We read two books at the last meeting of The Mules, both of them pop-philosophical takes on how to age well. You’d think that would be right up my alley.

Travels with Epicurus 
By Daniel Klein 

Publication Date: Oct. 2012
176 pages

A Brief Summary of the Book: With a suitcase full of philosophy books, Daniel Klein journeys to the Greek island Hydra to discover the secrets of aging happily. Drawing on the lives of his Greek friends, as well as philosophers ranging from Epicurus to Sartre, he learns to appreciate old age as a distinct and extraordinarily valuable stage of life. He uncovers simple pleasures that are uniquely available late in life, as well as headier pleasures that only a mature mind can fully appreciate. A travel book, a witty and accessible meditation, and an optimistic guide to living well. (Source: GoodReads)

My Thoughts: How to live a fulfilling life when you are over the hill should have been something I’d be interested in reading about. But I found the book surprisingly shallow. As someone named “Tim” said on the GoodReads website:

“Pleasant enough, but basically in the vein of ‘chicken soup for the soul’, cab-driver philosophy. Really: it amounts to more or less this: Wow! life is cosmic, know what I mean? Bummer to be old, but then again, mellow. Don’t care that I can’t score; that’s a relief. Philosophy, that’s some heavy-ass shit, know what I mean? Heidegger… I mean, c’mon! But then again – maybe he was deep? More retsina! Greece is nice. It’s quaint and picturesque. Epicurus, Epictetus, Seneca, Sartre… all these guys… pretty deep really. You should go to Hydra sometime, but if you don’t that’s okay, just be glad you’re alive.

“Oh and here’s the hook: If you’re old, go with it – don’t try to cling pathetically to pre-old life. In a way I agree with this, in another way I think it’s a false framing of the challenge of not being young.

“I give it 3 stars, because I think what he offers is not nonsense. I just dock 2 stars for its total sloppiness & lack of ambition to think. But I truly wish him a happy old age, and me too before long.”

About the Author 

Daniel Martin Klein is an American writer of fiction, non-fiction, and humor. His most notable work is Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar, co-written with Thomas Cathcart. He graduated from Harvard College with a BA in philosophy. After a brief career in television comedy, he began writing books, ranging from thrillers and mysteries to humorous books about philosophy. When not enjoying the slow life on the Greek islands, he lives in Great Barrington, MA, with his wife, Freke Vuijst, American correspondent for the Dutch newsweekly Vrij Nederland.

From Strength to Strength 
By Arthur C. Brooks 

270 pages
Publication Date: Feb. 2022

A Brief Summary of the Book: Drawing on social science, philosophy, biography, theology, and eastern wisdom, as well as dozens of interviews with everyday men and women, Brooks shows us that true life success is well within our reach. By refocusing on certain priorities and habits that anyone can learn, such as deep wisdom, detachment from empty rewards, connection and service to others, and spiritual progress, we can set ourselves up for increased happiness. (Source: Amazon)

My Thoughts: Like Travels with Epicurus, this is a book about how to have a meaningful fourth quarter of life. I’m grateful to my book club brethren for suggesting it, because it is a subject we should be talking about. but I have to admit – unhappily – that this one was even more disappointing. I have nothing against reading books about philosophical, ethical, and intellectual issues from a layperson’s perspective. But I need some content that takes me beyond conventional thinking.

In From Strength to Strength, Brooks seems to be excitedly recounting how, in his late middle age, he discovered Emerson and Zen Buddhism. And like Daniel Klein in Travels with Epicurus, he covers the basic groundwork of the popular chill philosophies, but without any new insights or applications that would have made the book more interesting.

I’ve several times reviewed books that attempt to do much the same thing – i.e., explain an important philosophical concept in terms I can understand, supported by factual information that is relevant. I’m reading a good one right now. I’ll review it for you in an upcoming issue.

