Culture
The Corner provides excerpts from Mitt Romney’s speech today, which suggest it will focus on the broader strategic question of what role religion should play in the American public square instead of the granularity of Mormon theology: There are some who may feel that religion is not a matter to be seriously considered in the…
Perhaps it oughtn’t be the case — me being a family-oriented traditionalist and all — but I’m not a devotee of Thanksgiving. It might be my workaholism. It might be my lack of interest in football. And I’m not a big fan of turkey. (In part because tryptophanic considerations trigger a workaholic aversion.) It’s always…
I can’t help but think that New York Times movie reviewer Stephen Holden misses the significance of Bella by, well, by the distance between life and death: It is not hard to see why “Bella,” a saccharine trifle directed by Alejandro Monteverde, won the People’s Choice Award at the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival. This…
It’s certainly easy and natural to boo-hoo the do-gooders who lament the state of their profession: But now the 29-year-old faces a predicament shared by many young strivers in Washington’s public interest field. After years of amassing so many achievements, they struggle to find full-time employment with decent pay and realize they might not get…
If only teachers were allowed to marry, this wouldn’t be happening: A nationwide Associated Press investigation found more than 2,500 cases over five years in which educators were punished for sexual misconduct. The figures were gathered as part of a seven-month investigation in which AP reporters sought records on teacher discipline in all 50 states…
Peggy Noonan touches on something about which I mused just before my first full-time day as carpenter. Writes Noonan: I’ll jump here, or lurch I suppose, to something I am concerned about that I think I am observing accurately. It has to do with what sometimes seems to me to be the limited lives that…
Look, I think it’s largely irrelevant that J.K. Rowling thought of Albus Dumbledore — whom she outed during a lecture at Carnegie Hall — as homosexual while writing the Harry Potter books: The question was: Did Dumbledore, who believed in the prevailing power of love, ever fall in love himself? JKR: My truthful answer to…
Disagreements would arise later in the conversation, but Mark Shea makes a point that too often (nearly always) goes unexplored: Two-year-olds Zola and Veronica Kruschel waddled through Folsom Street Fair amidst strangers in fishnets and leather crotch pouches, semi and fully nude men. The twin girls who were also dressed for the event wore identical…
Justin, I understand your argument and I may have appeared to have crossed back and forth over a line, so the lack of nuance is my fault. My initial post and response weren’t an either/or, but an elaboration that one’s perspective of “generic stranger” changes over time. And I do think this is a fairly…
Marc — Of course your children don’t see you as untrustworthy, and of course, you haven’t taught them to. But about whom are we speaking? I referred to “cultural truisms.” Although I do so very hesitantly, let’s put aside the possibility that the do-gooders would treat you no differently, with respect to your own children,…
