thoughts in and out of season
More blessings of diversity in the Anglophone world:
Someone with some knowledge of the dispute over the proposed NYC parent councils read what I wrote about it and protested that I had misread a reasonably objective report by the New York Times as a partisan political statement. My (somewhat edited) response:
… More ...Thanks for the note! It’s a useful reality check to get comments
Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn called the Colombian aphoristic philosopher Nicolas Gomez Davila (1913-1994) “the brightest thinker on the Right.” It is perhaps no coincidence that his writings have been altogether unavailable in English. Nikos Salingaros just did English speakers a service by translating some of his thoughts on artistic, architectural, and urban matters. They’re an … More ...
Evidence that American Christians are generally more American than Christian, and that opposition to the “radical religious right” is basically a mopping-up operation: Unbelieving ‘born-agains’. Most born-agains reject the Trinity and consider salvation a matter of living a good life. A third or more deny the Resurrection, and accept premarital cohabitation and same-sex unions. … More ...
The effect of “equality” on self-government: Bias Feared in School Plan for Councils. New York City has 32 elected school boards. Most potential voters don’t have school-age children, and fewer than 5% participate in electing the boards. So the city wants to replace the school boards with parent councils elected by PTA officers. That … More ...
A correspondent with a scientific turn of mind wanted to pursue a question raised here a a week or two ago, why the Derrida and similar viruses are such a plague now when earlier they weren’t a problem.
My comments (slightly edited):
… More ...It seems that most “why now” explanations emphasize features of modern life
How the Council seemed to some at the time: Gregorian Chant Strangled in its Own Cradle. To the young monks of a Benedictine monastery in Rome, Vatican II meant that it was a religious duty to toss away everything to which they had been brought up in the Church for the sake of imitating … More ...
Daniel Pipes has a list of questions he says are helpful in Identifying Muslim Moderates. It occurred to me that with surprisingly slight modification the list could become a guide for identifying liberal moderates:
Recent changes to Canadian law greatly broaden the scope of binding arbitration. Under the new rules, if people don’t want to go to court to settle civil disputes they don’t have to, but can get a legally enforcible decision from an arbitrator. One consequence is that it is now practical of Muslims in Canada to … More ...
Evidence that there is at least one sensible European politician: Czech President Vaclav Klaus warns Europe of ‘dream world’ woes. He doesn’t like the EU, thinks the Europeans are living in lotus-land, views the Euro as a purely political scheme, believes “you cannot have a democratic accountability in anything bigger than a nation … More ...