About the Author

Arthur C. Brooks is an American social scientist, the William Henry Bloomberg Professor of the Practice of Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School, and Professor of Management Practice at the Harvard Business School. He was the president of the American Enterprise Institute for 10 years, where he held the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Free Enterprise. He has authored 11 books, including the bestsellers Love Your Enemies and The Conservative Heart, and writes the “How to Build a Life” column at The Atlantic. He is also the host of the podcast “The Art of Happiness with Arthur Brooks.”

This poem was written by Oliver Baez Bendroff, the author of three poetry collections, including Consider the Rooster, a finalist for the 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry. It sounds like it was written by AI. But even if it had been, you shouldn’t judge any work by who made it or how it was made, but by its usefulness and beauty.

T4T
 By Oliver Baez Bendroff

And I think he must be drunk, from the sweet way he.
Brother. I think about his XX all the time. It’s like a joke,
that we’ll start dreaming of men once we. My favorite
version is the one where we. We ate citrus on river rock
while others swam out. Stern lady cop found us out-of-
towners naked, our clothes scattered around pine root.
Dampened for days. But he. Inclination surges
through window screen – that wind, you’d think
we’d found ourselves in beach town.
If I had the chance, I’d go right to the root of  him.
Shouldn’t I out of anyone feel it with my main medium.
I think there’s something happy and right about us mating.
That night how you. Chest flying. Tonight my house creaks.
Somewhere swings open a gate we all know we all want.

One Man’s Story: “I felt safer in Gaza than I do on that campus” 

When Max Long graduated from high school in Boston in 2015, he made Aliyah (emigrated to Israel) and joined the Israeli Defense Forces – granting him a front-row seat to the existential threats facing the Jewish state. He anticipated dangers as a soldier. He did not expect to face danger as an American Jewish college student.

On Rosh Hashanah in 2024, Long prepared a plate of apples and honey and stood on the edge of campus with a sign inviting people to hear his perspective as an IDF soldier – a routine he continued every Wednesday for a month.

“I had seen there’s a whole lack of representation on campus of our narrative,” said Long, 27, a part-time student at DePaul University in Chicago who had walked by encampments daily and decided to make himself available to answer questions. “What really enraged me to go out there was seeing a rally for the martyrs with pictures of Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7.”

But on Nov. 6, 2024, he said two masked men approached him on the edge of his Chicago college campus, where he had been inviting passersby to ask him questions. One approached him from the front, shook his hand, and asked questions for a couple minutes. The other, he said, approached from behind and knocked him unconscious.

Between 2015 and 2018, he and his fellow IDF soldiers had worked to uncover cross-border terror tunnels between Israel and Gaza. When his active duty was complete, he launched Growing Wings Foundation, a nonprofit to link lone soldiers like himself to the community support they would need.

He made plans to return to the US to attend college in 2023, but after Oct. 7, he was immediately called up from the reserves and sent back to Gaza where he helped recover hostages’ bodies from the tunnels.

After that tour of duty, he picked up where he left off and enrolled in classes for the spring of 2024.

“I had seen so much to not go out and share that reality,” he said. “For me to live in the US, I cannot live in silence and in secret, especially on my own college campus.”

For three hours, Long stood just outside the campus entrance answering questions, sharing his story and fielding a fair share of harassment and hateful rhetoric.

“That’s how I realized how deep-rooted this antisemitism is,” he said.

The day after he was attacked and the suspects escaped, students staged a sit-in inside the school library holding “Wanted” flyers featuring Long’s face, not the assailants.

He has not returned to campus for class since. He attends class remotely.

“Knowing I have a team around me that’s got my back, I felt safer in Gaza than I do on that campus,” Long said. “Now that my face is out there, it’s worrying. Who will be the lunatic who wants to be a hero by taking me out?”

