Hello everyone! I hope you are having an enjoyable Christmastide and are preparing to make merry to ring in the new year! I apologize for the lack of consistent posting, hopefully something that will improve in the new year. With 2023 coming to a close, I thought it might be a useful exercise to take stock of what has happened in the past year.
Writing
2023 was not my most productive year when it came to writing under my own name. There were a few reasons for this, but I can take solace in the fact that what I did get published was generally pretty good, if I may say so myself. Here are some notable pieces:
Law and Liberty: America Can’t Afford a Blank Check for Ukraine
The University Bookman: Political Theology for Realists
The National Interest: Time and Logistics are Working Against Ukraine
The Draft Kerfuffle:
Back in September I wrote up a piece for the Mises Wire noting that there was talk of bringing back conscription in the Army War College academic journal. The piece garnered quite a bit of attention and was republished by a bunch of places including Zero Hedge. It seems that a lot of people did not really read past the headline and concluded that conscription was being brought back, though I was clear that I was arguing that the intellectual groundwork was being laid to do so, not arguing that it was being implemented now.
In response to tik toks and what not being made about the article, the AP ran a fact check on the claim that the draft was returning. When I was contacted for comment I was a bit suspicious, but was very pleased with the article that came out. The AP went and bothered a whole bunch of government people to get their comments, and in my view basically gave my POV the last word.
I wrote up another piece looking at the fact check and noting that the author of the War College journal engaged in some serious back pedaling and that the military’s recruitment numbers are abysmal.
Media
Looking back, I had a number of media appearances this year, mostly about foreign policy. Here are some notable ones:
Two appearances on the Jenna Ellis Show to talk about the Ukraine War: one, two.
An appearance on The Bullpen on the Young Turks to talk about the SC affirmative action decision.
Eleven episodes of War, Economy, and State, the Mises Institute’s monthly foreign policy podcast that I co-host with Ryan McMaken.
CL Press Reprints
I became the production manager for CL Reprints, which is run by Dan Klein and Erik Matson. The reprint series republishes older works at low cost in nice looking editions. This year we published two books and have more in store for the coming year:
Francis Hutcheson: His Life, Teaching, and Position in the History of Philosophy
Health Update
As some of you know, I have been having some health troubles the past few years. However, I am very happy that after a lot of annoying rigamarole and various tests, it seems that the docs and I are finally on the same page.
To make a long story short, this year I found out that I have an auto-immune condition known as Hashimoto’s disease. This means that my body thinks my thyroid gland is an invader that must be attacked and repelled. It is a very slow moving disease that has probably been at work for over a decade (I actually suspect it might have began around 2006). It was established that I have it in two ways. First, I had two blood tests that found I had very high levels of thyroid antibodies, ie the antibodies that have been attacking my thyroid for who knows how long. Second, I had an ultrasound done on my thyroid that indicated that it was damaged, but fortunately it did not find any nodules or things that would indicate that I might eventually need it removed or anything like that. There is often a large genetic component to all of this, so this diagnosis is not surprising seeing how basically everyone on one side of my family has thyroid issues.
The practical result of this is that my levels of thyroid hormone, which is an essential hormone that is needed for every single cell in the body to function properly (it basically controls the throttle on your cellular metabolism for energy production, but is also involved in other things, especially in the brain), is inadequate and therefore causing a whole host of problems. It seems that being hypothyroid can cause nearly any problem under the sun, but some of the main one’s I have experienced are feeling (sometimes extremely) fatigued, lacking motivation, and having symptoms that usually get diagnosed as anxiety and depression. Thyroid hormone also controls one’s metabolism, so it can also cause weight gain. My weight has always been very stable, but since October of 2022 I have gained 30lbs, which has been rather crazy. Some other symptoms are being cold, especially at one’s extremities, brain fog, memory problems, and digestion trouble. I can attest that brain fog, memory problems, and fatigue are not a good combination when you make a living as a writer!
One of the difficulties with thyroid health issues is being properly diagnosed. For one thing, it is a very slow progressing disease that often takes at least a decade to be discovered and there is not a perfect way to diagnose. One of the big problems is that because it can cause symptoms that seem like anxiety or depression many doctors just want to push anti-depressant pills on you and call it a day.
This chance for misdiagnosis is made worse by the way in which the disease progresses. Eventually, after years of being attacked, your thyroid reaches the “ping pong” stage. This is where your thyroid levels will actually go hyperthyroid (which has its own set of symptoms) as a result of the thyroid being attacked by antibodies which allows thyroid hormone to be inadvertently released, and then your levels will crash back down to being hypothyroid. This has created a problem where people at this stage of Hashimotos actually get misdiagnosed as being bipolar and prescribed drugs for that, which will obviously not fix the problem!
