Q & A, Hosted by Jay Nordlinger

Yaqiu Wang has devoted her life to the cause of human rights in China. It is a great and important cause. She has worked for Freedom House, Human Rights Watch, and the Committee to Protect Journalists. Currently, she is a fellow at the University of Chicago’s Forum for Free Inquiry and Expression. Her website is www.wangyaqiu.com.She was born in a village in southeast China. Her family was a peasant family. That’s what it said right on the registration card: “peasant.”Yaqiu grew up in a relatively liberal, relatively lenient period. The word “relatively” is very important. The atmosphere seemed stifling at the time. But under Xi Jinping, Communist rule would become much worse.Yaqiu’s education was doctrinaire—ideological—and she always saw through it. She knew that Communist China was a kingdom of lies.One day, she found a book—The Private Life of Chairman Mao. This is the memoir of Mao’s personal physician, Li Zhisui. It is an eye-popping book. Yaqiu Wang read it in amazement, as many of us did. It contradicts the mythology surrounding the “Great Helmsman.”(I relied on this memoir in the Mao chapter of my book on the sons and daughters of dictators: Children of Monsters.)Wanting to leave her homeland, Yaqiu came to America, studying first at the University of South Carolina. What did she think of America, when she got here? I will paraphrase her:I felt what many Chinese feel, when they see America: People have freedom on their face. If you’ve grown up in China, you see the difference immediately. Americans carry freedom with them when they walk on the street, when they talk to you. They have no fear.In China, there are many things you can’t talk about. You can’t express your feelings. You are disciplined. From a very young age, you know that you are supposed to say certain things and not say certain things. You become a person with fear written on your face.When you come to America, you see people without fear. There is freedom on their face.Does she worry about her security? Even on foreign soil? Of course she does. The Chinese government doesn’t care where you live. Mainly, though, she is worried about her family back home. She cut off all communication with them, in the hope of sparing them repercussions from her human-rights work.“That must be incredibly painful,” I say. Yes, it is.I have a question for Yaqiu Wang: “Did you choose this work or did it choose you?” Again, I will paraphrase her answer:I really feel it’s a calling. …I was born the third child of my family. At the time, China had a one-child policy. The first child, my brother, had a disability, so my sister, the second child, was legal. I was the illegal child. My mother had to hide all during her pregnancy. My birth itself is a human-rights story.When I was growing up, I always heard the propaganda that extra children—that’s what they called them: “extra children”—were a burden to society. I didn’t dare go to school with my sister, because people would then know I had a sibling, which would bring shame.I carried that shame until I came to America, where I realized that having siblings is normal.Before we sign off, I ask Yaqiu Wang whether there is anything else she would like to say—whether there is something she would like people to know. She cites two things.First,I really want Americans to know that what they have is very good, and they should cherish it. They should fight for the freedom they still have. Americans are accustomed to freedom and democracy—they have had it for 250 years. Americans have always been lucky, but maybe your luck is running out. So, please defend the freedom you still have.Second,I want Americans and the rest of the world to know that Chinese people want freedom and democracy. It’s just that the repression is so severe, they do not express it. Their fear is internalized. But if you spend enough time with them, privately, they will let you know: they do want freedom and democracy.Once we were off the air, Yaqiu and I kept talking for a bit. She said, “Have you heard about people who feel they were born in the wrong country? That they were really born with an American mind and heart?” Yes, I have. “Well, that’s true of me,” she said.She also thinks it is “crazy” for Americans to oppose immigration, given our history and our character.Yaqiu Wang is a real individual, an independent thinker and spirit. It was a privilege to listen to her.Q&A is the podcast of this site, Onward and Upward. The site is supported by readers and listeners. To receive new articles and episodes—and to support the work of the writer and podcaster—become a free or paid subscriber. Many thanks to you. Get full access to Onward and Upward at www.jaynordlinger.com/subscribe