(Source: The Free Press)

Are conservatives now engaged in cancel culture? Are they now embracing the idea that “hate speech” is a form of violence and should be prosecuted as a violent crime? Here’s a good piece on this issue from a recent edition of The Free Press. I’ve cut its length down by 70% to convey only the gist of it. – MF

Are Conservatives Embracing Cancel Culture? 
From the Editors of The Free Press

“In the wake of Charlie Kirk’s murder, an alarming number of Americans made light of his assassination or tried to justify it. An angry right wing has emerged to ensure that such people pay, kicking off a wave of firings and suspensions that have affected journalists, Secret Service agents, and university employees.

“We aren’t supposed to do guilt by association in this country. Conservatives, who for years have rightly complained about the excesses of leftist cancel culture, certainly shouldn’t be engaged in this sort of thing.

“But they are – en masse. To understand why, you have to go back to the first Trump term.

“After Trump won in 2016, the American left was beset by feelings of powerlessness. And so it lashed out, and started a cultural revolution with the aim of making it socially unacceptable to disagree with them. Originally, at least some of the targets were actual racists, sexists, and antisemites. Eventually, they weren’t. Scores of normal, good people were fired from their jobs, kicked out of school, and socially ostracized for expressing opinions that were ‘harmful’ and ‘dangerous’ – definitions that became looser as time went on. Ultimately, as with all revolutions, perfectly innocent people were swept up in the fervor, their reputations and much more forever ruined.

“Now the right is doing precisely the same thing.

“A new site called Charlie’s Murderers is crowdsourcing a list of individuals who reacted inappropriately to Kirk’s assassination…. The site says it has received nearly 20,000 submissions. Some are truly horrific, containing explicit justifications for, or praise of, Kirk’s murder. Some are nihilistic trolling. Others are merely insensitive….

“Already, as in the woke era, the scope of who deserves to be fired for their political beliefs has been expanded to include milquetoast opinions that no reasonable person would construe as dangerous. The very name of the site – Charlie’s Murderers – equates expressing the wrong opinion (however disagreeable or tasteless it might be) with murder itself….

“Some lawmakers believe these grassroots efforts are not enough. The day after Kirk’s assassination, a Louisiana Republican congressman promised he would get a law passed that would ‘ban for life every post or commenter that belittled the assassination of Charlie Kirk…. I’m also going after their business licenses and permitting,’ he said…

“Say what you will about Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but she’s never proposed taking away people’s driver’s licenses over an X post….

“Principles don’t matter when things are easy. They matter when they’re hard. They matter now.”

This essay was sent to me by a high school classmate. I thought it was a reasonably evenhanded analysis of this very pressing question: Is there a way out of this for America? – MF

Why America Is at a Dangerous Crossroads Following the Charlie Kirk Shooting 
From Katty Kay, BBC News

“It has been a brutal week in America and I’m not the only one wondering whether the country can pull itself out of this spiral of hatred and violence.

“After one of the most searing assassinations in US history, the governor of Utah pleaded for Americans to turn down the political temperature.

“But hardly anyone that I’ve spoken to since Charlie Kirk’s death thinks that will be the path the country will choose. Not anytime soon, at least….

“Americans didn’t even come together in the face of a global pandemic. In fact, COVID made divisions worse.

“Within days of Charlie Kirk’s death, the country’s political camps had already retreated to opposing narratives.

“The reason is simple, yet hard to change. The incentives that fuel American political life reward the people and platforms that turn up the heat, not those who dial tensions down.

“Around the country, you’re more likely to get elected to political office if you run on policies and rhetoric that appeal to your political base, rather than the political middle. (It’s the depressing byproduct of gerrymandering – the original sin behind America’s dysfunctional, divided politics.)

“Equally, in the media, people who opine about politics are rewarded for being more extreme and stoking outrage – that’s the way to get more eyeballs and, ultimately, more advertising dollars.

“This incentive structure is what makes Utah Governor Spencer Cox something of an American exception.

“Utah Governor Spencer Cox has tried to turn down the political temperature. After Charlie Kirk was killed, he urged Americans to ‘log off, turn off, touch grass, hug a family member, go out and do good in the community.’

