I’ve never bought the travel-as-transformation narrative fluff that’s mongered in such tracts as Cheryl Strayed’s “Wild” or in Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Eat, Pray, Love.” Travel, at least the kind of travel so often coded as “real” or “authentic,” as opposed to,… Read More ›
Do you live in Seoul? Do you think a lot about your city? The greater Seoul area has about 26 million people in it. It’s about 50% of Korean GDP and about 50% of the population. Seoul proper, just the… Read More ›
This Thursday is the Fourth of July. Every Fourth of July, I say a little prayer of thanks to France. France bought from the fledgling U.S. its first-ever tranche of federal bonds, thereby giving Washington enough cash to buy guns…. Read More ›
O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the… Read More ›
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing… Read More ›
The United States is a nation consciously conceived, not one that evolved slowly out of an ancient past. It was a planned idea of democracy, of liberty of conscience and pursuit of happiness. It was the promise of equality of… Read More ›
I’m listening to “The Tortured Poets Department” this Friday afternoon. I give it a 7/10. Maybe a 6/10. The album is OK if you want mild background sounds, but it’s certainly not up-beat dance happy music. Swift uses co-writers for… Read More ›
The U.S. Black community is unique. First, it is not African in any way. It is a wholely North American construct. Second, it is the largest and most diverse of the various Afro-sourced North American communities. Sure, there are Blacks… Read More ›
So, on March 13, 1881, Czar Alexander II (1818-1881) was assisinated.* Well, six years later, in 1887, a 20-year-old student-terrorist took part in a plot organized by the Will of the People (same group as before) to assassinate Alexander II’s… Read More ›
I was born in 1975. I graduated from high school in 1993. I sometimes wonder about people born after me, like, those born in the 1990s. If you were born in 1990, for example, you will turn 33-years-old this year… Read More ›
Gregory's Writings 