Kudos to readers of my column last Saturday, “There Used to Be a Barn Here.” I enjoyed your emails as well as your comments. I always read the comments. Most of you wouldn’t know that, but I do read you faithfully. No, I don’t respond to the comments because I feel like, well, I had my say and now you should have yours. I had my chance to vent and now you have yours. Not that we’re always venting. In fact, last week’s column prompted happy but also bittersweet memories of things — farms and barns — gone by. I especially appreciated the thoughts of Beverly Gunn, Kitty Myers, and “Wolfbane.” Kitty gave the name and address of a group in West Virginia called Barnwood Builders, which is saving and repurposing barns. Wolfbane added: “The National Barn Alliance has the mission to preserve and protect America’s historic barns. The organization provides resources and support to individuals and groups who are interested in preserving barns and other agricultural structures.” Terrific recommendations. Thank you both. Barns aside, the title of my column was inspired by a sweet, sentimental song by Frank Sinatra called “There Used to Be a Ballpark.” It’s a touching lament remembering things not there anymore, most notably those wonderful old ballparks. The songwriter, Joe Raposo, was said to be referring to the venerable Polo Grounds, where the New York Giants played until 1957, when they announced their relocation to San Francisco, following their long-time rivals the Brooklyn Dodgers to the West Coast. Once the Giants moved, the newly established New York Mets used the Polo Grounds for a short time in the early 1960s until their ugly Shea Stadium was erected. With that, the Polo Grounds met the wrecking ball. I know folks who watched many games there, including our late friend Charlie Wiley (who wrote of the Polo Grounds in this splendid Pearl Harbor remembrance). It broke their hearts to see the Polo Grounds destroyed, as it likewise crushed fans of places like the Brooklyn Dodgers’ Ebbets Field.  Ebbets Field was destroyed in 1960 and ultimately replaced by a hideous high-story apartment complex. The contrasting images of the lovely field of blessed memories versus the repulsive apartment-complex-be-damned must have made old Dodgers fans alternately vomit and weep. Obviously, my column on barns no longer there got me thinking about ballparks. It also got some of you thinking. A few of you emailed me. We started reminiscing about ballparks no longer there. For me, unfortunately, the ballpark of my youth wasn’t really a ballpark. It was a stadium. And stadiums sure as hell aren’t ballparks. Tragically, the idyllic parks of baseball’s Golden Age were bulldozed for 1970s monstrosities that reflected the ugliness of everything in the decade, from long hair to silly bellbottoms to sideburns and ridiculous “leisure suits.”  My birth town of Pittsburgh was one of many cities that blasted beautiful ballparks to smithereens in favor of massive stadia that resembled giant ashtrays and flying saucers rather than (to borrow a good phrase) a field of dreams. These were fields of nightmares. Actually, you dare not call them fields. They were filled not with grass but AstroTurf. And for some reason, they rushed to imitate one another in their ugliness, akin to the pretty girl who for some bizarre reason dyes her hair blue and shoves a bolt through her lip. Speaking of AstroTurf, the Houston Astros’ Astrodome was a paragon of repugnance for baseball. So was the Montreal Expos’ saucer-ish stadium, which was called Olympic Stadium, but would have been better labeled with the French word for “monstrosity.” And they were far from alone in their ugliness and sameness. I remember an excellent quote from Pittsburgh Pirates center-fielder Andy Van Slyke, who talked about stepping into the sterile, carpeted batters’ box and looking around with a moment’s uncertainty as to whether he was standing inside Pittsburgh’s stadium or in Cincinnati, Philadelphia, St. Louis, Atlanta, or wherever. They all looked the same, which is to say: hideous. Personally, as a Pirates fan raised in that era, it’s too bad that Three Rivers Stadium was the stadium of my youth. It actually hosted fabulous baseball in the 1970s with the “Lumber Company” team and also the 1990–92 Bucs. A fun debate we had was which Pirates outfield of the period was greater: the mid-1960s trio of Willie Stargell, Bill Virdon, and Robert Clemente; the mid-1970s trio of Al Oliver, Dave Parker, and Richie Zisk; or the early ’90s