Source: Law & Liberty
by Tyler Syck

“Since at least the trial of Sextus Roscius in the days of Ancient Rome, humans have had a strange fascination with murder. The source of this fixation is debatable. Perhaps it stems from the basic human fear of death or else from our desperate need to see justice and order done in a chaotic world. Whatever the root, humanity’s interest in murder has now transformed into an entire commercial industry filled with reality TV shows, podcasts, and sensational journalism. Detective fiction has long been the most cultured avenue of our murder obsession. In the books of authors such as Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, and John Dickinson Carr, the quest to discover a murderer turns into a cerebral window into human nature and society. The latest iteration in this great tradition is Rian Johnson’s Knives Out movies featuring the enigmatic Southern Sleuth Benoit Blanc (played by the inimitable Daniel Craig).” (01/02/25)

https://lawliberty.org/murder-and-grace-in-wake-up-dead-man/

Source: Town Hall
by Mark Lewis

“I don’t mean to imply, by the title of this article, that I think America is about to totally ‘destroy’ itself. I happen to believe that the United States, in some shape, form, or fashion, will be around for a long time into the future. I don’t know what shape, form, or fashion that will be; indeed, America has already monumentally changed, since 1789, from the virtuous, limited, constitutional government (a ‘confederacy,’ Alexander Hamilton called it), into a society with a dominant federal government that does whatever it can get away with. In effect, we have become, in a way, exactly what our Founding Fathers rebelled against. But time changes many things, and countries are among those things.” (01/03/25)

https://townhall.com/columnists/marklewis/2026/01/03/how-to-destroy-a-country-n2668804

Source: The Dispatch
by Kevin D Williamson

“People used to have a ‘midlife crisis’ in their late 30s, or even earlier, back when a man might reasonably say that he expected to die ‘in my late 50s with a heart full of pastrami.’ The midlife crisis moved to later ages with advancing life expectancy, and I suppose it was a decade or so ago I began to hear people talk about the ‘quarter-life crisis’ at age 25. As the 21st century enters its second quarter, one might wonder if this century is going to provide anything except crisis.” (01/02/26)

https://thedispatch.com/article/bush-gore-al-qaeda-century-crisis-trump-biden/

Source: Wired
by Dell Cameron

“In 2025, protest policing in major US cities increasingly took on the character of a spectacle: overwhelming deployments, theatrical staging, and aggressive crowd-control tactics that emphasized signaling power over maintaining public safety. This was not a one-off episode; it followed the deployment of federal troops into multiple Democratic-led cities, prompting lawsuits and court challenges that local leaders described, with justification, as militarized intimidation. … Across Chicagoland, protest control became overtly choreographed. … The most brazen moment came when homeland security secretary Kristi Noem appeared on the facility’s roof beside armed agents and a camera crew, positioned near a sniper’s post, as arrests unfolded below. This was performative policing at its most distilled: public safety reduced to a spectacle with vaguely defined urban threats cast as the danger being neutralized.” (01/02/25)

https://archive.is/AFJx1

Source: EconLog
by Carlos Martinez

“On January 1, 1959, Fidel Castro and his bearded revolutionaries marched into Havana. Church bells rang across the island as Batista fled into exile. This January 1st marked the 67th anniversary of that revolution. Sixty-seven years of a system built on deception, imposed through violence, and sustained through repression. But now, for the first time since Castro’s march into Havana, genuine change appears inevitable.” (01/02/25)

https://www.econlib.org/econlog/cuba-after-communism