The Great Downsizing Campaign
Tuesday, December 30 2025
“The cost of a thing is the amount of what I will call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run.” — Thoreau
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
My Year in Review
Tuesday, December 30 2025
Last week, I reviewed the year 2025 by way of Time magazine’s Year in Review issue. Today I want to review my year as the traveling editor of Listening to America.
- Published in Features
Remembering My Beloved Oxford University Mentor
Tuesday, December 23 2025
Clay remembers an early and influential mentor, Professor John Carey of Oxford University.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
A Review of 2025 at Year’s End
Tuesday, December 23 2025
Amid Christmas grocery shopping, Clay reflects on the year that was.
- Published in Features
America at 250: Our Stuck Constitution
Monday, December 22 2025
Clay has debated constitutional scholars and historical impersonators in and out of costume across the United States; addressed 27 state legislatures; Supreme Court summer conferences; and humanities conferences across America. After reading Jill Lepore’s new book, We the People, and following the third of four weekly online classroom sessions, he stepped back to write this week’s essay.
- Published in Features
The Best Laid Plans (er, Bags) of Mice and Men
Tuesday, December 09 2025
Clay laments a rare failing in German baggage-transfer efficiency and plans a few interim wardrobe additions — while awaiting his bag’s return — and sticks close to his flat lest he miss the improbable delivery window.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
The Most Famous Painting in the World
Tuesday, December 09 2025
On a recent trip to Rome Clay contemplates art in its many forms and why the Mona Lisa is considered the most famous painting in the world. There are so many instantly recognizable paintings yet none of them is as widely recognized or parodied as the Mona Lisa.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
Are We Rome?
Tuesday, December 02 2025
Answer: we are Rome … but are we doomed to suffer the Republic's fate? Clay parallels the Republics (Rome's and our own) considering ways to avoid Rome's calamitous end.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
The End of Camelot at Last
Tuesday, November 25 2025
Clay contemplates the enduring JFK Camelot myth and our longing for a Kennedyesque savior to restore constitutional order, norms, and mutual respect in our current state of the republic.
- Published in Features
Jefferson and Slavery: Ken Burns on MS-NOW
Tuesday, November 25 2025
Clay considers Ken Burns' recent portrayal of Thomas Jefferson in a recent interview, where Burns suggests the Declaration's "all men are created equal" applied only to propertied white males, urging a more nuanced look at Jefferson's universal ideals, racial suspicions, and his own contradictions as a slaveholder.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road