Ashbrook Center
We started NLT in October of 2001. I thought it was a good idea, as did many of you even back then. In fact, in my typical bragadoccio mode I warned Jonah Goldberg a few months later that we would put NRO out of business. I'm glad we didn't do that, of course. But I am happy that we had a good run at things. In fact, I am proud of our effort and I want to thank our fine authors. Thank you very much! As you know we were one of the few serious blogs where no one was paid for writing, and yet our authors wrote and wrote, plus there were some very good conversations with readers. Thanks to all of you for that.
Over a decade of writing isn't bad. It's an accomplishment we can be proud of. I know all our words at NLT were not birds in flight, some were, inevitably, potatoes. But all of it was thoughtful, sometimes full of flair and ardor, sometimes full of deep learning, almost always revealing a liveliness of mind found only at a few other blogs. I am grateful to all the bloggers for their work. I have learned much. We have taught one another much. We acted like citizens.
We will archive it all, and it will be accessible from our new Ashbrook site that will go up in three or four weeks. It will be a fine site. I hope you will like it.
I don't have to get too soft and weepy with y'all for you to know that I am--as is everyone at the Ashbrook Center--very grateful that we had this opportunity and that it lasted so long. God Bless.
Our bloggers can be found at other places, including Postmodern Conservative, Liberty Law, and Power Line.
Education
Military
I recorded a podcast last week with David Tucker who has been visiting Ashland for most of the past six months or so. We discussed many things, but primarily his new book, Illuminating the Dark Arts of War: Terrorism, Sabotage, and Subversion in Homeland Security and the New Conflict.
David also discussed these issues with the Ashbrook Scholars on Friday at a colloquium. They, too, had a good conversation which you can listen to here.
Presidency
Professor Robert George of Princeton will moderate and question the South Carolina GOP candidates forum. He is a man of rare substance and grace, who can get to the heart of the matter with few words. (Read the profile on him in the NY Times Sunday Magazine--damning him with faint praise: "the reigning brain of the Christian right.") Having precepted for him years ago at Princeton, I can attest to his ability to get skeptical students to consider questions they would never have thought about otherwise. If the forum gets boring, I hope Robby pulls out his banjo....
H/t Michael Krauss.
Other candidate forums should consider such non-traditional talent (get the press out of there!): Peter Schramm of Ashbrook, Larry Arnn of Hillsdale, Brian Kennedy of the Claremont Institute--each could perform such a role superbly and enrich political discussion for not only Republicans but for the general public as well.
Ashbrook Center
"No Left Turns," in Hangul (Korean).
I'm taking a driving test tomorrow. My cultural pain is your educational gain. NLT is a global force!
Ashbrook Center
Education
Ashbrook Center
Ashbrook Center
Ashbrook Center
The audio from last Friday's colloquium with Robert Reilly on his book, The Closing of the Muslim Mind: How Intellectual Suicide Created the Modern Islamist Crisis is now available on the Ashbrook site.
I highly recommend that you give it a listen. Bob gave a great talk, very thoughtful, which is to be expected, but also very clear and direct. The students enjoyed it immensely. I literally had to pull him away from a group of them afterward in order to get him to dinner or they would have talked to him for several more hours!