Don Williams—Donald Mace Williams—is a writer. A poet, a novelist, a journalist, a translator, and so on. A real man of letters. He has been steeped in poetry all of his life. When he and his family were living in tents during the Depression, he had Mark Van Doren’s Anthology of World Poetry at his side. That amounts to an education, in one volume.But Williams went on to have a lot more education, in the classroom and beyond.He was born in Texas on “Black Thursday”—October 24, 1929, when the stock market crashed. He has titled one of his novels “Black Tuesday’s Child.” (Note the switch of days. “Black Tuesday,” in 1929, was five days after the 24th.) Another novel is The Sparrow and the Hall, set in medieval England.Speaking of old England—very, very old England—Williams is a translator of Beowulf: here.Further dipping into Williams, here is a volume of poetry (his own). Here are poems of Rilke, which he has translated. Don has had a productive life.One of his first loves was music, a love that of course endures. He studied singing, and his brother became a pianist. And what goes with songs but poetry? Poetry in a great range of languages.Robert Frost is a poet who has meant a lot to Williams. So have a good many others, some of whom we discuss.In our Q&A, we talk about all sorts of things. It’s a treat to hear Don recite poetry—his own and others’. He has a wonderful voice, a voice redolent of Texas (and perhaps other parts of the country too, as Don has lived all over).There are a couple of questions I forgot to ask him. So, I asked him by e-mail, afterward. And he gave me written answers. Would you like to hear him?I asked him something like this: “You have taught writing. I’m not sure how I would do it. I mean, I could work with someone’s copy. I could edit it and show him what I was doing. I did that for years. But teaching writing? Really teaching it, the way you would teach math or history? I’m not sure how I’d go about it.”Don answered,I tried to teach writing for a good many years, both on newspapers and in college journalism classes. When I was the writing coach for The Wichita Eagle, I sat with reporters and went over their stories line by line, suggesting this or that change and commending phrases I liked. Every day, also, I wrote comments on that day’s stories and passed them out. I’m not sure I improved anybody’s writing either way. I think I usually, over the years, found exactly the same things to quibble over or praise in a reporter’s work that I had found at the start.What I hope may have helped writers write better is a couple of maxims that helped me from my first days as a reporter. One was home-grown. My dad, who had been a reporter and editor among many other things, told me, “Don’t say, ‘He attempted to accomplish the difficult matters,’ say, ‘He tried to do the hard things.’” And though I never worked for The Dallas Morning News, I knew what the signs in the newsroom said: “Write Like You Talk.” Not quite good grammar, but just the right tone. If I did teach anyone to be a better writer, I imagine it was by promoting those directives and others like them.Yes. For many years, people have asked me (something like), “How should I write?” And I tend to say, “Write like you talk (and gussy it up a little bit, if that seems wise). Don’t try to have a ‘writing voice’ separate from your actual voice—your way of speaking. Writing is speech written down, basically. You write it down so that others, who aren’t with you, can hear it.”On meeting me, readers have often said, “You talk like you write, and you write like you talk!” I really can’t do otherwise. I mean, I can, but it sounds stiff.Bill Buckley wrote exactly like he talked. (He would want me to say “as he talked.”) So did Norman Podhoretz. So did David Pryce-Jones. I could go on …Another thing I wanted to ask Don Williams was, “Who are your favorite singers?”The answer:When I started voice lessons, at 16, my ideal was the young John McCormack, who, even on the acoustic 78 r.p.m. discs that I bought for a quarter each at the Salvation Army store in Denver, sang beautiful, perfectly free tones such as no tenor I’ve heard since then has produced. Later, I added to my list of ideal singers the Danish tenor Aksel Schiøtz, a wonderfully warm-voiced and tasteful artist.But the singer who made the greatest impression on me in live recital was Leontyne Price. I dislike routine standing ovations, because if you do them for every performer, how do you show your enthusiasm for great ones? But when Price ended her program with “Summertime” from Porgy and Bess, I jumped up, yelling—and then fell back into my seat because my knees were so weak. A glorious sound.Two notes, please: John McCormack was the favorite singer of the late, great Martin Bernheimer, the music critic and scholar. (For my appreciation of Martin, written in 2019 when he passed away, go here.)Note 2: Don says, “… the singer who made the greatest impression on me in live recital was Leontyne Price.” Same.Back to our podcast: There are a couple of technical glitches in it—well, not glitches, but curiosities, let’s say. Don is using a friend’s Zoom set-up, so it has her name on it, not his. I myself am zooming in and out, somehow. (I guess zooming goes with Zoom.) My app has switched itself to some setting, in mysterious fashion. I’ll see whether I can un-switch it.But forget tech. The main thing is to meet—to get to know—Donald Mace Williams, which is a pleasure to do.Q&A is the podcast of this site, Onward and Upward. The site is supported by readers and listeners. To receive new articles and episodes—and to support the work of the writer and podcaster—become a free or paid subscriber. Many thanks to you. Get full access to Onward and Upward at www.jaynordlinger.com/subscribe

