I took this snap on my way to the American Bar Association Magna Carta 800th year celebration in 2015. We remember the Magna Carta as the first curb on the power of the state in favor of ordinary men. After events in the past 24 hours however, I feel less free than ever. For most … More Unreasonable Searches and Seizures
Cuts from King Henry V, Act IV Scene III by William Shakespeare. The scene begins as the young, yet war like Henry has assumed the port of Mars, and invaded France to prove his mettle. It has been a good campaign but the English are exhausted. They must get past the French army at a … More Band of Brothers: Agincourt- October 25th 1415
Shall I compare thee to a Summers day? Thou art more louely and more temperate: Rough windes do ſhake the darling buds of Maie, And Sommers leaſe hath all too ſhorte a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heauen ſhines, And often is his gold complexion dimm’d, And euery faire from faire ſome-time declines, … More Nor Shall Death Brag; Sonnet 18
Winston Churchill – then Prime Minister for less than a month, then gave a taste of his courageous leadership in the House of Commons, June 4th, 1940, following the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk: We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas … More Fight on the Beaches
“Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There was never a democracy that did not commit suicide.” John Adams April 15th, 1814. I awoke this morning to find the British have done just that. For a long time I have postulated the American Revolution was a mistake, we would have been … More Democratic Suicide
These words turned out to be wrong when uttered by Stanley Baldwin, as he was referring to the bomber that flies over a city intent on killing, maiming and terrorizing the civilian population. Today we have a different kind of bomber, the bomber who walks through a city, intent on killing, maiming and terrorizing the civilian population. … More “The Bomber Will Always Get Through” British Parliament, 1932
Democracy’s arm late. Much later than regimes run by strongmen. Because the rate of development of new war fighting aircraft in the 1930’s was a lot like the development of software in the last few decades; pre-war Britain saw lots of entrants to the market, few successes and a whole lot of loss due to … More Albatross of the Battle of Britain
800 years ago this month King John was cornered by his barons in a field at Runnymede and made to place his seal on this document, the Great Charter, that limited his power. It was likely the first of its kind. He and the other chief executives have been fighting the issue ever since. Ab initio this … More Magna Carta
If there is a place closer to hell than the Central Line of London’s Underground I have yet to find it. Hot, loud, the wheels seem to shriek at each turn as the souls of the damned ride from Ealing Broadway on the west end to Epping in the northeast, and points in between. Some of … More London Underground
Its been a 100 years but the sting of it still rings through the telling. A German U-boat was able to approach and sink the Cunard liner off the coast of Ireland on this date 100 years ago because she had no destroyer escort, despite wartime conditions. There were not supposed to be any Americans on … More The Sinking of RMS Lusitania – May 7th 1915
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