■ The way that blogs come and go, I feared the worst when The Charlock’s Shade, a delightful blend of book notes and curmudgeonly observations on the state of culture, came to an abrupt halt last December 6th, while “Enoch Soames” was “out as well as about in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.” An ominous place to disappear! Happily, Enoch has reappeared just as abruptly. I take his harrowing account of his hiatus cum grano salis.
■ Redmond Simonsen, whose maps, counters and cover art for SPI have influenced wargame graphics ever since, died of heart failure on March 8, 2005, at the sadly young age of 62. He hadn’t worked in the wargaming industry for 20 years, but we old-timers remember him well. Operational Studies Group has posted reminiscences (page 1, page 2) from inter aliis Greg Costykian, David Isby, Jim Dunnigan, Jack Greene, Rodger MacGowan, Brad Hessel, John Prados, Eric Lee Smith and Kevin Zucker.
Update (4/24/05): The Charles S. Roberts Awards site has posted a detailed appreciation, Alan Emrich & Rodger B. MacGowan, “Our View is Better Because We Stood on the Shoulders of a Giant: Redmond A. Simonsen”.
■ Brendan Miniter’s description of the Democrats’ inchoate Social Security pseudo-reforms, which I noted when it appeared in the subscription-only OpinionJournal Political Diary, is now publicly available, with additional commentary, under the fitting heading, “Worse Than No Reform”. At least a few clever Dems have come up with ways to “save” Social Security that ignore its demographic imbalances while “improving” it in ways that would expand both the scope of the welfare state and the power of the federal government to influence the private economy. Not surprisingly, their ideas are Bill Clinton retreads.
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