Category Archives: International Affairs

Una Épica Sobre La Venezuela Chavista

Posted on May 10, 2023 by Joel D. Hirst

Vivi siete años en Venezuela. Lo conocí en la época ‘buena’; es decir, los tiempos de Carlos Andres Perez “2”. Y después los años de Hugo Chavez. La única manera de contar la historia de la Venezuela Chavista es atraves … Continue reading →

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On Grammys and Afghanistan

Posted on April 28, 2023 by Joel D. Hirst

A while ago I wrote about some work I did, more than a year and a half ago, during the fall of Kabul, to help evacuate the Afghanistan National Institute of Music. That effort, laid out very well by Daily … Continue reading →

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Tolstoy and Steinbeck

Posted on April 2, 2023 by Joel D. Hirst

The first time I arrived to Armenia it was spring of 2019. Still cold, the people of Yerevan were bundled tight, cigarettes poking defiantly out of layers of coats and hats and scarfs. There was a snow storm the first … Continue reading →

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Ethnogenesis and the Biosphere

Posted on March 25, 2023 by Joel D. Hirst

There is something epic and humbling about the old Russian masters. There they sat, atop the great Eurasian plain, not Europe’s afterthought but its fount. That which came before; that which is always there. Russia moves in waves. It ebbs … Continue reading →

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Things Are Cyclical, and We Are Alone

Posted on March 24, 2023 by Joel D. Hirst

Ideas move slowly, and then suddenly they move fast. Un-ideas are the same, transmitting emptiness – nihilism it was called, and still is. It was the cause of Hitler’s Germany, and those same ideas permeate American philosophy today. Ugliness sold … Continue reading →

Posted in International Affairs, philosophy | Tagged | 3 Comments

Our Empty Future

Posted on March 19, 2023 by Joel D. Hirst

In 383 A.D. when the Roman legions pulled out of their centuries old occupation of the British Isle, there were about 3.6 million people living in England south of Hadrian’s wall. Four hundred years later, when at last people started … Continue reading →

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Afghanistan National Institute of Music

Posted on March 9, 2023 by Joel D. Hirst

A year and a half ago I was caught up in a wild effort to spirit the Afghanistan National Institute of Music from Kabul. For days while HKIA (the airport) was protected by US Marines, and besieged by panicked mobs … Continue reading →

Posted in International Affairs, Liberty | Tagged | 1 Comment

Kaplan on Order

Posted on January 28, 2023 by Joel D. Hirst

Continuing on, adding some thoughts here about “The Tragic Mind” by Robert D. Kaplan, the issue of order continues to weigh on me. When I was a fellow at the George W. Bush Institute, and before, I was part of … Continue reading →

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On Being a Refugee

Posted on October 16, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

I never expected to become so heavy of heart as I have found myself recently. I suppose it should not have come as a surprise, though it did. When we are growing up we are imbued with optimism. Our parents … Continue reading →

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To Talk of Many Things… (Vol. #16 – Russia)

Posted on September 22, 2022 by Joel D. Hirst

I read a lot of Russian literature and history. It is after all the great unknown; a land that lies behind a snowy curtain long after the Iron Curtain fell. A place of philosophy as deep as the cold dark … Continue reading →

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