I came out on Nov. 29, 1994, in the most visible of news outlets, the op-ed page of the Wall Street Journal. I had long resisted going public with my past life, although I had mentioned a few details to friends. Pre-1994, my efforts at openness, however, were always met with concern, even pity, as in, “But you seem so normal!” That fall, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich busted open my private closet with an offhand comment to the effect that many welfare children would live better lives in private orphanages. Prominent childcare critics blasted Gingrich’s proposal. Past orphanages had universally damaged the children in care in all regards, they claimed, “behaviorally, socially, and intellectually.” Was I “damaged” from my orphanage years? Were my cohorts? We all have done well in life — indeed, from my academic surveys of over 3,500 aging alumni from 15 orphanages, far better than the general population in practically all regards, and largely with fond memories. I would sometimes explain how my orphanage childhood was not the deprived life others imagined. Nor was it as depraved as orphanage images Charles Dickens concocted for Oliver Twist (1838), made ever-more hellish in movie adaptations focused on a defining scene: pitiful little Oliver pleading for “some more” (watery gruel). I’ve spent the last three decades seeking ways — studies, books, conferences, films, columns, and interviews — to modulate the dreadful images of orphanage life that many presume I and tens of thousands of other disadvantaged children endured. I failed miserably. My orphanage (The Home, in my memoir) resuscitated the lives of many young Olivers who faced their families’ dysfunctional fates. Now, as I write, squads of bulldozers are resculpting The Home’s pastures and farmland into residential and industrial parks north of Charlotte. In my 1994 column, I led with the memorable words of Miss Hannigan (the evil overbearing housemother of little girls in the movie Annie) who asked exasperated, “Why any kid would want to be an orphan is beyond me!” I went on to observe that “I’ve spent a lifetime quietly listening to others disparage orphanages as cold and loveless institutions where every child longs to be adopted. I knew then that Dickins’ description … should have had no bearing in the debate over how to help some of the least fortunate children among us. I was there. I grew up in a home with 150 or so other girls and boys in North Carolina in the 1950s—and I’m damn proud of it, and thankful!” I added, “If any of us had had a choice between growing up with Ozzie and Harriet or in The Home, each would surely have taken the former. However, we either didn’t have parents or left parents behind who were not worthy of their roles. Those who think that private orphanages are ‘extreme’ solutions to the problems many children face do not appreciate the realistic options available to many children. Few of us would have entertained adoption and virtually all of us today shudder at the foster-care option. The dominant emotion for those of us who have returned each year for homecoming is neither hostility nor regret, but sheer gratitude.” I was touched by a deluge of readers’ reactions in letters and calls, especially from orphanage alumni, saying with pride, “Right on! My orphanage was far from perfect but was a damn site better than Oliver’s.” Before embarking on my orphanage advocacy in 1994, I presumed Dickens was right about orphanages in general. My home must have been special. However, other alumni groups professed no less affection for their homes and reported annual homecomings with attendees in the hundreds and thousands. Benefactors offered support for the development of a documentary in which the alumni from four orphanages reported their experiences. More importantly, George Cawood, an extraordinarily filmmaker, enlisted the pro bono work of more than a hundred of his Burbank colleagues. The award-winning film, Homecoming, filled theaters to overflowing in film festivals and was aired on PBS in 2006. Production crew members, steeped in Dickens imagery, were initially stunned by the alumni’s positive memories. After a day of interviews, one crew member returned to his van to ask in disbelief, “Richard, why aren’t there more orphanages?” My response was quick, “That’s the question we hope all viewers will ask on leaving the screening.” The most compelling account of alumni’s dedication to their orphanages occurred unexpectedly, when we were scheduled to film at the reunion of the Hebrew Orphans Asylum of New York City on Sept. 13, 2001. The film crew, understandably, couldn’t get into the City and the reunion was postponed for eight weeks. Still, 300 alumni, all octogenarians, attended. Remarkably, the Hebrew Orphan’s Asylum had closed its doors forever in 1941! I and other orphanage alumni lament the passing of our homes into childcare history for a reason not considered by others: Today’s disadvantaged children will not have access to the life advantages we had. Most will be shuttled through multiple destabilizing foster care placements. When I return to what remains of my former orphanage campus and witness the bulldozers creaking across the campus, I can’t help recalling memories of generations of children who lived in the cottages and worked the fields, most of whom have passed on. The bulldozers mark the end of something important, but largely disparaged, if not unrecognized, and certainly underappreciated. English poet John Dunne wrote my last orphanage testimonial long ago with a message for the ages: “Death [no, Bulldozers], be not proud.” Richard McKenzie is the Walter Gerken Professor of Economics (emeritus) at the University of California, Irvine and author of The Home: A Memoir and executive producer on the orphanage documentary, Homecoming.