As I say in my introduction, Tom Malinowski has had a long and varied career: in the State Department, the White House, Congress, and elsewhere. I hugely enjoyed my hour of talking with this fellow. I think you will as well.He began life in Poland, in 1965. Is he related to Bronisław Malinowski, the great anthropologist—indeed, a founder of that field? Yes: the anthropologist was Tom’s great-great-uncle.Before deciding on a college, Tom visited the University of Chicago. (UC was a seat of anthropology.) “I found, to my surprise and delight, that one of the main intro freshman classes was ‘Marx, Freud, and Malinowski.’ I’m, like, ‘Hello!’”At some point, Tom visited a place that few of us have ever been to: Papua New Guinea. There, “Malinowski” is a very important name.When he was six, Tom moved with his mother and stepfather to America—to New Jersey. Still, he would be caught up in the drama of Poland—the Solidarity movement, martial law, etc.—as I was. (I am two years older than Tom.)In the summer of 1981, he was in Poland and actually met Lech Wałęsa, the Solidarity leader. A Polaroid picture was taken of the two of them, and signed by Wałęsa. Tom still has it.“I was always politically connected,” he says. “I had an awareness of communism and what it was and why it needed to be resisted, and why the United States of America had a special role in the world.”“That is kaput, apparently,” I remark. Malinowski is a little more generous or philosophical.“People grow up with different experiences,” he says. We are far removed from the World War II and early Cold War generations. They had experiences that were “eye-opening and ass-kicking.” Young people are living through their own times. May they, too, have their eyes opened and their asses kicked, in a good way.Young Malinowski went to Berkeley and then, as a Rhodes Scholar, to Oxford. He studied with, among others, Timothy Garton Ash, “the great chronicler of Eastern Europe and the struggles for democracy,” as Malinowski puts it.Viktor Orbán, the prime minister of Hungary, went to Oxford on a George Soros scholarship. (I’m not sure he mentions that much.) This was a little before Malinowski, but they met once.Malinowski is not at all surprised that Orbán became what he became.In our Q&A, Malinowski and I talk a little party politics: R’s and D’s. I say to him, “You may think this is bad of me, Tom, but I’m a little surprised that you became a Democrat. I was, and am, a roaring Reaganite, and you became a Democrat, which you’re allowed to do. It’s a free country. But why, and when?”Malinowski gives a good and interesting answer, having to do with family and other things.He worked for tough-minded Democrats—men and women who were tough-minded about foreign policy in particular. He was an aide to Daniel Patrick Moynihan in the Senate. “He could be a jerk,” says Malinowski, “but he was brilliant, and he expected a lot of the people who were working for him,” in a way you could respect and admire.Malinowski regards his stint in Moynihan’s office as his graduate school, “even more than my time at Oxford.”In the State Department, he worked for Clinton’s two secretaries of state: Warren Christopher and Madeleine Albright. Christopher was a canny lawyer and negotiator—a problem-solver and dealmaker par excellence. He was not one for the “stage,” however.Albright, on the other hand, was one for the stage. She enjoyed representing the United States ’round the world. She was big on promoting American values. Malinowski notes that he and she “had the East Europe thing in common.” (Albright was born in Prague, in 1937.)In the White House, Malinowski worked as senior director of the National Security Council. He then worked for Human Rights Watch. Later, he was an assistant secretary of state.And in 2018 he ran for Congress, winning. He served two terms. He was defeated in 2022 and again last month, in a primary. That was a weird one. AIPAC came in to portray him as pro-ICE and pro-Trump. Again, a weird one.We talk about politics both narrow and broad. I myself am not much of a believer in “American exceptionalism”—not anymore. I think we’re vulnerable to the same ills as everyone else. The same temptations, the same extremisms. The same fevers.How can the human material differ from place to place, and time to time? We Americans aren’t extraterrestrials.But leadership matters of course—for good or ill. Lincoln spoke of appealing to “the better angels of our nature.” Demagogues appeal to the worse.Malinowski points out that the technology of social media is designed to appeal to our worse angels—our worst. This technology has had a terrible effect, on Americans and everyone else.