles, or stone or tile, the same sort of curved roof-tiles, the same temples to Vesta, and Jupiter, to Claudius, Mars and Mithras; the same baths and fora, market-places, villas and apartment buildings, all tied together by a network of commerce and administration. Goods both luxury and otherwise, adventurous tourists, soldiers and civil administrators— the very blood of an empire, all moved along the veins and arteries of well-maintained roads and way-stations, of which the very beating heart was Rome itself.
Censorship Week
This week has seen a sharp jump in censorship. The most obvious is the ban of President Trump from Twitter. I never joined Twitter but it did give the president a way around the “Legacy Media” which was uniformly hostile. Fox News was a partial exception but that is limited to a few hosts like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity.
Trump was not the only one to be censored. An alternative to Twitter was Parler, a similar site that promised an alternative. It was quickly canceled by Amazon Web Services, which is the money making arm of Bezos’ empire. The reason given was the usual “violation of standards,” which means “We disagree with your politics.”
Thousands of Trump supporters have been banned or deplatformed by the militant left, or in a few instances, the NeverTrump right. I have been suspended by Facebook for using the term “Russia Hoax.” Obviously, the political left is determined to oust anyone who questions the election result. This is more typical of Fascist and authoritarian regimes, like Turkey or China. Since we have an incoming regime aligned with China, this is not much of a surprise.
What was a bit unusual was the same censorship by the NeverTrump right. I quit and rejoined the blog Ricochet several times. The first was a squabble over evolution. I discussed it at the time.
Subsequently, I joined again, encouraged by a friend. I quit again, when suspended for using the term “TDS” and then rejoined again. My friend has subsequently quit himself. I had noticed a distinct NeverTrump tone, which has diminished as Trump’s presidency has been successful. What did not diminish is the NeverTrump sentiments of the administrators. Today, I received the email below.
“Dear MichaelKennedy,
Your Ricochet account has been suspended for 7 days, during which time you will be unable to post or comment. When you joined Ricochet, you agreed to abide by the Code of Conduct. In the last month you have racked up the following violations.
You have a habit of insulting members who you disagree with as “Vichy Republicans”.
https://ricochet.com/857597/senator-tom-cottons-statement/#comment-5109752
https://ricochet.com/857165/good-for-nick-sandmann/comment-page-2/#comment-5108696
Perhaps you didn’t realize that this was offensive. But in the following comment a moderator warned people in this thread that it is not acceptable.
https://ricochet.com/857165/good-for-nick-sandmann/comment-page-2/#comment-5108759
Rather than acknowledging that warning or letting it pass without comment, you argued your case.
https://ricochet.com/857165/good-for-nick-sandmann/comment-page-2/#comment-5109503
Then you continue your defiance in this comment.
https://ricochet.com/857165/good-for-nick-sandmann/comment-page-3/#comment-5110322
Then you whip it out again here.
https://ricochet.com/867992/rep-jim-jordan-to-seek-ouster-of-rep-liz-cheney-from-leadership-position/comment-page-2/#comment-5155010
Here’s another example of your incivility.
https://ricochet.com/864572/a-withdrawal/comment-page-4/#comment-5146865
D.A. Venters has been arguing in good faith and you issued the following insult. “Arsonist in a field of straw men again. Go away. Maybe Democrats would have you.”
A moderator redacted part of that and in this comment,
https://ricochet.com/867992/rep-jim-jordan-to-seek-ouster-of-rep-liz-cheney-from-leadership-position/comment-page-2/#comment-5155061
Regards,
The Ricochet Moderators”
Since I consider the administrators, at least those who have posted their opinions, Vichy Republicans, I am not surprised they are upset. I consider those who represent themselves as Republicans and then join the opposition/enemy when a battle is lost or in doubt to be similar to the members of the French government that joined the Nazis when France lost the war in 1940. Some of those Ricochet members that I “insulted” had announced they were voting for Biden, others have supported the sham impeachment.
Anyway, I quit for the third and last time.
I should add that I do not like the current version of WordPress. I could not get it to publish this post on my blog.

The Garden of Lies
Last week I mused on how so many sports and entertainment figures were walking away from being entertaining to at least half the audience. All the money and most of the viewership in China must be just so much more enticing to the suits who produce movies and the front offices for guys who play sports professionally. The bed is made, let them now sleep in it seemed to be the reaction of commenters to that post. Now we’ll watch old movies, foreign movies, or even take up a fascinating new hobby model railroading, gardening, building replicas of medieval weapons, raising chickens, remodeling the house from stem to stern. That kind of thing.
Our establishment news media is going down the same road to irrelevancy; probably farther along down that road since they first got that head start. When was that? The first step from being impartial, to at least being seen as impartial; Was it in publicly yielding the victory in the Tet Offensive during the Vietnam War to the NVA, against the actual facts on the ground? Or when Woodward and Bernstein took down a president with the behind-the-scenes assistance of a disgruntled and resentful FBI administrator, giving inspiration to a whole generation of college-trained journos who lusted after being in the news spotlight themselves even more than actually relaying ‘just the facts.’ (And perhaps inspiring other resentful bureaucrats in more recent times on how best to slip the knife in, without ever leaving fingerprints; just leak to the nearest sympathetic journo-List.)
The Nature of Things
Thanks to the site administrators, this long-time Chicago Boyz reader has joined the roster of authors. Perhaps a brief introduction is in order before I begin posting in earnest.
My earliest exposure to Chicago Boyz dates back to 2003 (with a tip of the hat to Jay Manifold), when Jim Bennett and Michael Lotus were actively exploring the ideas that would lead to the publication of their most excellent and still underrated book America 3.0. The very concept of the Anglosphere was deeply enlightening to me, and inspired a great deal of further reading on my part. Their focus on both the historical realities and the lofty ideals of the Anglo-American tradition has continued to inspire my own thinking to this day. Other perspectives I hope to bring to Chicago Boyz include ancient philosophy (thus the pseudonym Lucretius), Austrian-school economics, civilizational history, Internet technology (my current profession), personal finance and preparedness, contemporary culture, and the arts and sciences.
If you must pin me down politically I suppose I would say I’m a moderate libertarian, a classical liberal, or even a Jeffersonian; however, it seems to me that America and the world have a whole raft of systemic problems for which political activity is not the answer but instead one of the many causes. My goal here is to steer clear of both the ideological and the quotidian to elucidate what my Roman namesake in his great philosophical poem called The Nature of Things. At least we can aim high, can’t we?