gang of Barry Bonds (pre-steroids), Andy Van Slyke, and Bobby Bonilla. Yes, some great baseball teams. The Pirates tied for the most division titles in the 1970s and won two World Series at Three Rivers that decade, in 1971 and 1979, both against the Baltimore Orioles. More than that, Three Rivers was home to the best football team ever, the 1970s Steelers. It was thus also home to Franco Harris’ hallowed “Immaculate Reception.” And yet, though it was the site of phenomenal football moments, the stadium was a terrible eyesore to football as well. And a sheer architectural disgrace to the game of baseball. (READ MORE from Paul Kengor: Remembering the Raiders–Steelers Rivalry of the 1970s) Ultimately, Three Rivers Stadium merited the wrecking ball in February 2001. You could have strapped me to the ball. Or maybe tied me to a missile and sent me soaring in like “Major Kong” in Dr. Strangelove, yahooing every second of my final descent. Worth the sacrifice, yes. Perhaps as a reward for our suffering, Three Rivers was mercifully replaced by a gorgeous, real ballpark, maybe the nicest in Major League Baseball: PNC Park. I was actually out in front in that effort. I wrote the first major articles in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette advocating for a baseball-only ballpark in the early 1990s. I did a bunch of talk shows. For the record, what I wanted, and what everyone in the Pittsburgh area longed for, was a field akin to what the historic franchise (founded in the 1880s) had prior to Three Rivers Stadium, namely: Forbes Field. Forbes was the home of the Pirates from 1909–70, with an unmatched history of truly remarkable moments, from Babe Ruth’s final three home runs to the single greatest hit in the history of baseball: Bill Mazeroski’s home run in the bottom of the ninth to defeat the New York Yankees in game seven of the 1960 World Series. (READ MORE from Paul Kengor: Remembering Bill Mazeroski and Baseball’s Biggest Home Run) It was heartbreaking when boneheaded “civic leaders” decided to destroy Forbes Field after the 1970 season. And in favor of what? The giant AstroTurfed ashtray that was Three Rivers Stadium. So, for Pittsburghers, the ballpark not there anymore — the type that inspired songwriter Joe Raposo — was iconic Forbes Field. One of baseball’s sacred shrines, its green cathedrals. All that remains of it today is part of the brick wall where Maz launched his shot in 1960. It stands behind Pitt’s law school and a grad school building where I took classes. Notably, inside that dreadful postmodern building, blandly named “Forbes Quadrangle,” rests the original Forbes Field home plate encased in glass. I would stand there on occasion and take a batting stance, imagining the likes of Honus Wagner, Pie Traynor, Ralph Kiner, Roberto Clemente, Willie Stargell, and — yes — Bill Mazeroski once doing the same. But alas, that ballpark isn’t there anymore. So, tell me, dear readers, what is your Forbes Field? I stand ready to read. Thanks, as always, for your thoughts. READ MORE: A Ballplayer Out of Another Era For the Love of the Game, for the Love of Country Remembering Bill Mazeroski and Baseball’s Biggest Home Run

Nearly four years after OpenAI’s ChatGPT first launched, one in six people worldwide is now using generative AI tools, according to Microsoft’s 2025 AI Diffusion report. That includes 28 percent of the U.S. working-age population. But there is one area where America risks falling behind — so-called “open-weight” AI systems, where the model is free for the world to use. Even with a heavy U.S. focus on closed-model AI, such as ChatGPT, investor interest in AI has grown alongside its widespread adoption, with research and advisory firm Gartner projecting a 44 percent year-over-year increase in artificial intelligence investment to about $2.5 trillion. The technology is so significant that it’s difficult to talk about AI’s market share without drifting into geopolitical discussions. The U.S. and China stand clear above the rest of the world in adoption, capital expenditure, and regulation. As the Trump administration declares in its AI Action Plan, U.S. firms are racing for market dominance. Pursuing “unquestioned and unchallenged global technological dominance,” the White House has turned to protectionist policies, including export controls and state ownership of private firms. Yet these policies have done less to advance adoption of American models than a simple, time-tested concept — sharing. American dominance in