“So, we’re not exceptional in that way,” says Malinowski, “but we’re still the only country in the world that has the power and occasionally the predilection to do unselfish things for the common good.”Eventually, we talk about the Iran war (the current one) and the Ukraine war. Malinowski met Volodymyr Zelensky before the war began (the full-scale war). He was not filled with confidence. That is, Malinowski was not confident about Ukraine’s leadership.But Zelensky was put to the test, as few statesmen are. And “he’s the leader of the Free World right now,” says Malinowski. I agree.“The stakes in Ukraine remain astronomical,” says Malinowski. “This is the fight for the survival of the international system. And this is a fight where a great power invaded Europe, and the Ukrainians have been literally putting their bodies between us and arguably our most dangerous adversary in the world, protecting us, protecting our European allies, making it so that all we have to spend is money, as they spend their lives.”We are incredibly lucky, if we only knew it.Tom Malinowski and I close our Q&A with memories of John McCain, whom we both admire and whom Tom knew well. This podcast is for—well, lovers of history from the mid–20th century on. My thanks to Malinowski for doing it.Q&A is the podcast of this site, Onward and Upward. The site is supported by readers and listeners. To receive new articles and episodes—and to support the work of the writer and podcaster—become a free or paid subscriber. Many thanks to you. Get full access to Onward and Upward at www.jaynordlinger.com/subscribe

Dalibor Roháč began life in Slovakia, or Czechoslovakia. He is now a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, in Washington. His Ph.D. is in political economy. He says that his role is to explain Europe to Americans and, increasingly, America to Europeans.In our Q&A, we talk about the “old days”: Czechoslovakia, Havel, the “velvet divorce,” “lustration,” and so on. We also talk about the “new days,” or current days: Robert Fico, the prime minister in Slovakia; Viktor Orbán, the prime minister in Hungary; Andrej Babiš, the president in the Czech Republic. Which of these men likes Putin most?The Ukrainian struggle is, among other things, the great nationalist cause of this century. Ukrainians are fighting and dying to hang on to their country: its freedom, its independence. They are fighting to defend their very right to exist. Yet many people in the Free World who style themselves “nationalists” are sympathetic to Putin and hostile to Ukraine. How can this be?One can imagine an organization: “Nationalists for the Russian Empire” (or “Soviet Empire”).In any event, Mr. Roháč and I touch on this question. And at the end, I ask him to say a few words about the United States—how we are faring and what our prospects might be.For many years now, I have learned from this fellow. He has knowledge, wide and deep. And he has judgment—even nuance (dread word).As I mention in our podcast, he shares a name with an opera by Smetana: Dalibor, which is rarely seen or heard, but definitely worth knowing. I wrote about it a little in an article last September.Smetana aside, enjoy Dalibor Roháč.Q&A is the podcast of this site, Onward and Upward. The site is supported by readers and listeners. To receive new articles and episodes—and to support the work of the writer and podcaster—become a free or paid subscriber. Many thanks to you. Get full access to Onward and Upward at www.jaynordlinger.com/subscribe

One of the writers I read most regularly is Clay Risen. He writes obituaries for the New York Times. Another way to say that is, he is a composer of mini-biographies, week after week.He has also worked as a political writer. And he has authored ten books, on various subjects: including the American civil rights movement, Theodore Roosevelt, McCarthyism, and whiskey.In our Q&A, we spend some time on Roosevelt. What a fascinating, and multifaceted, man. We also talk about his growing up—Clay’s, that is (but TR’s too, come to think of it). Clay is from Nashville. Actually from Nashville.I have known many Nashvillians, but they have been people who moved there.The bulk of our conversation, we spend on obituaries—their whys and wherefores. As my regular readers know, I love obits. It’s not that I’m macabre. No. I’m sorry the person has died. I just love life stories.Consider a couple of things. (1) Maybe my favorite genre, in the book world, is biography and autobiography. (2) My attention span is possibly—possibly—getting a little shorter, what with blogposts and tweets and all.Therefore, obits are pretty much made for me.Many years ago, I talked with Bob Bork about the New York Times. He had given up reading the paper, out of political disgust. But there was one section he could not give up, and would not give up: the obits.He was addicted (and so, I suppose, am I).What are the ingredients of a good obituarist? Clay Risen touches on the main ones. You have to be curious—curious about people, curious about life, in all of its diversity, and weirdness. You have to be an absorber of information. It helps to be a fast learner. And you have to be sensitive.There are family members to consider—survivors of the deceased. Is it nice, or right, to speak ill of the dead? No. At the same time, an obit is not a eulogy. An obit requires biographical honesty.An obituarist for the New York Times has a special burden: the Times obit will be the “obit of record,” the obit that people will turn to, for years and years.