Blogging the 2024 DNC
The Common Reader goes to Chicago to check in with the Democratic Party.
August 29, 2024
More by John Griswold
Jungle Warfare in the Western Hemisphere and Big Stick Foreign Policy
Back when I attended the original Jungle Operations Training Center, in the spring of 1984, it was run entirely by US Army cadre, and the Russians were the bad guys. We were told a Russian trawler offshore was monitoring and trying to disrupt our radio communications on field exercises, and the outlined figures on paper targets at army rifle ranges wore Warsaw Pact helmets. “Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose,” as the first industrial-colonial power in Panama says. But the rigors of the Panamanian landscape and its climate have proved difficult for all foreign comers for 525 years.
Cartoonists of Instagram: Dave Contra
Cartoons are one of my favorite things on Instagram, especially when they touch on humor, confusion, sadness, practical philosophy, and cultural critique.
Documentary ‘Being Eddie’ Means to Cement Legacy
Many recent documentaries about comic entertainers show the alienation, sadness, and self-perceived failure in the lives of people we think of as “funny” and investigate connections among hardship, talent, and drive. While “Being Eddie” is interesting, and Murphy is good in it, if somewhat restrained, it has little such complexity.
Explore more Essays
Jungle Warfare in the Western Hemisphere and Big Stick Foreign Policy
Back when I attended the original Jungle Operations Training Center, in the spring of 1984, it was run entirely by US Army cadre, and the Russians were the bad guys. We were told a Russian trawler offshore was monitoring and trying to disrupt our radio communications on field exercises, and the outlined figures on paper targets at army rifle ranges wore Warsaw Pact helmets. “Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose,” as the first industrial-colonial power in Panama says. But the rigors of the Panamanian landscape and its climate have proved difficult for all foreign comers for 525 years.
The Price of the Athlete and the Roar of the Crowd
Sport, like the university, like any institution, is a human construction. It reflects the fears and desires of those who manage it. To demand that it remain apolitical is to demand that it remain unexamined. What would it mean to refuse that demand consistently?
A Visit to the Jesuits’ Lakota Museum
Harold Compton tries, in the expansive sense of the words time and history, to focus himself on the present. Because that word history, he says, can overwhelm you.But his job is one rooted in the past. Of his people. And not of his people. Of the Jesuits, too.