Culture
Well, we got beat at the Tiverton financial town meeting. Liveblog here, and post-game here. Tiverton’s tax levy will now go up a minimum of 7.88% in the middle of the worst economy in a century, with house values plummeting, businesses closing, and for sale signs loitering for months on end on front lawns around…
It’s a much broader topic than I’ve time to explore, just now, to say why I see these apparently small-scale local battles to be along the same line as global events, but by way of checking in on the state of Western civilization, here’s Mark Steyn: A while back, Wilders was asked what his party…
Apparently, in fields that debate such things, there’s been an attempt to apply economic principles to explain the ebbs and flows of attendance in different churches. John Lamont does some difference splitting and paints a persuasive picture (subscription required). Because “the rewards of religion are supernatural and, therefore, unseen,” the healthy religion, he explains, requires…
John Derbyshire posted a viral email from Wall Street circles that amounts to an egotist’s cri de coeur: Go ahead and continue to take us down, but you’re only going to hurt yourselves. What’s going to happen when we can’t find jobs on the Street anymore? Guess what: We’re going to take yours. We get…
As a matriculated “A” student, now a carpenter, I’m not sure I can accept P.J. O’Rourke’s thesis: America has made the mistake of letting the A student run things. It was A students who briefly took over the business world during the period of derivatives, credit swaps, and collateralized debt obligations. We’re still reeling from…
… is superb. If you’re time constrained, fast forward to minute 8:25. (“Revolution Muslim”, referenced in the screen cap below, is the name of the organization/website which posted the threats to the show’s producers.) The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
Inch by inch. What’s controversial today is commonplace tomorrow, as the forces of so-called progress poke, prod, and pry our civilization apart. Feel free to use the comment section to accuse me of exaggeration and doom-crying; people respond thus with every turn of the ratchet: Parents’ organizations in Spain are fiercely protesting the curriculum of…
Think what you will of the outcome, it’s astonishing — and not a little unsettling — that there are people who think it the most important use of their time and resources to battle the benign and vapid symbolism of a particular “national day of”: A federal judge in Wisconsin ruled the National Day of…
As Rich Lowry explains in his latest column, we Americans are perpetually paranoid about our government, whether it’s the liberal paranoia throughout the Bush years (Patriot Act, world hegemony) or the right wing paranoia amongst conservatives in the Clinton years (Waco, domestic anti-terrorist laws post-Oklahoma City). Lowry explains that our paranoid view of government has…
For some reason, the irresistible nature of sex has come up in various forums and offline conversations. Frankly, my own youth stands as evidence, but placing my experiences in review, I’m not so sure that it had to be so. Had I met anybody like Sarah Hinlicky, writing here in 1998, I’d have likely scoffed,…