AI will depend on access to American AI models. That means we need more open-weight models. American frontier models still lead their Chinese counterparts. Analysis by Epoch AI found the best Chinese open-weight models trail leading U.S. releases by roughly seven months, with the top closed AI model, ChatGPT, outpacing the leading open-weight model, DeepSeek, on AI leaderboards. “Weights” are the specific variables an AI model learns through training. Unlike closed AI models from industry leaders like OpenAI’s GPT-5 and Anthropic’s Claude, the parameters of open-weight or open-AI models are publicly available, meaning anyone can access the model’s weights and run, change, or deploy it as they choose. With open-weight models, you can achieve 90 percent of the same performance as leading frontier models at nearly 87 percent less cost. For companies like Uber, Airbnb, or DoorDash, which handle client interactions in the millions, switching from American closed AI to Chinese open AI saves tens of millions of dollars annually. Beyond cost savings, open-weight models give companies the control to fine-tune models on proprietary data and host them privately, without being beholden to third-party pricing or policies. As global demand for accessible AI technology grows, the market has already shown the best path forward for American dominance in a strategy that is already paying off for Beijing. China’s global market share spiked from 3 percent to 13 percent in two months, thanks to a shift to prioritize open-source and open-weight AI models. That growth is a trend, not a blip. A 2025 OpenRouter study of over 100 trillion tokens of real-world AI usage found Chinese models — led by DeepSeek and Alibaba’s Qwen — accounted for nearly 30 percent of global AI usage, up from roughly 1 percent a year earlier. A lack of private investment led Chinese companies to adopt an open-model approach as a necessity, with models like DeepSeek, Qwen, and Moonshot gaining global traction and performing at a level comparable to U.S. models at a fraction of the cost. Now, nine of the top 10 open-weight models globally are Chinese. Chinese models have overtaken their U.S. competitors in total downloads with derivative open models ostensibly built by cribbing American technology. Tellingly, if Chinese labs can already replicate the capabilities of closed American models at lower costs, the case for expensive, restricted models fails. Alibaba’s Qwen is now more popular than Meta’s Llama, which was previously the industry benchmark for open models. Now, startups and businesses around the globe — including Silicon Valley — are choosing to build on cheap Chinese models rather than paying a premium for American subscription-based, closed AI models like GPT or Gemini. American companies like Airbnb are pivoting to Chinese open-weight models, with few American options available. According to Reuters, “around 80 percent of U.S. AI startups now use Chinese open-source AI models.” The recent deal between American open-weight developer Reflection AI and Korean conglomerate Shinsegae Group is evidence of the demand for American open-weight models and a clear sign of what’s possible. Shinsegae chose Reflection specifically because its open-weight models allow South Korea to “control, audit and evolve” its AI infrastructure on its own terms — a sovereign AI capability that American models can’t offer. Already, 70 percent of organizations worldwide use generative AI in their operations. As businesses continue to integrate AI into their day-to-day operations, the choice will often come down to cost and flexibility, giving open-weight models an edge. China has rightly recognized this and built its global AI strategy around it. The American private sector already recognizes that global AI infrastructure will be built on open-weight models. Allowing the open-source community to operate without government interference would preserve America’s position as the leader in the field and ensure U.S. models remain the foundational infrastructure of the global AI economy. Businesses will choose American open-weight models over their Chinese competitors when American options are available and affordable. We just have to make sure they are. Tosin Akintola is an assistant editor at Reason Magazine and a writer with Young Voices. His work has appeared in The American Spectator, RealClearPolicy, RealClearHealth, Short Circuit, and more. He’s a graduate of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County.