“Hey, what was the deal with that John Smith fella? Hang on, let me Google the New York Times obit.”I think of music criticism (as I tell Clay in our podcast). The Times is more or less the trade journal of classical music. There is a lot riding on a Times review. There is extra weight on the shoulders of a Times critic—he can hurt someone.I really can’t, which is a relief. Which frees one up, really.Anyway, they are a very interesting subject, obits. And Clay Risen is a very interesting talker about them, and many another subject as well. You will enjoy his company. A literate, learned, genial man.At the end of our Q&A, I ask him whether he’s glad to be an obits writer in our present era—rather than a political reporter, say. “Yes,” he answers, “a thousand times yes.”I get it!Q&A is the podcast of this site, Onward and Upward. The site is supported by readers and listeners. To receive new articles and episodes—and to support the work of the writer and podcaster—become a free or paid subscriber. Many thanks to you. Get full access to Onward and Upward at www.jaynordlinger.com/subscribe

Some years ago, I was looking into Stephen Harper, who was then the prime minister of Canada. David Frum said to me something like this: “You’ll want to talk to Jason Kenney. He’s a conservative intellectual who does politics.” That was a very good suggestion.Well, Mr. Kenney is my latest guest on Q&A. For almost 20 years, he served in his country’s House of Commons. Have I said—have I been clear—that Kenney is a Canadian? Well, he is (of Irish extraction).Under Harper, Kenney held various ministerial positions, including minister of defense. Later, he was premier—governor, in essence—of Alberta.And he is an excellent conversationalist.I want to know: Have Donald Trump and the Republican Party done wonders for Canadian patriotism? Is Canadian patriotism at something like an all-time high? Yes, says Kenney, but he adds a caveat or two.In Quebec, there are renewed rumblings of secession. And there are similar rumblings in Alberta.Jason Kenney and I take a walk down Memory Lane—to 1992 and the famous line, or once-famous line, “It’s the Sun wot won it.”Britain’s Conservatives had beaten the Labour Party, and the tabloid (the Sun) was taking credit for it.Well, was it Trump and the Republicans “wot won it” for Mark Carney and the Canadian Liberals last year? Oh, yes. The Conservative Party was miles ahead in the polls, until Trump et al. began their out-of-left-field belligerence toward Canada.In our Q&A, Jason Kenney and I talk about Canadian identity, and its relationship to America. We also touch on a trio of Canadian authors: Alice Munro, Margaret Atwood, and Robertson Davies.Plenty of prime ministers come up: Lester Pearson, Pierre Trudeau, John Turner, Brian Mulroney, Jean Chrétien, Harper, Justin Trudeau, Carney.By the way, do you recall that Fidel Castro was a pallbearer at Pierre Trudeau’s funeral? He was—and Kenney encountered that tyrant in an elevator …Early in our conversation, I ask Kenney how he became a conservative. Well, for one thing, his first roommate in college had a subscription to National Review. And young Kenney sneaked glances at Bill Buckley and others.Which could have an effect on a person (as it did on many of us).We talk about Ukraine. Canada has a substantial Ukrainian population, or a Ukrainian-Canadian population. Canada has been strong in support of Ukraine and clear-eyed about Putin. And yet, some Canadians have the same media habits as some Americans.So, as in America, you get people who, in Kenney’s words, “regard Vladimir Putin as the savior of Western civilization and Christendom, and Volodymyr Zelensky as a war criminal.”I would have thought the Canadian Right less vulnerable to that than the American Right, but maybe not.Jason Kenney has spent a lot of time—a lot of time—on immigration and associated issues. Associated issues? I mean assimilation, multiculturalism, identity—all that. For about five years, Kenney was Canada’s minister of citizenship, immigration, and multiculturalism.We talk a bit about these issues—and Kenney quotes Tony Blair, who said something like this: “Host countries have a duty to be welcoming, and newcomers have a duty to integrate, and that duty involves the duty to follow the law.”Kenney and I also talk about health care. Canada has one system, we Americans have another (if “system” is the right word). What the hell should be done in this