On This Distinctly American Holiday

POSTED BY MARTIN KICH (I’d like to forestall objections by Canadians by noting that Charles and Daniel Krauthammer, whose columns are the topic of this post, seem to interested very little in making an argument for the origins of the holiday and much more interested in exploring what its meaning is for Americans.) Daniel Krauthammer,…

A Turkey Poem for Turkey Day

POSTED BY MARTIN KICH On the day before Thanksgiving, the poem featured in the Poem-a-Day newsletter of the Academy of American Poets was Sawako Nakayasu’s prose poem “Deflated Rubber Turkey.” This wonderfully light and yet riddle-like poem is available at: https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/deflated-rubber-turkey?utm. Sawako Nakayasu is an Assistant Professor of Literary Arts at Brown University. She is…

Well, I Am Not Un-Thankful for Property Rights

POSTED BY MARTIN KICH When I started to draft this post, I saw the daily newsletter from Reason, which has this teaser: “On Thanksgiving, Be Grateful for Property Rights.” Really? In the current political climate, I doubt that property rights are the rights that most Americans are most concerned about preserving. I’m guessing that freedom…

How Do You Spell S-T-U-N-T?

POSTED BY MARTIN KICH This news announcement is from Politico: The Pentagon is set to begin a drawdown of its 5,800 troops from the Southwest border as early as this week, the Army commander overseeing the mission told POLITICO — even as the approaching caravan of refugees prompted U.S. customs officers to close a port…