thoughts in and out of season
James Kalb Hilton Kramer makes a good observation in his essay “Modernism & its institutions” in the current (October) issue of The New Criterion, that postmodernism has created no institutions of its own. One explanation for the situation—Mr. Kramer doesn’t go into this—is that postmodernism is basically a career strategy for functionaries trying to gain power … More ...
A story that suggests the mess the President’s school initiative has left behind: Should Utah opt out of school reform?. No Child Left Behind requires states that accept Federal money to bring all students up to grade level in reading and math by 2013-14, and in the meantime show annual improvements on standardized tests. … More ...
Business as usual: more fraud in the EU, Gideon’s bibles to be expelled from Calgary hospitals to avoid discrimination, and roast pig forbidden in Bath, England because Muslims and animal rights types wouldn’t approve.
Pascal observed that it’s difficult to speak chastely of chastity, and it must be far more difficult to speak chastely of pornography. Still, you have to deal with what’s around us, and it’s worth noting that even New York Magazine, which is in the business of treating everything as a consumer good, is starting … More ...
It’s hard to make out exactly what’s going on, but it appears that in the Australian state of Victoria if you give the term “jihad” its usual meaning and say Muslims believe in it, you’ll be taken to court for “religious vilification” and the Catholic Church will take the side of your prosecutors.
Nobody’s ever good enough: Gandhi attacked as racist in South Africa.
The culture of therapy calls for some explanation, and there’s a new book out in England that claims it’s the natural consequence of the collapse of the Left. The Left claimed that everyone could get what he wants through social engineering. That turned out to be impossible, so a whole industry has grown up … More ...
The Queen of England has decided she needs to investigate the stuff Tony Blair’s been telling her about the proposed EU constitution: Queen raises fears over EU constitution. It seems she’s concerned about the effect of Article 10, which gives EU law primacy over the law of member states, on her position as sovereign. … More ...
Wendy McElroy gives some startling statistics on the decline of marriage in her piece on The Marriage Strike (by men who don’t much like what current family law has to offer them). During the first half of the ’90s the marriage rate dropped from 9.8 to 7.6—I had no idea there had been such a … More ...
I’m not impressed by the argument that America is good because it’s free, equal, democratic and prosperous, or because a lot of people from all over the world want to move here. There are good things to be said about America on those grounds, but they can also be said about other Western countries, and … More ...