messy, complicated, maddening, and very important field?Unsurprisingly, Kenney has some smart, informed things to say on the subject. It is possible to have a basic guarantee of coverage—with a flexibility that allows for private care.In our conversation, we do not cover the waterfront, exactly, but we have a good long walk on the beach. You can learn a lot from this fellow. He reminds me of Britain’s Daniel Hannan: an intellectual—a conservative intellectual, or a classical-liberal one—who does politics.Enjoy.Q&A is the podcast of this site, Onward and Upward. The site is supported by readers and listeners. To receive new articles and episodes—and to support the work of the writer and podcaster—become a free or paid subscriber. Many thanks to you. Get full access to Onward and Upward at www.jaynordlinger.com/subscribe

I’ll quote from my introduction:… our guest today is Michael Feinberg, a former FBI agent who is now a writer and editor with Lawfare. With the FBI, he won a slew of awards and commendations, but was forced out last year when the regime of Kash Patel and Dan Bongino came in. He wrote about all this in a moving article called “Goodbye to All That.” Mr. Feinberg, of course, borrowed his title from Robert Graves.He grew up in the Chicago suburbs—in “John Hughes territory,” as I call it. In fact, many of Feinberg’s friends—plus his sister—appeared as extras in John Hughes films.Feinberg went to Brandeis University and then Northwestern’s law school. He was a conservative with a libertarian bent. He read Reason, National Review, The Weekly Standard. He was a member of the Young Friends of The New Criterion.The whole bitsy, as we’d say in the Midwest.Oh, here’s another thing: “I was probably one of the few people, in their twenties, who sat through the entirety of Kenneth Clark’s Civilisation in a public library.”Mike was practicing law. One day, the family threw a surprise birthday party for his grandfather, who was turning 90. One guest at the party was the honoree’s brother, age 87. The two of them were reminiscing about how they joined the Army after Pearl Harbor.And Mike thought: I was in my first year of law school on 9/11. But I did not change the course of my life at all. Maybe I should do something more public service–oriented.The FBI it was.Feinberg spent a lot of time countering the influence of the Chinese government. He worked with many different types in the FBI. We discuss all that. And what happened to the Bureau with the onset of the second Trump administration.Are there still good people—real professionals—in the FBI? Can the damage be repaired, at some point in the future? What have we lost, and how long might it take to rebuild it?We spend some time on the Epstein scandal. “Scandal” is far too light a word. “Abomination,” “horror.” We also spend some time on ICE. Is this how a law-enforcement agency should behave? Some do behave that way, says Feinberg—but not in countries, or under regimes, that we Americans generally seek to emulate.At the end of our conversation, we talk about a big question, almost a sentimental one: “where we are.” What has become of our country. Mike cites the parable of the Prodigal Son. And he looks forward to a kind of national homecoming.It was a real pleasure to talk with this fellow, and to learn about the FBI from him, and I’m glad he is “in the arena,” contributing in the ways available to him. He doesn’t have a gun and a badge anymore—or at least not a badge—but he certainly has tools.Q&A is the podcast of this site, Onward and Upward. The site is supported by readers and listeners. To receive new articles and episodes—and to support the work of the writer and podcaster—become a free or paid subscriber. Many thanks to you. Get full access to Onward and Upward at www.jaynordlinger.com/subscribe

Last Friday, there was a day-long event at Princeton: the Aaron Friedberg Retirement Colloquium. Participants included a range of the professor’s colleagues and students (present and past). Friedberg has had a full, busy career.He is a professor of politics and international affairs. Among his books is A Contest for Supremacy: China, America, and the Struggle for Mastery in Asia. As I say in my introduction, he has had a stint or two in government, including two years in the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.In our Q&A, we talk about some personal things. Friedberg is from Pittsburgh, and he grew up in an academic family. He went to Harvard, for college and graduate school, studying with Samuel P. Huntington, Stanley Hoffmann, Ernest R. May, and others.(You could learn a lot from those fellows—and Aaron did.)We talk about people and events from history. The Holocaust, of course, must be reckoned with, to the extent it can. Friedberg is a great admirer of Churchill. He was not perfect—who is?—but we were lucky to have him (“we” the world).In due course, Professor Friedberg and I talk about life on campus. Has he experienced a Wokistan? (No.) And we talk about “where we are”: where international relations stand.The United States, Russia, China ... It has been a good run since 1945, despite conflagrations: a U.S.-led international order. With America turning its back on that order, apparently, what might come next?Will it be “might makes right,” “the law of the jungle,” and “spheres of influence”?It is a good time to talk with Aaron Friedberg, and I’m glad I have done so. I think readers and listeners will be too.Q&A is the podcast of this site, Onward and Upward. The site is supported by readers and listeners. To receive new articles and episodes—and to support the work of the writer and podcaster—become a free or paid subscriber. Many thanks to you. Get full access to Onward and Upward at www.jaynordlinger.com/subscribe

