the wrong font

"What does any of this have to do with anything?" – A Student

  • “O Wretched State!”: In Which Harvard Ties Itself Into Knots

    Just inside the western gate of Harvard Yard sits a cheap plastic frame enclosing a piece of corrugated cardboard. Clearly, it was placed there in response to past–and current–campus protests. I have questions, though. Who is the audience here? Surely not the students, as they would have already received such messages through other sources. The Continue reading

  • Abstraction and the Rhetoric of Power

    I HAVE A FOLDER ON MY COMPUTER NAMED “THE TRAGEDY FILES.” It contains examples of “tragedy” as it appears in reports of violent actions by police. The earliest is from September of 2018, but I stopped the collection the following year, as it was getting tiresome and rather pointless. That doesn’t mean that use of Continue reading

  • Gettysburg Photoblogging: Day One

    The woods are lovely, dark and deep,But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep,And miles to go before I sleep. ON THE MORNING OF JULY 1,1863, Brigadier General John Reynolds, in command of the First Corps, uttered his final orders–“Forward, men! Forward for God’s sake, and drive those fellows out of Continue reading

  • “Nothing Was Right, Except the Courage”: How Effective Was the Militia, Really?

    I WAS BORN AND RAISED IN MINUTEMAN COUNTRY, and those guys were everywhere: at parades, at town celebrations, at Fenway Park. Our town newspaper was The Billerica Minuteman. I often rode my bike through Lexington and Arlington on The Minuteman Trail. And, yes, I made many visits to Concord to swim in Walden Pond, and Continue reading

  • Visitor from a “Foreign Country”: The Curious Case of John W. Haley

    “Now and then the haze of the dead years thins out and shows us a few of these young men and we are left with long thoughts.” –Bruce Catton, Gettysburg: The Final Fury We are often exhorted, when encountering problematic words and actions from people in the 19th Century, to keep in mind the adage Continue reading

    ,

ABOUT

Musings on rhetoric, history, and teaching.   See more…