America's 250th birthday is now nearly upon us. The semi-quincentennial, whatever else one might say about it, has been a decidedly muted affair compared with the last big national anniversary, 50 years ago. The bicentennial was a major event, and not just on July 4, 1976, but for a long period leading up to it. It was such a big deal, in fact, that it wound up drawing into its orbit no less than four American presidents or future presidents.

Gerald Ford occupied the White House in 1976, and he presided over a series of patriotic events that many boomers and Gen Xers still view today with nostalgia. But his experience is only part of the bicentennial story.

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When the Iranian regime demanded a Lebanon cease-fire clause in the memorandum of understanding with the U.S., it was a clever move. In exchange for ending its stranglehold on the Strait of Hormuz, the regime sought to end the assault on Iran and to protect Hezbollah, its most powerful terror proxy, from Israel's efforts to dismantle it.

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In the middle of the 19th century, one of the most influential men on the southern Pacific island of Tahiti was a Jewish merchant named Alexander Salmon (originally "Solomon").

He was not a rabbi, communal leader or scholar. Nor did he come from one of the great centers of Jewish life in Europe or the Middle East. Born in 1820 in Hastings, England, Salmon would travel across the globe and settle in Tahiti.

Eventually, this English Jewish merchant married into Tahitian royalty, became a trusted adviser and secretary to the ruling dynasty and left an imprint on the island that is still remembered today.

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Dear Mrs. Trump –

Or may I call you Melania? If that's too familiar, no problem, I understand. But you can certainly call me Cliff!

I'm a long-time admirer. I've heard you speak out for human rights, saying for example: "There is no room for compromise when it comes to this essential right that all women possess from birth: individual freedom."

You've also pressed Russia to return the Ukrainian children its soldiers have abducted. "Reunifying children with their loved ones," you've said, "remains one of the most important global issues today."

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Pope Leo XIV began an official visit to Spain (June 6–12) by urging Spaniards to embrace multicultural coexistence with Islam and stop "fanning the flames of polarization" over mass migration from the Muslim world. He said that Christians and Muslims can live together as friends and proceeded to present medieval Spain—which was occupied by Islamic invaders for nearly 800 years—as an interfaith utopia that led to advancements in astronomy, medicine, and science.

The Pope declared:

"Your own history suggests that a culture of encounter, not confrontation, is what fosters stability and prosperity....

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The Hamas invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, was an assault about 15 times as large, on a per capita basis, than the 9/11 attacks. When it was over, more Jews had been murdered than on any single day since the Holocaust.

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President Trump's trip to China brings the economic implications of America's war against Iran into sharper focus. The fact that the Taiwan Strait generated more news than the Strait of Hormuz during the recent news cycle, is a telling indicator.

Critics keep framing this as crass resource politics: oil, opening the Strait of Hormuz waterway, and keeping gas prices down for American consumers.

Granted, we all want the price at the pump to come down, and previous administrations have cried wolf about weapons of mass destruction in the Mideast before, but the naysayers are wrong on the facts about this oil and water paradigm as I call it.

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A century ago, the first African American to earn a doctorate from Harvard and one of the founders of the NAACP, W.E.B. DuBois published The Gift of Black Folk, a book that was commissioned by the Catholic organization the Knights of Columbus, as part of a series intended to help Americans appreciate the contributions of minority groups.

DuBois was highly educated and an avid reader of great texts from Plato to Frederick Douglass. The irony of the present moment is that if DuBois were currently a student in a core philosophy class at Texas A&M University, he would be assigned only a redacted version of Plato's great work, The Republic.

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Imagine your physician walks into the exam room, recommends a prescription medication, and casually mentions she's being paid by the company that makes the drug to say so. You'd probably have questions.

You might even find a new doctor.

Now imagine that same scenario playing out on Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube — except the advice is coming from a celebrity "influencer" who's very familiar to you, who has an emotional backstory, and a financial arrangement buried somewhere in a sea of hashtags. Millions of people encounter exactly this situation every day, and most of them have no idea it's happening.

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ANYONE WHO spends time with me knows me knows how much I despise litter. For as long as I can remember, I have fumed at the sight of trash on sidewalks, beer cans in the gutter, or garbage flung from passing cars. I often pick up litter when I'm walking, and when my kids were young I made them pick it up, too.

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