This is an important moment in Iran: people are out in the streets, demanding change; the dictatorship is murdering them by the thousands. I definitely wanted to talk with Marina Nemat, a woman I have known and admired for many years.She is a dissident from Iran. Since 1991, she has lived in Canada. You will see, in our podcast, that she is in a picture-perfect Canadian setting—like from a movie. But her thoughts are with Iran.Marina was 13 when Khomeini’s revolution took power. At 16, she was arrested. For more than two years, she was kept in Evin Prison, one of the most horrific places on earth. I have heard Marina describe it as “the high school from hell.”In exile, she has published two books: Prisoner of Tehran and After Tehran: A Life Reclaimed. This summer, she will publish another book, a historical novel: Mistress of the Persian Boarding House.In our podcast, she remembers the revolutionary times of the late 1970s. And she relates those times to today. “Déjà vu,” she says. The end of the Islamic Republic may be at hand. Then again, it may persist, on and on. Who knows?Marina Nemat does know this: there needs to be a transition to democracy. Whether she will ever be able to return to her native country—even for a brief visit—she can’t know.“My grandmother escaped the Russian Revolution in 1917,” she says. “She died when I was seven. So, this is 53 years ago.” Marina continues:“I remember, before her death, before she got sick, she always said, ‘The communist murderers will be gone and I will go home one day.’ And she never did. She was buried in Tehran.”Over the years, at various turns, I have done several podcasts with Marina Nemat. I have always found a conversation with her not only informative but moving, too. I bet you will find the same. Grateful for Marina.Q&A is the podcast of this site, Onward and Upward. The site is supported by readers and listeners. To receive new articles and episodes—and to support the work of the writer and podcaster—become a free or paid subscriber. Many thanks to you. Get full access to Onward and Upward at www.jaynordlinger.com/subscribe

I have known Linda Chavez for many years, and have read her for even longer. Do you know I had a hard time introducing her? I really did. This is what I wound up saying:... our guest is Linda Chavez—whose life has been so multifaceted, it takes a while to sum up.She has held several governmental positions. She ran for the U.S. Senate. She is the founder and chairman of the Center for Equal Opportunity. She is the vice-chairman of the Renew Democracy Initiative.She is a policy analyst. A columnist. A book-author. Her autobiography, An Unlikely Conservative, is outstanding. She has now written a novel: The Silver Candlesticks. It has a subtitle: A Novel of the Spanish Inquisition.The Silver Candlesticks tells the story of the author’s family—her father’s side. A fascinating story it is.That family has been in the United States—or what became the United States—for many, many years. How many? Well, Linda puts it this way: By the time the colonists got around to signing the Declaration of Independence, her family had been here for almost 200 years.Beat that, as Bill Buckley would say.So, is Linda Chavez a “Heritage American,” to use the new nativist jargon? She is an American, and she loves this country’s heritage: the principles and ideals embodied in our founding.She has spent a lot of time on the issue of immigration, and we discuss it a bit in our Q&A. We also discuss the phrase “equal opportunity”—as in the name of her organization, the Center for Equal Opportunity. She is eloquent on that phrase, that concept, as on everything else.At the end of our podcast, I ask her an embarrassing question—but not so embarrassing that I don’t ask it. It is a question that has been asked in every generation: “Are we losing America?”We never have. But—is some worry in order? Linda is, again, darn eloquent.Every time she talks, it’s like a civics lesson. I will now stop typing so you can listen to her.Q&A is the podcast of this site, Onward and Upward. The site is supported by readers and listeners. To receive new articles and episodes—and to support the work of the writer and podcaster—become a free or paid subscriber. Great thanks. Get full access to Onward and Upward at www.jaynordlinger.com/subscribe