Culture
This started out as a comment to my previous post on the topic, but it began to feel more like a post in its own right. As usual, our left-leaning readers have got me all wrong. I have absolutely no problem with any religion having an exclusive prayer posted in public schools, even with required…
I’ve been at a loss as to how to respond to the comments to my post this morning about the Cranston school prayer banner, because those who advocate for the removal of the banner are so extreme in their beliefs (even those who are typically reasonable and moderate in their approach) that they appear to…
A recent iteration of First Things‘ “While We’re at It” feature mentioned the Wall Street Journal lament of feminist Erica Jong that breeding and raising children is a fad that just won’t die. From the lament: Unless you’ve been living on another planet, you know that we have endured an orgy of motherphilia for at…
Former Anchor Rising contributor and GoLocalProv MINDSETTER(tm) Don Roach takes the occasion of Black History Month to speak about what it means to be black in the 21st century: [T]he main “problem” facing black people in 2011 is a lack of identity. For centuries we were defined by others and defined ourselves by what was…
I agree with R. R. Reno’s assessment, presented in his review of The Uses of Pessimism: And the Danger of False Hope, by Roger Scruton (non-subscribers can try here): Scruton observes that “the belief that human beings can either foresee the future or control it to their own advantage ought not to have survived an…
The Lonely Conservative (being from New York state) has posted an email from an online acquaintance that voices a sentiment with which increasing numbers of us are surely familiar: And I watch countless news stories about people who are criminals (illegal aliens, felons) liars, cheats, or just stupid getting help with their mortgage loans because…
In another (sadly) subscription-only National Review article, James Bennett reviews a book by Deirdre McCloskey in which innovation takes center stage in the explanation of the modern West: Her thesis is that, in the decades prior to England’s rapid takeoff into the Industrial Revolution, there was a revolution in attitudes, which she prefers to characterize…
There’s no question that technology creates all sorts of challenges and that cyberbullying is among them. Just think of the malice that would have been required to do something similar in the past: Nailing nasty fliers around town took a lot more effort than posting a Facebook page, indicating a greater pathology. Yet, the effect…
“It is truly a Great Depression for young adults,” said Andrew Sum, an economics professor and the director of the Center for Labor Market Studies at Northeastern University in Boston. “Young adults are working at lower rates than they ever worked before since World War II. As a result, you would expect migration to fall…
Thanks to Ian Donnis’ “Tip Sheet” (a daily read for me), I read Matt Bai’s latest column discussing “the fractiousness of our modern society” and how, in the wake of the Tucson shootings, it’s “impossible now for any one moment to transform the national debate.” This is because, according to Bai: There is very little…