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James Kalb
Flogging a dead multiculture
A review of Diane Ravitch’s The Language Police in The New Pantagruel brings out the nature of “celebrating diversity” in school textbooks: since almost anything one might assert, suggest or mention would be more favorable to one group or culture than another, the only things that can be asserted, suggested or mentioned are things like … More ...
What is reason?
We live in a time in which an abstract and basic question like that is relevant to practical political life. Judges today, for example, feel free to overthrow the established definition of marriage on the grounds that the universal understanding of a fundamental social institution is simply irrational. What is accepted as “reasonable” has evidently … More ...
Bias no myth
Liberal media bias is obvious to most people but usually invisible to liberals. The media bias basics assembled by the Media Research Center includes surveys and whatnot and are worth bookmarking in case the point comes up.
The soul of man under capitalism
This discussion by Ludwig von Mises of capitalism, happiness, and beauty has something of the “one simple principle correctly resolves everything” quality that tends to disfigures libertarian thought, so it’s no credit to the Mises Institute that they’ve chosen to give it special prominence.
The issue is artistic life under “capitalism,” by which I suppose … More ...
New deal for the Old Mass?
A comment by Cardinal Hoyos in a recent interview has led to renewed speculation that the Vatican may do something decisive to make the Traditional Latin Mass more freely available. According to His Eminence:
… More ...“After more than fifteen years of the [papal indult requesting that the TLM be made “widely and generously” available]—and also taking
More on the surrealist drama starring BB
A recent article at Front Page helps put Brigitte Bardot’s crime in context by touching on some of the non-hate speech Arab networks are now broadcasting in France with the consent of the French government. Recent contributions to the richness of French multiculturalism include a dramatization of Jews using the blood of a ritually slaughtered … More ...
Degrees of scientific separation
There are a couple of interesting entries here and here at the Touchstone weblog about the importance of scientific “descent”—who is descended from whom by apprenticeship or similarly intimate professional connection. It turns out to be very important indeed. It appears, for example, that all significant chemists are professionally descended from a small number of … More ...
British craziness
The logic of discrimination theory never quits. If there’s a group of people with problems, then the problems are caused by irrational and unjust social discrimination, and comprehensive forcible action is called for to root out and compensate for the discrimination. No other view of the situation is conceivable. A recent example: the British government’s … More ...
Anti-gay FAQ
From the standpoint of the liberal public philosophy now generally accepted, the question of homosexuality has an obvious answer—treat it on a par with any configuration of sexual habit and impulse, as something people say they find rewarding and in any case are very reluctant to give up.
The opinion to the contrary that has … More ...