The Whole Boodle
People keep asking me one question, so here is the answer, whole: the history, the intention, the meaning, the being, and, at the end, the Continue reading The Whole Boodle
David Boles, Blogs
Founded 1983: Liberal Mindset; Conservative Morality
Latest posts
The Vans Are Still Warm
Just after two in the morning on March 29, 1984, fifteen Mayflower moving vans pulled out of the Baltimore Colts complex in Owings Mills and Continue reading The Vans Are Still Warm
The Quotation’s Chain of Custody
A mug sits on the desk with Marilyn Monroe s face under the sentence Laurel Thatcher Ulrich wrote: “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” The object is Continue reading The Quotation s Chain of Custody
The Name You Cannot Give Yourself
Every semester it happens by the second week. A student in ASL 1, bright and eager and already half in love with the language, waits Continue reading The Name You Cannot Give Yourself
Outline of a Christian Political Philosophical Theology
I defend a position in political thought that I call Christian anarcho-socialist liberalism. The idea is to create a Christian political philosophical theology that integrates Continue reading Outline of a Christian Political Philosophical Theology
The One-Way Drop: Why a Drop of White Blood Never Made Anyone White
American race law rests on a piece of arithmetic no mathematician would sign: one drop of Black blood makes a person Black, and a flood Continue reading The One-Way Drop: Why a Drop of White Blood Never Made Anyone White
The Last Day of the Guarantee
A box of prescription drugs sat forgotten in the back closet of a retail pharmacy long enough that some of the pills predated the 1969 Continue reading The Last Day of the Guarantee
No One Dies Lying
On the twenty-second of May, 1929, at Fort Riley, Kansas, a woman named Zenana Shepard sent her nurse to a closet for a bottle of Continue reading No One Dies Lying
There, But Not There: The Phantom DNA Effect and the Physics of Absence
A viral video promises a ghost in the machine. The real ghosts of science are stranger, and they had to earn the name. A reader sent Continue reading There, But Not There: The Phantom DNA Effect and the Physics of Absence
Getting the Flock Out of Ord, Nebraska
The county seat of my boyhood summers just voted, five to nothing, to pull its surveillance cameras off the poles, the first town in Nebraska Continue reading Getting the Flock Out of Ord, Nebraska
The Moon Takes the Bow: The Longest Fight in the Sky, Scored on Love, Fear, Respect, and Attention
Two fighters have been circling each other since before anyone kept records, and the purse has never changed hands: the human gaze. In one corner Continue reading The Moon Takes the Bow: The Longest Fight in the Sky, Scored on Love, Fear, Respect, and Attention
John Fetterman Punched Us in the Mouth
On May 10, 2022, I published an article on this page under the headline John Fetterman Will Punch You in the Mouth! I meant it Continue reading John Fetterman Punched Us in the Mouth
Fourteen Paintings for No One: The Most Somber Art Ever Made
Sad art is everywhere, and it comes cheap. Somber art is rare, because somber means sorrow that keeps its shape after the tears dry, sorrow Continue reading Fourteen Paintings for No One: The Most Somber Art Ever Made
Swimming the Author
England tested witches with water. The suspect was bound, right thumb to left toe, looped to a rope, and lowered into the village pond. Pure Continue reading Swimming the Author
The Wound as Diploma
A transcript arrived this week: five signs of traumatic intelligence, clipped from a video and passed along as science. The research record tells a different Continue reading The Wound as Diploma
Six Hundred Million Breaths
The first inhale, the last exhale, and the enormous unexamined middle. A human being spends nine months underwater and then, in a single violent second, becomes Continue reading Six Hundred Million Breaths
The Plume and the Alibi
An answer to Caroline Fraser, whose book Murderland argues that lead and arsenic from the smelters of the Pacific Northwest helped produce the serial killers Continue reading The Plume and the Alibi
Four Hundred Words for Six Hundred Dollars
The announcement arrived through LJExpress on a Friday in late July, dressed in the language of service. Media Source, the company that owns Library Journal, Continue reading Four Hundred Words for Six Hundred Dollars
Nobody Closed the Gate: How Traditions Convince Themselves That Thinking Ended, and Who Collects the Toll
In 1984 a legal historian named Wael Hallaq published a study whose title was a question: Was the Gate of Ijtihad Closed? The question sounds Continue reading Nobody Closed the Gate: How Traditions Convince Themselves That Thinking Ended, and Who Collects the Toll
Every Face Is Doing Something
A viral post claims the West never once produced the Buddha s expression across twenty-five centuries of art. The claim collapses in the first wing of Continue reading Every Face Is Doing Something
The Oldest Actor: A Theatrical History of Fire on Stage
A man lies on a palace roof in Argos, bored past endurance, waiting for a light. He has watched a year of nights for the Continue reading The Oldest Actor: A Theatrical History of Fire on Stage