EasternAssociation.Com: First draft of (a) histor(y)(ical) novel. Read about it here. Or if you’re new, start here, or here.

Happy Thanksgiving! Here’s some thoughts from a friend on the confusion and discontents of “spreading the wealth,” and a simple remedy for sorting it out. Why do pastors always celebrate Acts 4:31-37 as a sort of model for Christian community? If it didn’t work for the Pilgrims, it won’t work when imposed by the State. This sort of magical thinking is a common among those living worry-free in wealthy nations beneath the umbrella of good iron arms and the rough men ready to do violence on their behalf.

On the subject of which, my cousin, a first sergeant in the First Cavalry Division, is back in America from (Fort Hood) from his third tour in Iraq. Thanks.

LATER: My friend Henry C., an expert on the American Puritans, points out that “working in common” was a mandate from the Merchant Adventurers. Samuel Eliot Morison, the great American historian, wrote about it in this book. An early lesson on the perils of monopolies.

And on the subject of Thanksgiving, this year like all the others brought the usual bleats from the usual suspects how the wicked Puritans massacred the Indians. I’d like to propose an alternative reading: the Puritans and later settlers were merely, out of respect for diversity, behaving as did the Native Americans, who genuinely relished genocidal warfare. Here's a good source that's completely untainted by hippie bullshit.

In Memoriam, Mark Pittman: a great, great, great reporter who hearkened back to the time when ink-stained wretches were cynical, infused with nicotine and whatever rotgut was on sale at the liquor store, and spurred by a dislike and distrust of the Powers – before “journalism” became something trustafarians did as a lark before taking on jobs as propagandists for statism (come to think of it, most journalism is propaganda for statist agendas, or worse). One subtext of my Cromwell project is that the radical Puritans were the first journalists – speaking “truth to power” before that phrase became a byword for ignorant progressivist cant. Mark, with Bloomberg News, took on the Fed and won – so Mark, once you’re through those gates, give my greetings and regards to Lilburne, Overton, Bastwick, and the rest.

If the Archbishop smiles upon Lord Pearson, then so do I! Admittedly, I’m standing on the cold, windswept plains of Brooklyn and so not in a position to observe at first hand but there’s few things more horrifying than the idea of England disappearing into the great snuggie of mediocrity that’s Europe.

About the book – I’m right now reworking the first two and a half months of content – from Edmund’s arrival in England to Turnham Green – into a novel (more narrative, fewer letters; I’ll admit that I’m stealing the basic form from James Ellroy. Might as well rob from the best) that I really hope to have between covers and available via Kindle by the mid to late summer. I’ll be using this space to post excerpts from the sequel to this novel, which will follow the characters up to the death of John Hampden/Cromwell’s first victories in Lincolnshire.