The usual way thyroid issues are tested for is via a blood test that measures the thyroid stimulating hormone (TSH). This is a hormone that is released by the pituitary gland in the brain to tell the thyroid gland how much thyroid hormone to release. Many lab tests will say that the normal range extends to 4 or 4.5. However, this is contested. Somewhere around 95% of the population that does not have thyroid issues has a TSH at or below 2.5.
In my own experience, doctors will look at the same TSH numbers and be all over the place in their assessment. I have seen so many doctors in the past two years and there have been so many differing views of my numbers.
I finally found a good doctor in the spring of this year who put me on a small dose of thyroid hormone, but even though my dose kept increasing (which is a slow process because you have to be on the new dose for 6 weeks before you can get a blood test to see its effect) my TSH has also been increasing and my symptoms not generally improving.
My doctor thinks that this means that my thyroid has left the “ping-pong” stage and is entering into the permanent hypothyroid stage. I am glad that the doc and I are on the same page because she said that going forward we will try larger dose increases if needed, rather than creeping forward at a snail’s pace.
This whole thing has been a big issue for several years and has seriously disrupted my life, but really if one has to have a chronic disease this is probably the best one to get, since it is managed simply by taking a very inexpensive pill once a day. Thyroid hormone (levothyroxine) is actually one of the most prescribed medicines in the world. The overwhelming majority of accounts I read online report that once a person reaches the correct dose of thyroid hormone (it has a narrow band of effectiveness that can take awhile to find) they feel like an entirely new person. Getting to this point has been annoying and tiresome and stressful, but I am very thankful to be getting close to the finish line now.
I think it is definitely a good thing that society has become more aware of mental health issues, but to some degree the pendulum has swung a bit far in the other direction, in my opinion, in terms of just attributing everything to being depressed (which is in reality a basket of symptoms the biological cause or causes of which has thus far not been identified) throwing some anti-depressant pills at it, and calling it a day. No amount of positive thinking, mindfulness, or willpower can overcome a problem in basic cellular bio-chemistry, just as no amount of positive thinking will make your car run properly if there is a problem with the fuel injector.
All that is to say that if you or someone you know is having symptoms that seem like depression and anxiety, it is probably worth getting a TSH blood test to see if their numbers are “high normal” or even high before being launched on the very unpleasant roller coaster of anti-depressants that won’t be solving the root biological issue. Even a small dose of thyroid hormone can result in large improvements, depending on the state of your thyroid. I also recommend reading this recent journal article from The American Journal of Psychiatry. It contains a lot of very helpful information all in one place, and in my experience psychiatrists tend to be a bit better attuned to thyroid issues than many general practitioners.
There is a lot more information about the thyroid and thyroid issues one could go into, but this is the basic gist and hopefully it might be helpful to a few people.
A Fun Movie Recommendation for New Year’s Eve
I wanted to flag for you all that Mosfilm, the Soviet-era film studio, has been putting its entire archive onto YouTube for free with various subtitles. I watched a number of Soviet and Russian films in college and there are definitely some good ones. One of the best ones is a New Year’s Eve comedy called “Carnival Night”, which I highly recommend! Released in 1956, you can definitely tell it is post-Stalin.
Anyway, here is to a happy and healthy 2024!
CARNIVAL NIGHT — great tip, Zack, thanks! My wife and I watched it last night!
I highly recommend this 1956 Comedy, just 75 minutes, available on YouTube. Here are some thoughts on it:
The plot is minimal. A host of characters are organizing a New Year's Eve ball celebration. The organizers are creative and spirited, and have a lot in store for the crowd. Their Soviet superior, however, seeing reheearsals, resists the spirited, lighthearted, sometimes too-daring entertainments that are planned for the evening. The whole plot is how the organizers manage to pull off a great evening without ever directly challenging or confronting the superior. Conflict is avoided by ruses, sometimes ones that make the superior the unwitting object of comedy. That's it. There are minor and ordinary budding-romance subplots. Everything turns out well, a delightful carnival-like celebration, and budding romances.
While watching, my wife and I were delighted by the charm and entertainment, including the musical numbers; the colors and photography made me think of The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, which was not made until 1964. But we kept expecting some more definite plot to thicken. Once I realized that foiling the superior and having a joyous time was all the plot I was going to get, I fully appreciate the movie. After viewing, upon reflection, I realized that Soviet viewers in 1956 may have realized right away that that plot was quite enough.
All in all, I was simply surprised that the 1956 Soviet authorities allowed the movie to be made and watched (it was the box-office leader of Soviet films for 1956). As Zack said, this wasn't Stalinist Russia. It was "the Khrushchev Thaw." The comic playing the superior was superb, and pretty much all of the characters were charming. The rating at IMDB for the film is 7.4.