John Rodden Journalist Profile

Articles

Do Presidential Debates Matter Anymore?

Oct 30, 2024 | rlo.acton.org | John Rodden

The 2024 election campaign has been unprecedented in numerous ways, but one of the less expected ways has been the number of presidential debates between the two candidates. Only one debate has occurred, and for the first time in presidential history, the vice-presidential debate looks to be the last one that will be held before the November election.
Harris and Taiwan

Sep 13, 2024 | persuasion.community | John Rodden |Yascha Mounk

By John RoddenKamala Harris has little foreign policy experience, and has never visited Taiwan or gone on the official record as to her foreign policy views about the island. Are there, however, any indications since her becoming the official Democratic presidential nominee as to how a Harris administration would approach Taiwan? Harris is widely expected to continue the pro-Taiwan foreign policy pursued by President Joe Biden.
What Would a Trump II Taiwan Policy Look Like?

Aug 9, 2024 | theamericanconservative.com | John Rodden

Some political observers in the U.S. believe that Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has essentially adopted a negative, oppositional attitude toward Taiwan in recent months.
The Metamorphoses of Franz Kafka

Jun 28, 2024 | americanpurpose.com | Francis Fukuyama |John Rodden

When Franz Kafka (1883-1924) died in a sanitarium near Vienna a century ago, he was largely unknown. Diagnosed with tuberculosis in 1917, he agonized in page after page of diary entries about the literary paralysis that had overtaken his late thirties.
How the Most Influential Novel Ever Written Has Been Misunderstood

Jun 20, 2024 | rlo.acton.org | John Rodden

“You have no real appreciation of Newspeak, Winston.”—Syme to Smith, Nineteen Eighty-FourFor 75 years, the number “1984” has represented a numerical nightmare. Those four digits have been brandished in screaming headlines, blaring soundbites, a BBC teleplay that resulted in heart attacks and even deaths of viewers (in December 1954), and the Washington hotline of the John Birch Society, the far-right American advocacy group.
Executive for a Day

Jun 16, 2024 | commonwealmagazine.org | John Rodden |Gareth Dale |Alice McDermott |Phil Christman

Born in 1925 into a family of fifteen children, my father, who died a decade ago, would be a centenarian in a few months if he were still alive. Although he went no further than third grade in a one-room Donegal schoolhouse in Curran, I appreciate more and more with each passing year how much he taught me. By word—sometimes a single word!—and by example. My father was not one for speechmaking. Words were awkward tools; he used them sparingly.
Michael Collins at 100: Exaltation or Execration?

May 2, 2024 | dialnet.unirioja.es | John Rodden

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Dare to Know

Apr 22, 2024 | americanpurpose.com | John Rodden

If seeking an indication of the level of cultural literacy in our fair land in the year 2024, one need look no further than the daily list of “important birthdays” compiled by United Press International.
The Symposiast: Remembering Christopher Hitchens

Apr 13, 2024 | theamericanconservative.com | John Rodden

Impossible as it is to believe, Christopher Hitchens, the enfant terrible of Anglo-American politics and letters, would have turned 75 today, almost 13 years since his premature death from esophageal cancer in December 2011. Yet in many ways Hitchens seems more alive than ever. His name routinely crops up in contemporary debates, notwithstanding how different the political landscape looks in the Age of Donald and Elon.
“Saint Christopher”: Hitch at 75

Apr 12, 2024 | rlo.acton.org | John Rodden

He would, of course, have blanched—or barfed—if you had ever addressed him that way (probably the only blasphemy he’d refuse to utter). Yet is it really any more outlandish than the conversations we had about another adamantly avowed atheist? About our intellectual “secular saint” and fellow intellectual big brother? About the English patriot and incarnation of “decency” whom he cherished as his personal hero, “St. George” Orwell?