“He sounded so sane, so wholesome – an effort, in a sea of division, at reconciliation….

“Division and political violence are not new phenomena in America. Some 160 years ago, the country went to war with itself and it has never really stopped.

“Over a period of five years in the 1960s, a US president was killed and then his brother was killed while campaigning to become president. In that same period, two of the nation’s most prominent civil rights leaders were assassinated too.

“In the 1970s, President Gerald Ford was shot at on two separate occasions. In the 1980s, Ronald Reagan was struck by a bullet while walking to his limousine.

“And of course, just last year Trump was the victim of a failed attempt on his life by a gunman in Pennsylvania – and a second alleged attempt by a gunman in Florida, whose trial began the week Kirk was killed.

“What makes this era so different from the 1960s and 70s, though, is what Governor Cox is worried about….

“‘I believe that social media has played a direct role in every single assassination and assassination attempt that we have seen over the last five, six years,’ Cox said in an interview on Sunday.

“He went on to say that ‘cancer’ was likely too weak a word for what it has done to American society….

“Tragic and ironic, since Kirk saw himself as a champion of free speech, even as his critics often disagreed with that framing. His death though may push the country further from civil discourse.

“Within days of Kirk’s death, the country’s political camps had already retreated to opposing narratives.

“Many on the left are eager to explore the ways that Kirk’s killer might have been radicalised by internet subcultures and group chats. Many on the right prefer to unpack whether the suspect was part of a left-wing conspiracy.

“Neither group seems particularly keen to prioritize reconciliation or healing.

“The reality is that those who study extremism believe that left-right may not even be the most helpful way to look at the division of this current moment.

“‘It’s better to look at what’s causing people to be ungovernable,’ says Rachel Kleinfeld, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace who specializes in polarized democracies. It does take a desire to turn down the temperature… [and] requires people to have a little more courage than they’re showing. I think it is more useful to focus on how we as a society turn a page and open a new chapter, because this is like a bad marriage. And like a bad marriage, you can only lose by pointing fingers.’”

Lions & Scavengers 
The True Story of America (and Her Critics) 

By Ben Shapiro 

Published: Sept. 2, 2025
256 pages

Overview: Ben Shapiro examines the current state of America and Western civilization, and poses a question: Will we be noble Lions, or will we be destructive Scavengers?

What I Liked Most About It 

* I like the simplicity of looking at problems bilocally. In this case, Shapiro is positing that if your perspective is human and social value, you can group the world into two types: Lions and Scavengers. There is no doubt that this rhetorical strategy is reductive (as Liberals like to say). But it is also very helpful because it limits the discussion to two ideas that can be clearly compared and contrasted throughout a discussion and remembered later on. Plus, this sort of focus allows for insights that can be deep and true. And it prevents the argument from disintegrating into a morass of relativistic goop that makes solutions impossible to reach.

* I very much like a secondary (but important) point he makes several times – that at the heart of today’s conflicts (political, economic, and cultural), there’s a dangerous lie: that all people are equal in ability, and that all inequality stems from oppression and exploitation.

* For a true brainiac, Shapiro writes with a high degree of simplicity and clarity, which makes for easy reading of his ideas about difficult and complex issues.

What I Didn’t Like as Much 

Shapiro is religious, and although he makes it a practice to make his arguments without sourcing religious beliefs as authoritative (which renders my objection to a quibble), he does often point out the correlation between the solid moral ethical positions he is supporting with religious text.

Critical Reception 

The book was just published last Tuesday. So, I could find only one review, from the New York Post:

“With his signature clarity and sharp insight, Shapiro refutes that lie, emphasizing that in a free country, inequality is rooted in differences of talent and work ethic – not oppression – and that the best solution to lack of success lies in duty and virtue. Lions, like America’s founding fathers, strive for the highest good, building systems that promote freedom, prosperity, and equality of opportunity. Meanwhile, Scavengers degrade these ideals, spreading resentment and entitlement that threaten to dismantle the foundations of Western civilization.”

