Critical Skills

Welcome to the Critical Skills Blog, home to over a thousand human-generated articles—never AI—on topics that matter to continuous education. To find articles of interest, use the “Search” tab. Please feel free to comment, and please subscribe. All content on this site is free.

  • The Man in the Reading Room – Part I – Will He Be Right Again?

    In 1916, the top one percent of American households held 45 percent of the nation’s wealth. By 1978, after four decades of New Deal regulation, antitrust enforcement, and a strong labor movement, that figure had fallen to about 22 percent. By 2025, it had climbed back to 31.7 percent —… More⇢

  • Courage and Consequence – An Enslaved Poet Wrote to the Generalissimo

    A slave ship called the Phillis. A child in the hold. Eighteen prominent Bostonians forced to sign their names to certify she had written her own poems. A forty-two-line ode mailed to General George Washington in October 1775, before independence had even been declared. That was Phillis Wheatley’s case for… More⇢

  • A Nuclear Submarine, a Spy, and a Thesis: Forty Years on the Close Aboard Bastion.

    Scorecard. A 1988 master’s thesis predicted today’s Russian and Chinese naval strategy. The world has confirmed most of it, revised the rest, and demonstrated something more important than either. Answer. Walter M. Kreitler, then a Navy lieutenant, argued in his Naval Postgraduate School thesis that the Soviets would tuck their… More⇢

  • The Critical Skills Got There First. Alex Karp Got There Loudest.

    Alex Karp says only two types of people will survive AI: tradespeople and the neurodivergent. His Neurodivergent Fellowship drew 2,000 applications in days. His Meritocracy Fellowship pays high schoolers $5,400 a month — provided they scored 1,460 on the SAT. Karp is right that something has inverted. He should be… More⇢

  • Courage and Consequence – He Did Not Run. He Walked.

    The enslaved man whose lawsuit removed the law from beneath slavery in Massachusetts. This is the next installment of Courage and Consequence — a series about relatively unknown individuals in history who made courageous decisions under extraordinary pressure, and had to live with what followed. Quock Walker needs to be… More⇢

  • Courage and Consequence — When Tax Resistance Became Treason

    A federal tax assessed by counting the windows of a man’s house. Eighteen neighbors arrested. A marshal holding them in a Bethlehem tavern. A Continental Army veteran who put on his old uniform and rode at the head of four hundred armed men to demand them back. Two treason trials.… More⇢

  • Courage and Consequence – – She Came Back Knowing the Rope Was Ready

    Her hands bound. Her feet bound. A handkerchief over her face. The noose on her neck. Two companions already hanged in front of her. Then the reprieve — staged in advance by the Governor of Massachusetts so she would, in his words, feel the chill of death and get some… More⇢

  • A Republic at Risk: This is Urgent! Why the Classroom Is the First Line of American Defense

    A Republic at Risk is a sixteen-chapter series — now assembled as a professionally edited book — arguing that the American Republic was founded on a single proposition: that ordinary citizens, if taught to reason, could govern themselves better than any king could govern them. Jefferson, Adams, and Madison built… More⇢

  • The War Business Won Every Battle – – Lost Most of the Wars

    The United States has not lost a major battle since 1950, but it has lost most of its wars since 1945. The fourth article in the Civic Sage War Series examines the eighty-one-year record of American tactical excellence and strategic failure — and traces the pattern back to the institutional… More⇢

Meet Your Host – Charles Cranston Jett

Charles Cranston Jett is an author, civic educator, and Professional Certified Coach based in Chicago. A graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy (Class of 1964) and Harvard Business School, he served during the Cold War aboard the nuclear submarine USS Ray (SSN 653), where his tactical innovations helped inspire Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan character. He developed the Field Studies methodology to teach “Critical Skills” and was endorsed by the Department of Labor in 1994. He is the author of six books, including Super Nuke!, hosts three podcasts, and writes across his Critical Skills Blog and Civic Sage platforms on history, leadership, and the health of the American republic. He and his wife, Dr. Nancy Church, co-host the Chicago Salons at Water Tower Residences.