See the USA in your Chevrolet America is asking you to call Drive your Chevrolet through the USA America’s the greatest land of all Most Americans are too young to remember the once-famous songstress Dinah Shore and her immensely popular television variety show, which aired from 1956 to 1963. At 76, I am officially “old,” and I was only a child when the show was “must-see” TV for families across America. In our household, at a time when we, like most Americans, had only one TV set, we watched Dinah Shore alongside our parents, enjoying her music and her vivacity. My sister and I watched Dinah Shore much less grudgingly than we watched Lawrence Welk, my dad’s favorite show. For most of its existence, her show was sponsored by Chevrolet, and each episode concluded with her theme song, “See the USA in your Chevrolet.” An advertising jingle to be sure, but for most of us it meant far more than buying the sponsor’s latest automobile. “America” itself was the real message, and the song and the show itself spoke to down-to-earth love for the country itself. In an era when vacations often meant family road trips, and every day pleasures often revolved around the drive-in restaurant or the drive-in movies, we all connected to the message. (RELATED: America’s Love Affair With the Road Endures) We knew what we loved about America, and we knew that much of what we loved could be seen through the windows of a Chevrolet, or a Ford, or a Dodge. We knew that we loved our city neighborhoods and our small town squares. We knew that we were surrounded by good things, and, if some were more fortunate than others, we were all deeply connected, whether through Friday night football or Sunday morning in church. Our fathers, not too long before, had experienced the whole world. Just in my neighborhood, one dad had driven 2 and ½ ton supply trucks up the length of Italy. Another had served as a radioman aboard an LST whose journey had spanned the width of the Pacific. My own father had fought his way from Normandy to Czechoslovakia. And even with allowance made for seeing a world at war, a world at its worst, they came home united in the belief that America was the “greatest land of all.” Just over a month from now, we will celebrate the nation’s 250th anniversary, as measured from the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Already, we’re seeing the buildup, with commemorative events planned across the length and breadth of the country. This is undoubtedly a good thing and, since celebrating the Fourth of July as the nation’s birthday is a now-hallowed tradition, the traditionalist in me simply wants to applaud and join unreservedly in the celebrations. It’s not too early to get ready to celebrate, but let’s start by preparing to celebrate for the right reasons. And yet, my reservations are real. For far too long, we’ve been told that the United States is a “creedal nation,” that is, we are united around a set of beliefs enshrined in such documents as the Declaration, the Constitution, and the Bill of Rights — the most notable of the statements of purpose and value that define the American “creed” and, by extension, the meaning of America itself. (RELATED: The Declaration, the Constitution, and the Consent of the Governed) This, however, ignores the fundamental fact that, for the better part of 200 years before 1776, an enterprise had been underway to build lives and homes in what would become the United States, and that those lives had meaning separate and distinct from the ideals to which we would aspire. People lived and worked across the newfound land. They loved and laughed, and cried and mourned, mainly without reference to a creed other than their several religious faiths and the values brought from their various “old countries,” soon to be annealed in the heat of life along a new frontier. It also ignores the fact that, in the 250 years since, the greater part of American life has been that which would have been visible from the windows of Dinah Shore’s Chevrolet. To borrow a phrase from yet another song of tribute, “From the mountains, to the prairies, to the oceans, white with foam, God bless America, My home sweet home.” Kate Smith’s rendition of Irving Berlin’s great anthem, in its original time and place, was in no way an appeal to a narrow “nativism,” but rather an appreciation of home, an appreciation that resonated all the more strongly in 1938, as the war clouds gathered all around us. Leftists make sport of “mom’s apple pie and hotdogs,” and insist that these things — and all that they symbolize — are trivial when laid alongside the great aspirations that, in their view, define the meaning of America. The problem, however, is that when we reduce our nation to an idea, even a set of ideas, and assume that what makes us is our shared adherence to such ideas, then we have reduced ourselves to an intellectual notion. Worse, when we’re reduced to a set of ideas, what soon follows is the corruption of the values that inform our cultural, political, and economic lives. And ideas — even noble ideals — are almost infinitely malleable when detached from how ordinary people try to live their normal lives. Malleability becomes the basis for manipulability, and soon our lives are turned completely upside down. (RELATED: Can Liberty Survive Without a Soul?) Thus, for example, hardworking Americans who just want to live without interference are reduced to “the deplorables.” We’re asked to kneel before all manner of absurdities, from George Floyd’s martyrdom to Greta Thunberg’s climate alarmism. We’re asked to believe that Hamas murderers are somehow victims, that the IRGC thugs in Iran are idealist proponents of a “religion of peace.” We’re asked to ignore how