Interesting: Lions Begetting Scavengers 

In writing about Luigi Mangione, the killer of the UnitedHealthcare CEO, Shapiro points out something I’ve often noticed and have written about in past issues.

“[Mangione] grew up rich. And then he basically decided that he was a victim of the system and that, because the system itself was deeply flawed, that gave him the excuse to commit murder of a person he had never met.”

It’s a great irony, he notes, that Scavengers are often the privileged children of Lions themselves.

“So many people build community, build family, make the systems that make the West great stronger, and then they don’t pass that on to their kids in any way, shape, or form,” he laments. “They seem to think that… their kids will somehow imbibe the correct values from the water or from the air.”

About the Author 

Benjamin Shapiro is the cofounder of The Daily Wire and host of The Ben Shapiro Show, the top conservative podcast in the nation. A bestselling author, Shapiro graduated from UCLA summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa in 2004, then from Harvard Law School cum laude in 2007. His work has been profiled in nearly every major American publication, and he has appeared as the featured speaker at many conversative events on campuses nationwide.

Watch him talk about the book with Megyn Kelly here. 

Two Quick and Interesting Reads on the Pay Gap

“WNBA players say they’re not paid what they’re owed. Are they right?” 
By Beau Dure, The Guardian
Executive Summary from Nigel: During the WNBA All-Star Game, athlete Napheesa Collier set a record with 36 points, while players wore shirts with a message demanding fair pay. The players’ protests highlight ongoing disputes over salaries amid the league’s financial complexity. Despite claims of significant losses, recent data indicates the league’s finances are strong, with rising broadcast rights and revenues and high team valuations. WNBA players, earning less than 10% of league income, argue they deserve higher pay given the league’s commercial success, increased team values, and expanding popularity. The debate underscores broader issues of equitable athlete compensation in women’s sports.

Read the whole thing here.

“Can Caitlin Clark Fix the Pay Gap?” 
By Leonardo Armatto, Forbes
Executive Summary from Nigel: The WNBA, led by Commissioner Cathy Engelbert, improved revenues and franchise values but still struggles with gender pay disparities and low mass viewership. The league hopes Clark and other top athletes will drive sustained interest and bridge the gap, but while Clark’s success sparks excitement, the league needs widespread viewership to truly impact salaries. (Note: This essay was written when Caitlin Clark was still in college, but the argument still holds.)

Read the whole thing here.

Caitlin Clark’s Impact on the WNBA 

Though the WNBA franchise and some socially woke media pundits won’t admit it, Caitlin Clark is the most beneficial thing to happen to the WNBA since it began. Here are two short essays that explain why that is true.

“It’s crazy to be reminded of how seismic Caitlin Clark’s impact on sports is – both the good and the incredibly ugly.” (The New York Post)
Read it here.

“Race-Baiting WNBA Players Are Sabotaging Their Own League Out of Spite.” (DailyWire)
Read it here.

And two books…

Inside the WNBA
By Juliette Terzieff

A comprehensive look at the WNBA from the boardroom to the NBA to the movers and shakers who made it possible, with a retrospective of the league’s history and breakout players. From interviews with the players, coaches, and officials, readers gain insight into the game’s appeal, to markets including men and the lesbian community. Readers get a sneaky peek into the locker room for an insight into team dynamics. Also includes a breakdown of all the teams, with uniform, star details, stats, and photos. (Source: the book jacket)

On Her Game: 
Caitlin Clark and the Revolution in Women’s Sports
By Christine Brennan

On Her Game is a compelling bestseller that chronicles Caitlin Clark’s meteoric rise in basketball, capturing nationwide attention with her record-breaking performances and dynamic style. It reveals behind-the-scenes insights into Clark’s journey, including her past struggles, Olympic snub, and the media spotlight she has attracted. Clark’s impact transcends sport, symbolizing the cultural shift brought by Title IX and inspiring millions of young athletes. Her charisma and talent have transformed women’s basketball into a celebrated national phenomenon. (Source: Amazon Book Reviews via Nigel)

