By: C. William Hanson Jr. “Never ascribe to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.” ~ Napoleon Bonaparte “There are few things more dangerous than a mixture of power, arrogance and incompetence.” ~ Bob Herbert (former op-ed columnist for The New York Times, television personality, recipient of awards for distinguished journalism, and author of  …

By: C. William Hanson Jr. Were the Muses looking after me this weekend? Or was it just  the extraordinary kindness of the Turkish Air ticket agent, responding to my pleas for an aisle seat? I was preparing for my ten hour flight back from Istanbul to Boston. If I heard her correctly, she twice declined…

By: C. William Hanson Jr. Dear Readers, Last month we speculated that “the younger generations provide grounds for hope in 2026.”  We celebrated the musical accomplishments of a Harvard undergraduate, Jack Damon, whose musical talents and charisma recently brought back to life the moribund Harvard and Radcliffe Gilbert and Sullivan players. (In an attachment, we…

By: C. William Hanson Jr. Dear Readers, Christmas and the old year have come and gone, or have they?  Ethnocentrically yes, but in the coming months, the Chinese will celebrate a new (lunar) year on February, the Persians (including various Middle Eastern and Central Asian cultures) on March 20th and 21st, and the Thai, from…

By: C. William Hanson Jr. “Samarkand is a city of radiant beauty, where the silk of the ages is woven into the fabric of history.” -Kipling, Rudyard. The Collected Works of Rudyard Kipling. Edited by David G. McCullough, Wordsworth Editions, 1994, p. 267 “Bukhara, like a star, rose upon my view, with its domes, turquoise…

By: C. William Hanson Jr. Dear Readers, In the closing lines of last month’s edition, we wrote,  “When organizations prioritize conformity over creativity, the rich tapestry of cultural expression suffers. Next month we shall explore these issues further.”  In the case of Russia, the Putin regime’s restrictions of free expression, Western sanctions in response to…

By: C. William Hanson Jr. In our September 1st issue one month ago, we reported that the Grand Ballet Kyiv, touring in the USA this season, has encountered hostile criticism for including in its repertory ballets composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, a nineteenth century Russian. We might  sympathetically understand the impulse among some Ukrainians currently…

By: C. William Hanson Jr. This summer I once again headed eastward to Ukraine, stopping in Budapest en route from Vienna, a city somewhat unintentionally neglected despite our June 1st focus on Zelensky’s visit to Austria. For while Austria ranks 20th in population among the countries of Europe, the following comment was belatedly added like…

By: C. William Hanson Jr. Our previous issues concerning Ukraine’s courageous fight against war criminal Vladimir Putin have provided coverage from Ukraine itself and from other lands, those neighboring Ukraine or sharing the Black Sea, or providing the majority of military aid which Ukraine has received since the invasion began. The ongoing genocide in Gaza…

By: C. William Hanson Jr. “In 2021, JD Vance, then a candidate for Ohio senate, gave a provocative keynote address at the American Conservatism Conference.  Vance’s lecture was an indictment of American higher education: a ‘hostile institution’  that ‘gives credibility to some of the most ridiculous ideas that exist in this country.’ The aspiring politician…