Leighton Smith, a legendary radio host who now does the top podcast in New Zealand, interviewed me last Sunday. Leighton describes himself as a libertarian conservative and he has long followed political battles both in his country and in the U.S. I was amazed at how thoroughly Leighton prepped; he pulled up lines that I […]
MY FIRST EAST BERLIN ESCAPADE By James Bovard This is the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall – one of the most glorious moments in the modern history of freedom. I first passed through that wall while hitchhiking around Europe in the summer of 1977. After camping in West German woods within […]
My old friend Ernie Hancock and I had a rowdy time this morn on his Freedoms Phoenix Radio Show. Ernie kindly asked for a summary of Public Policy Hooligan and I specified that most of the book does not involve people trying to stab me. Ernie asked about the scandal in my old hometown, Front […]
Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, and Happy Festivus to everyone! When I worked as a Santa Claus in Boston in 1977, I met a lot of zany characters including a Boss from Hell who would tell me “go out there & look jolly DAMMIT!” But the most vivid memory is of a mother and daughter who […]
In my wayward youth, I worked one season as a Santa Claus at a Filene’s Department Store in Boston. I wrote up that escapade for the Wall Street Journal in 2011. This piece is an outtake from Public Policy Hooligan – which includes some other details of that gig not fit for a family newspaper. The […]
I heartily support Catalonia’s referendum on secession even though I was almost arrested the only time I visited Barcelona. I hit Spain as the next-to-last country in a 5000-mile hitchhiking jaunt in the summer of 1977. Within 10 minutes of getting dropped off south of the French border, I realized that my two years of Spanish […]
Technically, I was never an Easter Rabbit – at least not that I can remember. (Some Easter dinners involved way too much beer.) But when I lived in Boston, I served time as a Beatrix Potter promotion rabbit at a Filene’s Department store in nearby Manchester, New Hampshire. Except that the bizarre outfit looked more […]