fraudsters from around the world invent fresh ways of freeloading off our national wealth, built by generations of hard-working citizens. In the midst of all this, we’re subjected to an unending stream of justifications for a leftist agenda, one crafted by twisting the meaning of our great aspirational documents and the symbols of our historical achievements. Thus, “social justice” depends on allowing crimes to go unpunished, from wholesale shoplifting to the brutal murder of innocent young women. Or, we’re treated to memes that take images of soldiers storming Omaha Beach on D-Day and pretend that these heroes were prototypical Antifa warriors. “Antifa,” of course,  remains the most perfect contemporary example of how historical truth is stood on its head, with the calumnies thrown at ICE agents a very close second. (RELATED: Memes Against America) George Orwell captured this monstrosity perfectly. “War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.” Conservatives often make sport of leftists with the simple phrase: “If they didn’t have double standards, they would have no standards.” But the rot goes much deeper, a rejection of the world as it is, not in favor of a better world, a world we might all share, but for a highly exclusionist utopian fantasy. It’s a world in which ideals can become bludgeons with which to punish those with whom we disagree. “We hold these truths to be self-evident…” dissolves into meaninglessness in the hands of those who insist that there is no such thing as truth, only “my truth.” When the honest pursuit of objective truth disappears from public discourse, the result is not simply nonsense, but rather a world in which power-hungry cynicism pulls the strings. To give Mamdani or Omar their due, they are likely quite aware of the dishonest game they are playing. Unfortunately, they can easily exploit the rampant gullibility of their followers — when there is no “truth,” then it becomes very hard to hold such people accountable. So, in the days ahead, let’s honor the founding of our country and take the time to reflect earnestly and honestly on the role our great founding documents have played in making our country Dinah Shore’s “the greatest land of all.” But let’s not forget that our greatness resides in much more than words, even great and inspirational words. We are a people, a very special people, in every generation welcoming to those who wish to become Americans rather than those who would bend our ideals to their self-serving ends. We are a people whose lives are lived in churches and schools, bars and bodegas, ball fields and tree stands, and in the offices, stores, and factories where we labor to support ourselves, our families, and our communities. America is a profoundly moral nation, but it is more, much more, than simply a moral idea, however high-flown the rhetoric that adorns that idea. It’s not too early to get ready to celebrate, but let’s start by preparing to celebrate for the right reasons. Let’s go for a drive together and, looking out the car window, remind ourselves of how great this country is. READ MORE from James H. McGee: Iran War: The End of the Beginning May Day Protests and Chinese Attack Strategies The Hypocrisy of the ‘Hate Has No Home Here’ Contingent James H. McGee retired in 2018 after nearly four decades as a nuclear security and counter-terrorism professional. Since retiring, he’s begun a second career as a thriller writer. His most recent novel, The Zebras from Minsk, was featured among National Review’s favorite books in 2025.  You can find The Zebras from Minsk (and its predecessor, Letter of Reprisal) on Amazon in Kindle and paperback editions.  

The Boston Public Library is holding a “Trans Period Pride” event to share “trans experiences with menstruation,” featuring a catered dinner and free period underwear for attendees. Who funds this nonsense, and why? (READ MORE: Is This the End of Transgender Hysteria?)  The Spectacle Podcast hosts Melissa Mackenzie and Scott McKay reveal the grift behind these ideologically charged events and how massive amounts of public money are used to enforce ideological projects like Boston’s “Trans Period Pride” despite little (or no) public demand. Melissa and Scott delve into this similar pattern of corruption seen not only in woke events but also in New York’s housing issue and Los Angeles’ homelessness crisis. (RELATED: The Med-Mal Floodgates Are Open Thanks to the Fox Varian Case, and Thank God for That)  Tune in to hear their discussion! Listen to The Spectacle with Melissa Mackenzie and Scott McKay on Spotify. Watch The Spectacle with Melissa Mackenzie and Scott McKay on Rumble.

An Emerson College poll shows former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg in the lead for the Democratic presidential nomination at 18 percent. California Gov. Gavin Newsom places with 16 percent. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (11 percent), Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (10 percent), and former Vice President Kamala Harris (10 percent) all register in the double digits. This poll, with no clear frontrunner but a logjam of a “frontpack,” suggests a dissatisfaction with the field, uncertainty regarding the candidates, or both. Where do the hearts of Democratic Party primary voters lie? With AOC. The “buttoned-up” Democrats that Time pointed to this week as relics of the past seem well-represented in this crowded field. AOC looks like the kid in the square on Sesame Street that’s doing her own thing. When one needs to separate from the pack, separating from the pack seems like the smart move. AOC stands out. The rest try — and they have been trying all their life — to fit in. That’s their basic problem.