The Fort Bragg Cartel
By Seth Harp 

I haven’t read this book yet, so I won’t review it. But here is a promotional piece for it that makes me want to read it:

“In December 2020, a deer hunter discovered two dead bodies that had been riddled with bullets and dumped in a forested corner of Fort Bragg, North Carolina. One of the dead men, Master Sergeant William ‘Billy’ Lavigne, was a member of Delta Force, the most secretive ‘black ops’ unit in the military.

“A deeply traumatized veteran of America’s classified assassination program, Lavigne had done more than a dozen deployments in his lengthy career, was addicted to crack cocaine, dealt drugs on base, and had committed a series of violent crimes before he was mysteriously killed.

“The other victim, Chief Warrant Officer Timothy Dumas, was a quartermaster attached to the Special Forces who used his proximity to clandestine missions to steal guns and traffic drugs into the United States from abroad, and had written a blackmail letter threatening to expose criminality in the special operations task force in Afghanistan.

“As soon as Seth Harp, an Iraq war veteran and investigative reporter, begins looking into the double murder, he learns that there have been many more unexplained deaths at Fort Bragg recently, other murders connected to drug trafficking in elite units, and dozens of fatal overdoses.

“Drawing on declassified documents, trial transcripts, police records, and hundreds of interviews, Harp tells a scathing story of narco-trafficking in the Special Forces, drug conspiracies abetted by corrupt police, blatant military cover-ups, American complicity in the Afghan heroin trade, and the pernicious consequences of continuous war.”

To give you an idea of how many studies have been done on the COVID vaccine, here are five that I dug up in the last five minutes.

1. “All-cause mortality according to COVID-19 vaccination status: An analysis of the UK Office for National Statistics public data.” Click here.

2. “The effect of framing and communicating COVID-19 side-effect risks on vaccine intentions for adults in the UK and the USA: A structured summary of a study protocol for a randomized controlled trial.” Click here. 

3. “Age-specific all-cause mortality trends in the UK: Pre-pandemic increases and the complex impact of COVID-19.” Click here.

4. “Impact and effectiveness of mRNA BNT162b2 vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 infections and COVID-19 cases, hospitalisations and deaths following a nationwide vaccination campaign in Israel: an observational study using national surveillance data.” Click here.

5. “Global burden of 288 causes of death and life expectancy decomposition in 204 countries and territories and 811 subnational locations, 1990-2021: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2021.” Click here.

The Happiness Files
By Arthur C. Brooks

What I Liked About It: Arthur C. Brooks is a social scientist who supports his ideas with facts and data that come from experiments and studies, most of them scientifically controlled.

I also liked that he distinguishes between pleasure and enjoyment. (In my essay above, which I wrote before reading the book, I used the word “pleasure.” I decided not to change it because pleasure was the best word I had at the time.)

I liked that he has studied the role of family on friendship and I agree with most of the conclusions he came to.

I like very much that one of his four “values” is work. His definition of it is not exactly the same as mine. (Mine is better.) But it’s good.

What I Didn’t Like So Much: One of his four pillars is faith. I don’t feel comfortable with that term because it is too easily mistaken for religion. And in fact, in the references he makes to argue for the importance of faith, he equates it with religion. I think the truth is deeper than that. But heck, he’s been teaching the science of happiness at Harvard for something like 15 years, and he’s never read my work. So I can’t criticize him for missing some of the finer points.

Here is a short presentation by Brooks on the science of happiness.

About the Author

Arthur C. Brooks is an American author and academic. Since 2019, Brooks has served as the Parker Gilbert Montgomery Professor of the Practice of Nonprofit and Public Leadership at the Harvard Kennedy School and at the Harvard Business School as a Professor of Management Practice and Faculty Fellow. (Source: Wikipedia)