Culture

Another Winter of Discontent

By Justin Katz | March 24, 2008 |

Perchance I wasn’t alone among readers of Saturday’s Projo opinion pages in recalling Mac’s piece on NRO back in 2004: In fact, the entire Winter Soldiers Investigation was a lie. It was inspired by Mark Lane’s 1970 book entitled Conversations with Americans, which claimed to recount atrocity stories by Vietnam veterans. This book was panned…

Reflections by Bill Buckley and Pope Benedict XVI on our Judeo-Christian/Western Civilization tradition: “…how deep we fall…there is always hope…the one who has hope lives differently…”

By Donald B. Hawthorne | March 19, 2008 |

William Kristol writes: …Bill was a complicated man. In him, admirable but disparate qualities coexisted easily. Bill was at once remarkably ecumenical — and knowledgeably discriminating. He had a taste for profound reflection about man and God — and for fierce polemicizing against socialists and appeasers. He had a real joie de vivre — but…

Seeing a Horton who Hears a Who

By Marc Comtois | March 17, 2008 |

Took the gals to see Horton Hears a Who on Saturday (and I wasn’t the only one). The ProJo gave it 5 *s. I don’t know if it was that good, but it was pretty good. The kids enjoyed it, though it may have skewed a bit young for them, and there were enough pop-culture…

Self Invasion

By Justin Katz | March 16, 2008 |

Part of advice columnist Carolyn Hax’s response to a letter asking about etiquette for not telling sexual partners how many have stood where they stand (so to speak) jumped out at me (emphasis added): … since dismissing people as judgmental and insecure without giving them a chance to speak for themselves could reasonably be considered…

Knotting Some Public/Private Threads

By Justin Katz | March 13, 2008 |

One can hear, in the expected quarters, the admonition that Eliot Spitzer’s $80,000 whoring habit is a private matter. I wonder how many who’d make that argument also see David Richardson’s travails in Providence — where he recently requested proof of the citizenship status of an Hispanic customer to his store — as private. I…

Screwing America’s Young

By Justin Katz | March 12, 2008 |

Well, I know how to fix this. Let’s focus on the how-to of “safe sex,” destigmatize lascivious behavior, increase access to the abortive undo, remove pressure toward (indeed undermine the culture of) marriage, and attack anybody who voices opinions fitting the 1960s radical’s definition of repressive: About 1 in 4 teenage girls in the United…

Why the West’s Worth Defending

By Justin Katz | March 10, 2008 |

Before giving six reasons that the West is worth defending, George Weigel writes: In his book, “Without Roots,” Pope Benedict XVI deplored the addiction to historical self-deprecation rampant at the higher altitudes of European cultural and intellectual life: a tendency to see in the history of the West only “the despicable and the destructive.” The…

Public Service Announcement for Parents

By Justin Katz | March 5, 2008 |

Well, they’ve done the study, and the results are nothing if not surprising: Here’s one simple way to keep your children healthy: Ban the bedroom TV. By some estimates, half of American children have a television in their bedroom; one study of third-graders put the number at 70 percent. And a growing body of research…

Kerr-azy Education Solutions

By Justin Katz | March 2, 2008 |

Last week’s stunner was a feeling of agreement with Bob Kerr: No summits, no rigorous testing of teachers, can restore what has been lost in too many schools — the basic respect for learning and for the place a teacher holds in making good things possible. Until we can reverse the damage done before some…

Who Wants to Kill Barack?

By Justin Katz | February 26, 2008 |

When speculation becomes front-page news, one gets the impression of legend building. If Barack Obama wins and lives to tell the tale, he’ll be the One Who Lived. The great hope whom they managed to protect (unless the reality disappoints terribly): His wife, Michelle Obama, voiced concerns about his safety before he was elected to…