The Philosopher in the Valley By Michael Steinberger Avid Reader Press / Simon & Schuster, 304 pages, $33 Michael Steinberger’s The Philosopher in the Valley argues that Palantir’s unprecedented influence over U.S. military operations stems not from technological superiority but from CEO Alex Karp’s ideological mission to defend the West against external threats, including terrorist organizations and near-peer competitors. Rather than a celebratory business biography, Steinberger’s book presents a case study in how a tech company gained a pivotal role in the Western defense apparatus. The iconoclastic and quotable Karp built Palantir from a start-up into the most controversial and consequential software company in the world. Palantir’s influence now extends to critical military processes, including the kill chain, inextricably linking the firm to the success of Western military operations. Steinberger’s book succeeds in capturing Karp’s distinctive worldview and Palantir’s rise, while raising concerns about a defense ecosystem dependent on one private firm. Steinberger’s access to and interviews with Karp give the book much-needed nuance and depth. Karp’s identity as a biracial, dyslexic, Jew shaped his worldview in which Palantir’s mission became personal: creating systems to identify threats before they materialize. Steinberger uses these details to provide a clearer understanding of how Palantir navigated its lean years and what has enabled its meteoric rise. Even as Karp and Palantir gained profitability and inclusion in the S&P 500, Karp continued to lash out at competitors and detractors, fueling the perception that Palantir would forever remain outsiders, no matter the number of contracts they won or how high the stock price rose. The Pentagon has traded technological stagnation for vendor lock-in. By anticipating the future needs of its clients, not just their stated requirements, Palantir and Karp captured clients by delivering products they never knew they needed and can no longer live without. When Google abandoned Project Maven, Palantir stepped in and now controls the most pivotal space in the DOD’s contract suite — the software that makes sense of the battlefield, feeding life and death decisions. Critics raise oversight concerns, but the effectiveness of Palantir’s products goes largely unquestioned. Karp’s distinctive pessimist worldview, formed by upbringing and ethnic background, sees the world as hostile to his interests — a view embedded in Palantir’s thinking. Using Tolkien’s language, Karp and Palantir protect the “Shire” or the West. Since its founding and Karp’s appointment as CEO in 2005, the firm has held fast to this worldview. In the ensuing two decades, failures in Iraq and Afghanistan and the invasion of Ukraine prove Karp prescient, not pessimistic. This foresight remains a competitive advantage. Palantir’s clarity of purpose and consistent worldview, not just its technology, have allowed Palantir to anticipate the needs and wants of clients in an ever more dangerous and volatile world. In a recent interview, Karp went further, connecting Palantir to the middle class and soldiers, who bore the brunt of these massive risk miscalculations. This distinction further separates Palantir from the Big Tech giants focusing on fragmenting and monetizing attention. Karp’s outsider perspective proved ideal for leading a tech start-up. Karp, a former law school classmate of Palantir co-founder Peter Thiel, assumed the role of CEO upon returning to California following the completion of his doctorate in Germany. The unconventional academic pedigree gave the young start-up invaluable advantages. For Palantir, data ontology, not just lines of code, provided its clients with the framework to make sense of and use its data. Data ontology provides structure and organization to information. This philosophical foundation created a technical advantage, but also a lock-in. Karp stated, “Palantir’s software was a philosophical system at heart.” Steinberger notes that Palantir further differentiated its software by constructing a “dynamic ontology.” Once an organization structures its data around Palantir’s ontological framework — creating “digital twins” of operations continuously updated and augmented — switching vendors becomes prohibitively complex. The Defense Department didn’t just buy software; it adopted a way of thinking about its own operations. The framework gave the young firm viable, effective products, but Palantir struggled to find commercial viability and raise venture capital in a Silicon Valley leery of supporting national security start-ups post-9/11. A well-timed investment from In-Q-Tel, the CIA’s venture fund, gave the firm much-needed funding. More importantly, In-Q-Tel gave Palantir access to its ideal user: intelligence analysts. Access to the CIA touched off a recurring pattern — early users of Palantir products began proselytizing within their organizations for the adoption of Palantir products. The evangelizing of Palantir created a fervor for its products, a fortunate break for a firm without a salesforce. Karp and Palantir pursued and won a lawsuit to break into the entrenched defense establishment to win contracts. During its existence, Palantir has responded to crises by organizing, managing, and streamlining data sets. From the surge in Afghanistan in 2010 where IED facilitation networks decimated American units to the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic to Ukraine’s response to the Russian invasion in 2022, Palantir products gave decision makers the tools needed to navigate these crises. These crises exposed how Western governments, overwhelmed by information streams, lacked tools to gain situational awareness, a gap Palantir exploited to its advantage. Palantir’s ability to solve the most vexing problem sets in a time of need demonstrates its value proposition and how underinvestment in information infrastructure leaves governments vulnerable. Even as a child, while visiting art museums with his father, both father and son lingered in front of a statue of Icarus, exposing Alex to the dangers of unchecked ambition. Today, Karp and Palantir’s ambitions leave their fierce critics to wonder if they will melt from the sun’s unforgiving gaze. The Palantir success story, intertwined with its inherent risks, now irreversibly binds its clients, especially Western militaries, to the company. The company that began as a niche firm led by a philosophy Ph.D. is now a juggernaut making headlines, delivering gains, and shaping the modern battlefield. Karp and Palantir may fly too close to the sun. But unlike Icarus, Palantir’s flight is not sole, carrying many passengers: its inventors, its clients, and the future of Western warfare.   Major Benjamin Van Horrick, USMC serves at the Department of Defense Inspector General. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official policy or position of the United State Marines Corps, Department of Defense, or the U.S. Government.

One hundred sixty-two years ago, on November 25, 1863, 18-year-old Lt. Arthur MacArthur picked-up the Union flag from the second flagbearer that had fallen in the Union’s attack on Missionary Ridge in Tennessee, yelled “On Wisconsin” to the troops of the 24th Wisconsin who were scaling the ridge under Confederate fire, and reached the top of the ridge where he planted the flag for the other blue-clad soldiers to see. The Confederates fled in disarray. The Battle of Chattanooga was over. In 1890, Arthur MacArthur was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for his heroics that day. Fifty-two years later, his son Douglas would receive the same Medal for his courageous leadership in the defense of the Philippines. MacArthur led the military occupation of Japan for the next five years, helping to transform the country from a militaristic autocracy to a constitutional democracy. Arthur MacArthur had been cited for gallantry at Perryville, Kentucky, a year earlier. At Missionary Ridge, one of his commanding officers remarked that the young man “seems to be afraid of nothing.” After Missionary Ridge, Arthur distinguished himself repeatedly in 13 battles in Gen. William Sherman’s Atlanta campaign. He was wounded twice at Kennesaw Mountain. He also fought in the Battle of Franklin, Tennessee, where he was wounded two more times. His bravery and heroics resulted in his promotion to colonel — at age 19, the youngest colonel in the Union army. After the Civil War, Arthur stayed in the army, though he reverted to the rank of captain. He was eventually stationed out west. In 1880, while stationed at Fort Dodge near what became Little Rock, Arkansas, his son Douglas was born. Douglas’ first memories, at age four, were of a 300-mile march from Fort Wingate to Fort Seldon, north of El Paso. Arthur MacArthur was part of a force that guarded the fords of the Rio Grande River from marauding Indians led by Geronimo. In 1883, Captain MacArthur wrote a 44-page paper that envisioned America’s global destiny in the lands of the Asia-Pacific. Arthur sent the paper to former President Ulysses S. Grant, who forwarded it to President Chester Arthur. Arthur MacArthur eventually rose to the rank of General, and after the U.S. victory in the Spanish-American War, he was tasked with leading the military occupation of the Philippines. A violent insurrection developed among groups that sought immediate Filipino independence, and General MacArthur’s job was to crush that insurrection. In a foreshadowing of his son Douglas’ experience in Korea some fifty years later, Arthur clashed with William Howard Taft, the civilian in charge of the occupation, and was relieved of command. By that time, Douglas was achieving academic records at West Point that still stand to this day. And Douglas’ military exploits would exceed those of his father. He was cited for bravery in Mexico in 1914. He was awarded seven Silver Stars for his command of the Rainbow Division in World War I. His superiors called him “the bloodiest fighting man” in the army. Then-Colonel George Patton told his family that Macarthur was the bravest man he ever met. Other officers in the Rainbow Division at war’s end presented him with a cigarette case engraved with the phrase “Bravest of the Brave.” After the war, Douglas’s rise was meteoric: Superintendent of West Point, and Army Chief of Staff at age 50 in 1930. President Franklin Roosevelt clashed with MacArthur over the army’s budget, and eventually sent him to the Philippines. Douglas had accompanied his father on a tour of Asia shortly after graduating from West Point. And like his father, Douglas believed America’s destiny was in Asia and the Pacific. When Japan invaded the Philippines, MacArthur forces were eventually overwhelmed. Retreating to the island of Corregidor, MacArthur was prepared to die with his men rather than surrender, but President Roosevelt ordered him to leave the Philippines and go to Australia, where he made his famous promise to return to the Philippines. President Roosevelt awarded him the Congressional Medal of Honor. MacArthur planned his return to the Philippines. His armies fought in New Guinea, where, in historian Mark Perry’s words, MacArthur “coordinated the most successful air, land, and sea campaign in the history of warfare.” He was poised to invade the Philippines, but first had to persuade President Roosevelt to override the Navy’s objections. He succeeded, and famously landed at Leyte in October 1944 to begin the liberation of the Philippines. MacArthur was assigned the task of planning the invasion of Japan’s home islands, but the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, coupled with the Soviet invasion of Manchuria forced Japan to surrender. MacArthur led the military occupation of Japan for the next five years, helping to transform the country from a militaristic autocracy to a constitutional democracy. When Soviet and Chinese-backed North Korea invaded South Korea in June 1950, MacArthur was appointed U.S. and UN commander of American and allied forces. He temporarily snatched victory from the jaws of defeat with his brilliant landing at Inchon, which U.S. Admiral Bull Halsey called “the most masterful and audacious strategic stroke in all history.” Geoffrey Perret wrote that Inchon placed MacArthur “among the other military immortals” of history. To launch that invasion, MacArthur had to overcome the doubts of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He recalled when he heard their objections to Inchon, that he could almost hear his father’s voice saying “Doug, councils of war breed timidity and defeatism.” After the success at Inchon, the drive into North Korea was halted by a massive Chinese intervention in the war. MacArthur, like his father during the Filipino insurgency, was relieved of command when he clashed with civilian authorities. Biographer William Manchester judged Douglas MacArthur to be the greatest man-at-arms this nation produced. In a career that spanned more than 50 years and three major wars, it is a judgment that is hard to argue with. Douglas MacArthur was shaped and molded by a legacy of courage that began on Missionary Ridge more than a century and a half ago. READ MORE from Francis P. Sempa: National Review Turns 70 Trump Revives the Roosevelt Corollary to the Monroe Doctrine Armistice Day on the Western Front and in Russia    

It’s that time of year again. You know, that time of year when the price of a 16-lb turkey — a bird precisely nobody truly enjoys eating — suddenly matters to both politicians trying to make a salient political point and stressed-out grandmas preparing to host potentially riotous dinners. That time of year when supermarkets, dollar stores, and Hobby Lobby try to convince us that massive tall hats with oversized buckles really are nostalgic, while television networks in collusion with Apple TV+ (a streaming service almost no one pays for) continue to deprive us of A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving for no good reason. (READ MORE: My Planned Parenthood Turkeys) That time of year (yes, this phrase is getting a little old) when we drown political debates in whipped cream, pumpkin pie, and far too many hours of football games we find ourselves unexpectedly invested in. Of course, we all know Thanksgiving isn’t really about any of these superficial things — not the football, not the TV shows we grew up watching, not the political debates with our relatives, or even the price of turkey. It’s really about that awkward thing Mom makes us do before we fill up on the cornucopia that’s spilling out over our table: It is about giving thanks. Gratitude. It’s a virtue modern men tend to lack. Perhaps it’s the fault of our comfortable existence — most of us manage to have a roof over our heads, cars in our garages, food we didn’t have to grow ourselves in our refrigerators, and a myriad of tiny items capitalism has persuaded us will make us happier (but don’t). These blessings (and that’s what they are) manage to be so quotidian that we forget to recognize even their existence. Or maybe it’s the fault of the progressive mindset Enlightenment-era philosophers bequeathed to us via our modern political order — that mindset that tells us that satisfaction with the things our ancestors gave us serves as a roadblock in the eternal march of history toward its utopian conclusion. Satisfied and grateful men rarely make good revolutionaries. (READ MORE: The Myth of the Noble Savage) More likely, it’s a combination of those things and the rather important fact that practicing gratitude requires that we’re grateful to someone for the things we have — except that in our modern American society, mention of that Someone is a bit politically incorrect. Just imagine if the most beloved of American holidays was a violation of the sacred principle of separation of church and state. Surely the pilgrims who slaughtered the first turkeys back in 1621 were really just grateful to their Native American neighbors; George Washington and Abraham Lincoln — the fathers of the holiday as we know it — were likely just angling for an excuse to make cranberry sauce. If Thanksgiving was about giving thanks to God and not about football, wouldn’t that exclude atheists, agnostics, and maybe even those of us Christians who don’t like to think about God except on Easter and Christmas? Of course, as it turns out, George Washington really wasn’t all that concerned with keeping God out of politics. His Thanksgiving Proclamation reads thus: “Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be — That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks.” Abraham Lincoln was no more enlightened. He too thought an annual holiday reminding Americans to give thanks to God was an appropriate national exercise: “The year that is drawing toward its close has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and even soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever-watchful providence of Almighty God.” Sarcasm aside, this is what we, as an American people, so often miss about Thanksgiving. It’s not sufficient to just feel happy that the current president is not tripping up the stairs of Air Force One or that our political order finally seems to be on track to reverse some of the grave issues plaguing our politics and culture. We can’t just say we’re thankful for the roofs over our heads and the food on our tables. Thanksgiving should come with a conscious effort to overcome our habitual insensibility to the movement of God in our lives. If we can do it on the last Thursday of November, perhaps we can do it on the last Friday, too, and maybe the days that follow. READ MORE: Thanksgiving — Beyond the First Feast

Pregnancy Resource Centers Should Be Able to Operate Free From Government Intimidation

Police find more than a dozen illegals crammed into truck tractor after pursuit on I-35

Group of Venezuelan juveniles ambush sleeping vagrant, beat and stab him to death in central business district

from TheSaltyCracker: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

from RT: A policy of fear-driven militarization is making security and prosperity on the continent impossible, Moscow’s ambassador to Belgium has said European NATO members are instilling a false fear of Russia in their citizens in order to drum up support for militarization and a potential confrontation, Moscow’s envoy to Belgium, Denis Gonchar, has said. […]

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