Or, another thing the French Revolution had right — My son asked me a relatively innocuous question the other day: Why is it that the first day of winter is December 21, and not December 1 or January 1? Why doesn’t the calendar line up with the seasons? …

It’s November, which means the “holiday season” is upon us. The commercial world has flipped from spiders and skeletons to tinsel and holly, the Pittsburgh crèche has gone up, and everybody is groaning about family obligations. And while Christmas is still over a (long, dreary) month away, those of us…

Rosh Hashanah — New Year’s Day on the Jewish liturgical calendar — is an emotionally complex holiday. On one hand, it is celebrated in the way that one would expect commemoration of a new year: celebrations, family dinners, reflections on the past year and on the year ahead. We eat…

Way back in 2018, there was a meme going around that involved captioning a scene from the TV show American Chopper with high-brow, dialectical arguments. Perhaps my favorite work from this genre was from a friend of mine:

This past Wednesday, Jeff Sessions resigned as Attorney General. Immediately, the question on everyone’s mind was: what does this mean about the security of Robert Mueller in his role as Special Counsel? Will Mueller be fired by the new Acting Attorney General? …

With Justice Kennedy’s retirement from the Supreme Court, there is a lot of discussion of the future of constitutional jurisprudence — in particular the future of abortion rights in the United States. …

(Last updated July 7, 2018. Check back for updates!) Contents The Bosonid Claim (updated June 22) The West Francian Claim (updated June 7) The Unruoching Claim (updated June 16) The Herbetian Claim (updated July 7) Introduction I’m fascinated by royal genealogy. I always have been. Maybe it’s because I’m an American, and we’re naturally fascinated by royalty. And maybe it’s because I’m an Ashkenazi Jew who can’t trace back my lineage more than 4 generations in most…

The Second Amendment is, to say the least, problematic. It sits in the Bill of Rights, our pantheon of liberties, alongside freedom of speech and due process of law. But like so many parts of our Constitution, it is a source of constant argument over its meaning. And it is…

“It’s an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us and penetrates us. It binds the galaxy together.” Despite it being a part of our culture for 40 years, there’s actually very little we know about the Force, as it exists in the Star Wars universe. The original…