Thoughts for a New Constitutional Beginning
Tuesday, January 06 2026
As the nation approaches its 250th birthday this July 2026, Clay suggests it might serve the country well to revisit details of our Constitution.
- Published in Uncategorized
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
For Whom the Bell Tolls
Monday, November 17 2025
Seeing flags at half-mast last week brought to mind the immortal passage from the great poet and scholar John Donne.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
There Will Always Be an England (I Hope)
Monday, November 10 2025
Clay traveled to England last week to attend his daughter’s graduation ceremony, where she received her PhD from Oxford University.
Oxford University Graduation program.
I had the joy yesterday, Friday, November 7, 2025, of seeing my beloved daughter take her degree at the seventeenth-century Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford.…
- Published in Dispatches from the Road
The World of Error in a Galaxy of Facts
Tuesday, October 28 2025
Clay ponders the “Truth Taser.” The best invention since the Veg-O-Matic?
- Published in Features
My Adventures in Downsizing
Monday, October 20 2025
After spending five or six decades buying books, an enormous number of books, I have begun to downsize.
- Published in Dispatches from the Road