Author Archives: dave cieslewicz

On Hillington Green.

Good Sunday morning and happy Halloween. Denny Burke’s Sunday jazz selection is Swanee River Boogie performed by pianist Albert Ammons. Today we’re going to turn over the YSDA podium to Michael Mandelbaum. He is the Christian A. Herter Professor Emeritus of American Foreign Policy at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, a memberContinue reading “The Merits of Merit”

For me this is the most wonderful time of the year.  This is the build-up to the Wisconsin gun deer season, which runs from the Saturday before Thanksgiving to the end of the Thanksgiving weekend.  And, in fact, bow hunting is already in progress. Most late afternoons when I’m at our place in the NorthContinue reading “Leopold Gives Way to Nugent”

Tom Nelson is a long-shot to win the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. So was Russ Feingold back in 1992. Nelson is running for Feingold’s old seat, which has been sullied (that’s a kind word) by Ron Johnson. There are something like a dozen people running for the nomination, but right now there are fourContinue reading “Is Nelson ’22 Like Feingold ’92?”

At the University of California the phrase “melting pot” has been banned. It’s said to be culturally insensitive. But we’re nothing here at YSDA if not culturally insensitive. Mix up the cheeses, put ’em on the stove, turn up the heat and get ready for some tasty fondue. It’s time to make cultural assimilation popularContinue reading “We Need More Melting Pot”

Whatever happens now it’ll be too late for Terry McAuliff. McAuliff is in an unexpected dead heat to reclaim the Virginia governorship in a state that Joe Biden won by 10 points a year ago. He blames at least some of his woes on DC Democrats’ endless dithering on infrastructure, social safety net and climateContinue reading “It’s Too Late for McAuliff”

Over and over again this Madison school board sends a clear message to parents who have raised well-behaved students: we don’t care about you. Instead, the board and the school administration are laser focussed on kids who are disrupting classes and harming the educations of the majority of good kids who just want to learn.Continue reading “Madison School Board Needs Changes”

One graphic pretty much says it all.

Amid all the horrible language of the woke left, probably the most damaging single phrase is “looks like me.” You hear and read it often, especially on left leaning sites, like NPR, the New York Times and PBS. What the speaker usually means is simply that he or she likes to see people in positionsContinue reading “The Trouble With “Looks Like Me””

Good Sunday morning. My friend Denny Burke’s Sunday morning jazz selection this week is “Time After Time” by Miles Davis. A few blogs ago, I tried to make sense of the move at James Madison Memorial High School to change the school’s name because Madison owned slaves. Here’s a far more eloquent discussion on theContinue reading “The Contradictions of Thomas Jefferson”