Hearts not averse to being beguiled
Well, that was October. The best month. (If you don’t believe me, ask Robert Frost.)
Speaking about the “Furies” at ASU
I spoke a few weeks ago at Arizona State University about my book on the lives and ideas of Isabel Paterson, Rose Wilder Lane, and Ayn Rand, and particularly about how being women affected their views about individual freedom. You can watch here:
Foundations of Freedom
The Goldwater Institute has released more installments of its Foundations of Freedom video series. Here, I look at free speech: why do we have it? What's it really for?
In this one, I examine the principle of “the pursuit of happiness.” Where did this idea come from, and what does it mean?
In this video, I discuss the idea of “the rule of law.” What makes laws different from commands? What do we mean by “objective” law? And…is Originalism objective? The answers…may shock you!
And in this video, I examine the problems with government-run education:
Still suin’
Lest you think I just grin into a camera all day, the suing continues at the Goldwater Institute. I filed a brief in a case involving a Seattle law that prohibits landlords from asking whether prospective tenants have a criminal record, and we got word that the Arizona Supreme Court will hear yet another of the Institute’s cases, this one about the constitutionality of union “release time.” It will mark the twelfth time the Institute has appeared before the state’s highest court.
William & Mary
I had the honor of speaking at the Brigham-Kanner Property Rights Conference a few days ago; it’s an annual convention of lawyers and law professors who discuss various aspects of private property law, and they meet at the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, which was, of course, Thomas Jefferson’s alma mater. The welcoming dinner is held in the Great Hall of the Wren Building, where Jefferson would have dined while he was a student at W&M.
It was marvelous to commune with his spirit. Jefferson said that while a student, he learned more from dinner table conversation (especially with his teacher, William Small) than from any of his classes. While I can’t say our conversation was quite up to that level, it was a delight to meet so many people whose works I’ve read and enjoyed over the years, especially Prof. James Krier, author of the property law textbook I used when I was in school, and who has just a marvelous sense of humor.
I also took the opportunity to spend the weekend at beautiful Colonial Williamsburg. That was a joy, of course, but it was especially remarkable what a superb job the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation has done in addressing the “wokeness” challenge. Christina and I attended presentations by actors portraying Jefferson, Madison, Lafayette, Wythe, and George and Martha Washington, and were struck by what an excellent job they did answering the challenges audiences put to them, in ways that were neither unjustly condemning of the Founders nor bland, patriotic clichés. Within the limits of what’s possible in 30 minutes before audiences of non-historians, these actors really managed to get people to understand and appreciate the founders as they understood themselves.
Also, the leaves were pretty.
New poems
I had some new poems published in Medusa’s Kitchen this month. They include my tribute to Frank Lloyd Wright, which is done in the form of a pantoum—but written out in sentence style as an homage to Wright’s own horizontal architectural form. You can read them here.
Speaking of architecture…
I got a chance to complete (for now) my Louis Sullivan pilgrimage, which began this July in Owatonna, Minnesota. On our recent trip to Chicago, I was fortunate enough to get to see inside the fantastic Auditorium Building. You can read about that and see some pictures at my blog.
Chicago
But the big news from Chicago was Christina’s achievement in the Chicago Marathon. About two years ago, she decided to take up running—and she ran in her first marathon this January. Then she decided she wanted to get into the Chicago Marathon—and from that, to qualify for the Boston Marathon. Well, she did it; despite waking up on the morning of the Marathon with the beginnings of a cold, her time was 3:28:17…and that means we’ll be heading to Boston in April 2025 for her to run again! Check out her Instagram account for more.
The music of freedom
I’ll leave you this month with a little Chopin. We recently went to see The Truman Show, which was being played on the big screen at a theater nearby, and is one of my all-time favorite movies. (Every scene is just perfect.) There’s a scene in it where the music in the background is the second movement of Chopin’s First Piano Concerto—a piece of music that for personal reasons is very meaningful to me. To me, it has always seemed to sound like what I imagine freedom sounds like. The version in the film is movingly performed by Arthur Rubinstein: