Challenge Coin Collection Gets Challenged By Toddler

By Troy M. Olson

I have been ruminating a lot lately on my military coin collection, a tradition from service often carried onward. The more places you go, the more people you meet and interact with, the more coins you'll have. My coins from military days both at home and abroad are now augmented by new coins from civilian life in the decade since.

Recently, my son has taken to playing with these coins which I ordinarily kept nice and tight. Dress right, dress. One of the last vestiges of the hyper discipline from another life and another time. 

But alas, a toddler has goals and he was fascinated by all of these coins and has hid them all over the place in parts unknown. The first few times I took them away and just moved them higher up on the shelf... then he'd just climb up higher to get them. Reaching a bit higher each time. Until before long I relented and gave up on trying to keep the collection from him. 

Now they're all over the place. Hidden. When I asked where they are he'd say "sorry Daddy." 

The same process played out with medals as well until only one is truly out of his reach now. But it's not my medal, it's my maternal grandfather's Good Conduct medal from the Second World War. He gave it to me when I was barely old enough to throw the ball around. 

I imagine that may have been the last medal he bothered to keep around after three kids and five long decades separated him from the events it relates to. 

Maybe he went through exactly the same process of letting go of the tangible and physical, reaching out to the eternal instead. 

****

Troy M. Olson is an Army Veteran, lawyer by training, and co-author (with Gavin Wax) of ‘The Emerging Populist Majority’ now available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Target. He is the Sergeant-at-Arms of the New York Young Republican Club and co-founder of the Veterans Caucus. He lives in New York City with his wife and son, and is the 3rd Vice Commander (“Americanism” pillar) of the first new American Legion Post in the city in years, Post 917. You can follow him on X/Twitter and Substack at @TroyMOlson

A Bipartisan Effort to Ameliorate Loneliness in the Elderly

 

By Frank Filocomo

I was never much of a fan of Senator Rick Scott (R-FL), who I always saw as a Paul Ryan-like, neoliberal politician. He was, for example, adamant about sunsetting Social Security, a wildly unpopular policy proposal that he later rescinded amid bipartisan blowback. 

For all intents and purposes, Scott's record, both during his time as Florida's Governor and Senator, is cookie-cutter GOP establishmentarian. 

That said, sometimes people surprise you. 

Scott, in partnership with Senator Tina Smith (D-MN), reintroduced the Social Engagement and Network Initiatives for Older Relief (SENIOR) Act, a bill that was endorsed by the Foundation for Social Connection, earlier this month.

According to a press release, the bill would:

• Promote programs that combat loneliness and support community integration for seniors by adding “loneliness” to the definition of “disease prevention and health promotion services” under the Older Americans Act.
• Direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to prepare a report on the impacts of loneliness on seniors and propose solutions for identified impacts; and
• Through the report, analyze the relationship between the strength of multigenerational family units, loneliness, and seniors. 

On that second point, the SENIOR Act would require Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who was narrowly confirmed by the Senate on February 13, to take the issue of loneliness and social isolation quite seriously. 

Regarding integration of the elderly into society and the power of multigenerational-connectedness, I'm reminded of this case study from Robert Putnam and Lewis Feldstein's Better Together. Putnam and Feldstein, as I recalled in an article for National Review:

...tell the story of Experience Corps, a program launched in 1996 that fostered intergenerational connection by bringing elderly volunteers to elementary schools to tutor reading and math. This experimental program was, in so many ways, a win-win: Students, who often felt insignificant or even dumb, learned that “they themselves are worth paying attention to,” and the elderly, retired and feeling as though they no longer served a purpose in society, proved that they still had so much to offer, in the forms of wisdom, guidance, and community.

These are the kinds of initiatives that we ought to be advocating for.  

And, between Interior Secretary Doug Burgum (Confirmed January 30), who has been an outspoken advocate for walkable cities, wherein humans are prioritized over cars; HHS Secretary RFK JR. (Confirmed February 13), who would, if the SENIOR Act were to pass, have to release a report on the impact of loneliness on the elderly; and Dr. Janette Nesheiwat (Not yet confirmed as Surgeon General), who, in an article about her experience treating patients during the pandemic, wrote, "Avoiding family, friends and loved ones was probably one of the most negligent measures forced upon Americans," a powerful team ready to promote social connection appears to be taking shape.

Fingers crossed... 

Trump's Surgeon General Must Continue the Fight Against Loneliness

 

By Frank Filocomo

The office of the U.S. Surgeon General is now vacant. 

Dr. Vivek Murthy - who served under Presidents Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden - has left his post as Surgeon General. 

His time there, however, has been hugely consequential. 

Murthy's leadership and passion for the job will be hard to match. 

Through his and his team's research - especially the now famous 2023 report declaring a national loneliness epidemic - Murthy has reminded the American people of the importance of social connection.

Many of you will remember this line from the aforementioned report: "The mortality impact of being socially disconnected is similar to that caused by smoking up to 15 cigarettes a day..." To my surprise, even lay people, who are largely disconnected from politics, recall something about this.

This report unleashed an avalanche of articles on the subject of loneliness and social isolation. While I started writing about communitarianism and civil society in 2022, Murthy's report the following year spurred me into action; I became almost obsessive about the problem, consuming as much literature about the harrowing effects of loneliness on individuals and communities as I could.

With Murthy now gone, it is imperative that his successor continues to sound the alarms on the loneliness epidemic.  

Last year, then President-elect Trump nominated Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, a Fox News contributor and medical director at CityMD, to serve as the new U.S. Surgeon General. 

Dr. Janette Nesheiwat

I don't know much about Nesheiwat, but after conducting some light research, I am somewhat encouraged. It appears that she was rather outspoken about the adverse effects of lockdowns during the Covid-19 pandemic. It looks, too, as though she has been focused on the nation's mental health epidemic. 

Here is Dr. Marc Seigel discussing Nesheiwat's nomination on Laura Ingraham's show in November of last year. 

One thing that they both said about Nesheiwat is that she, like Murthy, has the unique ability to communicate complex problems in layman's terms. "She truly is an amazing communicator," Ingraham remarked, "making complex issues understandable without sounding like she's lecturing us."

Nesheiwat must continue in Murthy's footsteps and champion the cause of social connection. 

Before I sign off, I highly recommend reading Murthy's reflection on his time as Surgeon General, My Parting Prescription for America, here. 

Can Coffee Shops Save America?

 

By Frank Filocomo

I have written before about the communitarian nature of coffee shops, but the salience of these little civic places bears repeating. 

Cafes are, in many ways, community hubs that are integral to the robustness of civil society. 

In my neighborhood, there is a cafe practically on every block. Some are, of course, more vibrant than others. While I can think of a few shops that are rather sterile and lacking in adequate seating, others are often crowded and bustling with conversation. 

In Front Porch Republic - a publication that is easily becoming one of my favorites - Dennis Uhlman writes about the liveliness of his local coffee shop in Columbia, South Carolina:

Baptist pastors, Presbyterian pastors, engineering students, and art students learn each other’s names in a way that would be unlikely in any other sort of social arrangement.

Cafes, much like the one that Uhlman frequents, are third places. These are - as defined by Ray Oldenburg, who coined the term - informal gathering places, known for their low barriers to entry. Because of the low barrier to entry, third places have a leveling effect. That is, anyone from any profession or socio-economic status is welcome. 

This social-leveling component is particularly important. As Uhlman notes, America, from its conception, has been an amalgam of different peoples with different histories. While there is merit in pluralism, it also presents a pernicious problem: lack of social cohesion. This is, in part, ameliorated by third places. Modern day coffee shops, like the New England taverns of colonial America, "break down social barriers and bring different types of people together."

Aside from facilitating social and economic-connectedness, Uhlman writes of the many other benefits of coffee shops, such as their role in reducing political polarization. I encourage you to read the piece here. 

Safe Communities Are Healthy Communities

By Frank Filocomo

People, before they can participate in civic life, must first feel safe. 

In high-crime municipalities, citizens often do not have the leisure of becoming more engaged in their communities. Rather, they focus on survival. 

Robert Steuteville, in an article for Public Square, writes that "people don’t linger in places where their hair stands on the back of their necks." One's environment must be conducive to civil society. For the article, he interviewed urban planner Ray Gindroz who remarked that "...if people feel lost or trapped within a public space, unable to see or find a quick way out, they will avoid it."

I recently read Evicted by Matthew Desmond, a powerful book that follows the lives of poverty-stricken tenants in Milwaukee. The families that Desmond follows are simply in no position to think about joining book clubs or political campaigns; they are bogged down by, what my old NYU professor used to call, "the burden of necessity."  That is, the majority of their time and energy is solely focused on finding food and shelter. 

Luckily, though, there are amazing people in this world like Gindroz, who have dedicated their lives to making communities safer. You can read Gindroz's seven qualities of safe spaces here. 

I was struck by quality #1: Human presence:

People in a public space must feel the presence of other people in the space and in the buildings surrounding the space. The sense that we are not alone and are being observed helps us to behave properly and feel safe. Windows are symbols of that presence, whether people are behind them or not. Mixed-use buildings help promote 24-hour presence.

What do you know... it turns out we do actually need each other. 

Tales From My Grandfather: 80th Anniversary of the Battle of the Bulge

Both of my grandfathers fought in the Second World War, entering combat in 1944 and staying in Europe throughout the duration of the War in Europe and its aftermath. Both resided from small towns in lakes area, rural Minnesota. My maternal grandfather fought in the 94th Infantry Division, and my paternal grandfather fought in the 10th Armored Division. Both belonged to General George S. Patton's Third Army, the same Third Army that exists to this day and my unit was under nearly six and a half decades later. One grandfather told many stories of the War, but his eyes closed about nine months before mine opened, so those stories have traveled through my father. And the grandfather I did know well never told stories of the War to his family, except to his two grandsons (myself included) who fought in the Global War on Terror era. There are many stories I could tell that have traveled through my father to me about Ernest M. Olson, Combat Command B (CCB), 10th Armored Division. 

This story is a Christmas story because it represented the low point in the war for him. 

The brilliant "Band of Brothers" has since made the Battle and Siege at Bastogne the entry point for the War in Europe for many in my generation. The focus of that show is Easy Company of the 101st Airborne. There is a brief mention of a Lt. George Rice, 10th Armored, who warns Cpt. Richard Winters that the German Panzer Division has cut the roads south, "looks like you boys are going to be surrounded." Cpt. Winters responded: "we're paratroopers, we're supposed to be surrounded." The episode ends with the elements of the 101st Airborne marching into the woods in the Belgian town of Bastogne to hold the line. The phrase hold the line itself has become synonymous in American military and now political dialogue. A place where you cannot surrender from. It is fight or annihilation. Life, or death. I clung to that brief appearance from the 10th Armored in that show because I knew that was my grandfather's unit, and I knew from stories that throughout the Siege of Bastogne, my grandfather was dug in and surrounded. The 101st Airborne has gotten the glory for decades, but elements of the 10th Armored, specifically his Combat Command B, were also present. And reading between the lines of that scene they would have been there even before the 101st Airborne arrived. It wasn't just that show. Press accounts at the time have always overlooked the contributions of the other units. But the reality is, as Antony Beevor's international bestseller Ardennes 1944 explains, the 10th Armored was one of two formations that the commanding General Dwight D. Eisenhower ordered to the Ardennes that first evening in December, a handful of days before Christmas. Combat Command B of the 10th Armored and its commander Col. William L. Roberts, had a "better idea of how desperate the situation was." 

It was the largest German offensive of the western front burst out of the Ardennes forest on December 16, 1944, aiming to drive a wedge between British and American forces and to capture the Belgian port of Antwerp, vital to the German need to re-supply. Combat Command B was the first major combat unit to defend Bastogne arriving on December 18th, one week before Christmas. 

My grandfather described this, as did just about anyone present, as the hardest and lowest days of the War for him. They were poorly supplied and without winter clothing, and the hospital overrun within days. The absolute low point came on Christmas Day my father was told, where Pfc. Olson sat down with his Christmas dinner, one of the few meals per year in military life that are going to be a step up from the usual. He took maybe a bite or two out of it before an exploded German artillery shell and its blasted dirt and snow from the Earth took it away from his hands and ruined it. As I'm sure many family histories could tell, and one of many reasons the "Band of Brothers" show first released just after 9/11, resonated so well with all who saw it and have these stories. The promise to God that Richard Winters made in the show that if he managed to get home again he would find a quiet piece of land somewhere, and spend the rest of his life in peace, is the same promise my grandfather made on Christmas Day, 1944 -- 80 years ago today. My grandfather would live another 40 years after that promise, raising four children with his wife Marie who he married just before leaving for Europe. An avid hunter like many Minnesota men, he didn't like the cold during hunting season as he got older, and my father, the youngest, recalled that they never spent a night away from home. They'd drive back from wherever they were the same night. A promise made, a promise kept. 

The press called those surrounded and shelled in those days the "battered bastards of Bastogne." But the actions of the 10th Armored Division's Combat Command B have always been overlooked in comparison to the famous 101st Airborne and General Patton's drive to rescue the encircled American troops who faced total annihilation. 

Of course, they are all heroes to me. And I am sure the Christmas Day story of my grandfather was made by many soldiers that day and in the days and weeks surrounding it. 

For those reading, a Merry Christmas to you and your family and a Happy New Year. 

*Republished from A Republic, We Will Restore It by permission of the author.

Troy M. Olson is an Army Veteran, lawyer by training, and co-author (with Gavin Wax) of ‘The Emerging Populist Majority’ now available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Target. He is the Sergeant-at-Arms of the New York Young Republican Club and co-founder of the Veterans Caucus. He lives in New York City with his wife and son, and is the 3rd Vice Commander (“Americanism” pillar) of the first new American Legion Post in the city in years, Post 917. You can follow him on X/Twitter and Substack at @TroyMOlson

Brain Rot: An Unfortunate Word of the Year

The 2024 Oxford Word of the Year is “brain rot.” It is defined as “the supposed deterioration of a person’s mental or intellectual state, especially viewed as the result of overconsumption of material (now particularly online content) considered to be trivial or unchallenging. Also: something characterized as likely to lead to such deterioration.” Although this term is meant as a humorous commentary on excessive technology use and hints at its potential harms, the definition itself is incorrect—or at best, incomplete. Brain rot is not just “supposed,” it’s real, and it’s harmful, especially for minors whose brains are still developing. 

Several studies have shown that certain kinds of technology use negatively affect the brain, particularly in minors. One study found that frequent use of mobile devices “may displace their opportunities for learning emotion-regulation strategies over time,” meaning that kids do not develop healthy ways to deal with stress and adversity. Another found that children who spend too much time on screens have less white matter in their brains and perform worse on cognitive testing. Yet another found that Internet addiction literally changes the brain’s structure and can lead to “chronic dysfunction.” Excessive tech usage does more than waste a few hours or reduce time spent in real-world interactions. It can alter the brain in ways that lead to long-term decreases in productivity and social skills. 

Countering brain rot is a serious challenge. Since the pandemic, the time minors spend on screens has skyrocketed, with teens now spending over 8.5 hours per day on them, and tweens at over 5.5 hours. With one study finding that difficulty making friends, lower curiosity, and other psychological issues are correlated with just four hours of screen use, it seems highly probable that excessive screen time is exacerbating the mental health crisis. Given high anxiety levels and the difficulty many young people have forming meaningful real-world relationships, parents, schools, and policymakers should actively be thinking about ways to give kids more opportunities to socialize without screens. 

While public policy can be a ham-fisted way to solve social or cultural challenges, getting phones out of school is one solution that appears to have real promise. It has garnered bipartisan support and the early returns indicate both academic and social benefits. At Illing Middle School in Connecticut, which banned phones last December, students report having to “just find conversation” and “figure it out.” Brain rot is real, but it does not have to become normalized, and it can be beaten when space is created for offline conversation to flourish. 

While schools can and should take certain actions to limit screens, parents will ultimately be the most important fighters in the war on brain rot. While different families will use different methods, and certain kids handle screens better than others, there are a few broad principles parents can use to find success. Delaying the age at which a child gets their first smartphone and then limiting how much time they spend on it is a great first step, as is really learning how to use parental control tools. But kids are often tech-savvy and parental controls are not foolproof. If kids are bored all day, they will find ways to entertain themselves, often through screens. 

Ultimately, beating brain rot requires giving young people meaningful real-world interactions. This can be through religious organizations, sports, the arts, or (especially for younger kids) unstructured play time outside with peers. Taking screens away is only effective if a satisfying alternative is offered. Given the prevalence of the virtual world, community building requires more intentionality than ever, but the payoff is worth it. Let’s beat brain rot, together. 

Education by Numbers

 

The human soul is inimitable; Artificial Intelligence, while wildly impressive, will always fall short.

We individual beings are idiosyncratic in a way that is incomputable to machines. 

Many, however, fail to appreciate this indisputable fact and look at humans, not as God's inexplicable creations, but as product-maximizing homo-economici: faceless units whose value is measured by their outputs.  

Schools, in particular, are overly output-driven.

In an article for First Things, S. A. Dance writes that education is "a spiritual pursuit." The spirit is not quantifiable, but rather, something that is cultivated through leisure.

Leisure, Dance recognizes, has become something of a pejorative. Today, leisureliness is seen as indolence. 

Dance and others, however, see leisure as a meditative and reflective practice. A school's goal, he writes, ought to be to "refine our capacities to think rationally, contemplate reality, appreciate beauty, and feel gratitude." 

Modern education, however, prioritizes "standards-based learning," neglecting the nourishment of one's "interior life" in the process. 

Since we have supplanted spiritual education with standards-based education, we have, in effect, sanitized learning of its humanity. In comes AI.

At this point, everyone knows how powerful a tool ChatGPT has become: all you have to do is input a few basic prompts relating to any given subject, and it will spit out a full-length article or essay. 

Dance argues that this technology has only become a threat because we, through our political-economization of academia, have let it:

The interior life is qualitative in nature; however, schools deal exclusively with the quantitative. This category error explains the intuitive revulsion most teachers feel about issuing grades and administering standardized tests. The bureaucracy demands numbers, and so we beat numbers out of our students to appease it.

People, though, cannot be reduced to numbers. To do so is cold and, I would argue, inhumane. 

Education, especially the liberal arts, must be a humanizing endeavor, one that AI could never compete with.

Disrupting Isolation

 

Breaking old habits is hard.  

I say that because most of us city-dwellers are in the nasty habit of insulating ourselves from our neighbors and communities. As I wrote for National Review a few months ago, "When we walk down the street, we turn off our peripheral vision and focus only on the destination, never the journey."

We have become overly-utilitarian, socially-averse and stuck in rigid routines. 

I always feel the need to admit: I, too, have insulated myself. I could be far more involved in my community. I could learn more of my neighbor's names. I need to do better. We all do. 

Some, recognizing that a life of atomization and loneliness is fundamentally unhealthy, have taken the plunge into community engagement. 

In Front Porch Republic, Dennis Uhlman writes about a chili cook-off that he spearheaded in his new South Carolina neighborhood.

From the article:

By late afternoon, to my surprise, a steady stream of neighbors started to show up. Some of the families had young children like us, others were older couples and single people who seemed excited to meet the people that lived around them... For a couple of hours, our driveway was the center of activity as people tried each other’s chili, connected over small talk, and earnestly asked if we could do more events like this in the future. It was a great and surprising day, and I hope it is a precursor to more community being built in the future.

This was a valiant move by Dennis. Many of the people he encountered when advertising the cook-off were perplexed by his neighborliness and unusual hospitality. He writes that, while handing out flyers, "the resistance against disrupting isolation was palpable." 

We are cocooned by our isolation. Dennis, chili in hand, rejected that.  

Let's all try to be more like Dennis. 

Why I Support a No-Recline Policy on Airplanes

 

We are not wholly-individualized beings living in our own orbit; our actions can have negative externalities for those around us. 

In a new survey conducted by The Harris Poll, a shocking 41% of Americans said that they supported a ban on reclining seats on airplanes. 

I am, proudly, one of the 41%. 

Seat-reclination does not happen in a vacuum. It was, in fact, Kamala Harris who in 2023 remarked that "None of us just live in a silo. Everything is in context." 

(Read my post about "coconut-conservatism" here.)

So, being that we live in a context and are not, as Amitai Etzioni would say, "individual, free-standing agents," why do we care so little for our fellow travelers? 

I, being a 6 ft 3 in male, have a special disdain for airplane seat reclination. It is already a tight squeeze in there; to have the person in front of you recline their seat can make sitting comfortably nearly impossible. 

I recall one particularly awful flight from Arizona to New York. It was a red-eye (a flight that departs at night, and arrives in the morning) and I was already running on little sleep. Upon sitting down, the lady in front of me decided to, in an especially gratuitous fashion, recline her seat back. I was crammed, almost comically so. My legs had no choice but to rest in the aisle, occasionally being knocked around my the snack cart. For the duration of that flight, I was unable to get a wink of sleep; it was five hours of misery.

Now, you may ask: Why didn't I say anything? Why didn't I speak up?

It's a good question. I am not one for confrontation, especially in tight, public spaces. Plus, no one wants to be a Karen. 

Earlier this year, a couple boarding a Cathay Pacific airplane, traveling from Hong Kong to London, was banned from the airline for making a stink about a passenger's egregiously reclined seat. The couple's response to the selfish passenger, which was obviously wrong and wildly inappropriate (see video here), raises the question of whether allowing people to recline on flights, especially shorter, domestic ones, is a sustainable practice. 

I think that we ought to remember that we are, as Etzioni wrote, "not merely rights-bearing individuals but also community members who are responsible for each other." Let us act more in this way. 

How Do You Dress?

 

You'll find varying degrees of dress - or dressiness, if you like - on the political Right. 

Claremont fellow, Michael Anton, I am told, is a fastidious dresser. This is evidenced, not just by anecdotes I've heard from colleagues, but by pictures of the man himself.

He looks more a member of the Dave Brubeck Quartet, than a conservative academic. 

Similarly, Roger Stone, a beyond-eccentric fellow, with his rather unsettling back tattoo of Richard Nixon, has always been something of a men's fashion influencer. His - what looks to be defunct - fashion blog, Stone on Style, used to feature an annual "Best and Worst Dressed" list, wherein Stone, with what appears to be a well-trained eye for classy dress, celebrates and lambastes the looks of contemporary stars and television personalities. 

Some on the Right, however, prefer a more relaxed, or rather, shabby look.

I was intrigued by one of Jude Russo's blog posts for The Lamp titled New Pants. In it, Russo walks us through his rather limited and quickly fraying wardrobe, which he is more or less unbothered by. "Shabbiness," he explains, "isn’t exactly a choice so much as a comfortable and habitual way of life." Interesting... He goes on to say that "there is nothing softer than a pair of chinos that is about to disintegrate."

I'm thinking of one particular blazer that I own. A blue one. It's comfortable and well-worn, though the inside pocket isn't a pocket at all; it's a hole. I sometimes forget this, only to lose my pens in the abyss of the fabric. 

One of my work colleagues, who is something of a William F. Buckley Jr. expert, tells me that Buckley would throw a blazer over just about anything. He also told me that, as the years went on, the knot on his ties got looser and looser. 

Personally, I quite like the blazer-over-anything approach. It reminds me of Hugh Laurie in House.

Of course, what we wear and how we present ourselves is the first thing that people pick up on when they scan your person. So, even a fraying blazer over a schleppy shirt looks better than the schleppy shirt by itself. 

Anyway, I'm curious: how do you dress?