Craig Calcaterra

Donald Trump is in the United Kingdom today and The Scotsman, Scotland’s national newspaper, published an editorial about him. There is not a single new piece of information in it, but it’s nonetheless a must-read. Primarily because there is not a single new piece of information in it: None of this is news to anyone, […]

With very few exceptions — very notable exceptions, yes, which are not to be diminished but which skew more recently in our memory — the Supreme Court has, historically, stood more often against progress than for it. We have been fortunate that that has not been the case in many important instances, but it is […]

Justice Kennedy is retiring, and he’s going to be replaced by a much younger, more conservative justice who will do a great deal of damage in the very long time he serves on the bench. There’s no way to sugarcoat that. Not at all. I will, however, make a few observations that you can give […]

  Tyranny does not arrive on our doorstep, fully formed, proclaiming itself as such. Evil does not wear a black hood and cape, monologuing about “the true power of darkness!” Such things come in increments. In drips and drabs, each drab appearing unremarkable due to its apparent innocuousness and each drip as normal and conventional, […]

For several years in the 1950s, Senator Joseph McCarthy smeared anyone and everyone he could while conducting his hunt for communist sympathizers in the United States government. As he did so — destroying lives and careers in the process — he was afforded a level of respect and deference all Senators receive. His work, however […]

The news that Trump is ordering an end to family separations at the border is good. It’s a limited act — he’s still enforcing an unconscionable “zero tolerance” policy against people seeking asylum and will now likely seek merely to prosecute and incarcerate children with their parents — but it is a step back from […]

We are ripping children from the arms of their parents and throwing them into cages. This is not hyperbole. It is literally happening. Border patrol agents are mocking the children as they scream for their mothers and fathers.  Anyone attempting to rationalize what we are doing to these children at the border — or engaging […]

I am just as intrigued by autonomous vehicles as the next guy. Everything I’ve read about them suggests that they’ll relieve congestion and improve safety, and I both hope and believe that to be true. Our roads are clogged and anything to unclog them — and to improve efficiency, confer environmental benefits and cost savings […]

Anthony Bourdain died today. Unlike so many self-styled literary and entertainment industry badasses, there was simple skill, craft and humanity underlying the attitude, which he would freely allow to show. The former without the latter — and without self-awareness– is empty. Whatever he was doing to project that  bad boy persona was immediately set aside […]

My wife and I just got back from nine days in England. It was our honeymoon, delayed a year for various reasons, but coinciding with our first anniversary. I was going to write up a proper travelogue, but I’m too lazy to craft narratives, transitions and connections into something approaching passable prose, so I’m just […]