thoughts in and out of season
Joseph Stromberg gives a rather lengthy summary of various people’s complaints about the American regime and soul: The Dark Night of the American Soul. (The title is intended to be ironic, he doesn’t think the American soul ever has a dark night.) It reads a bit like an accumulation of notes, but the accumulation … More ...
A reader asks—evidently hoping to provoke discussion—whether America is the most evil society ever.
The obvious answer is “no.” Abortion isn’t as bad as abortion plus infant exposure. The Colosseum was worse than MTV. And the consumer society has its problems but so did slavery. Still, the question is provocative. America and other present-day Western … More ...
Recent studies prove: self-esteem is bad for you. There’s no substitute for dealing with reality and calling problems problems. I wonder if that principle has any relevance to happy talk within the Church?
The EU ministry of truth in action: Vikings? Such friendly folk, say textbooks. The official story told schoolchildren today, it seems, is that Europe has always been a sort of idealized EU living in happy harmony with its Muslim neighbors.
In the meanwhile, the Canadians have noticed a problem: “We … are terrible in … More ...
An activist group, the Alliance Defense Fund, has placed advertisements in major university newspapers urging students to report incidents of anti-Christian bigotry on campus and providing a toll-free number and email address for the purpose. According to the group’s chief counsel, “Students must understand that the protections of the First Amendment do not stop … More ...
If the gender deconstructors do succeed, what then? A clue may be provided by The Long Conversion of Oscar Wilde. If the institutions and attitudes that make ordinary life possible are abolished then the alternative to beastliness will be sanctity, and many will choose it. Remember that the battle is never lost.
As counterpoint to the “queering the schools” agenda, here’s a footnote-laden Family Research Council report on Abstinence until Marriage: The Best Message for Teens. We’ve touched before on the widespread technocratic prejudice against “abstinence-only” sex-ed programs. Nonetheless, it should be obvious that it’s the abstinence curricula that are based on reason and common sense … More ...
Since the New York Times plays such an important role in defining American public life, accounts of life backstage are of some interest: ‘Republic of Fear’. It seems that things have gotten really nasty under the rule of new editor Howell Raines. We have pointed out that “diversity” makes terror and utter inefficiency the … More ...
A tale of two causes: “queering the schools”—mainstreaming homosexual and polymorphously perverse themes throughout education—goes forward, and the only people who complain are said to be homophobic cranks. Meanwhile, it’s a huge scandal if the Secretary of Education praises Christian schools very moderately (“all things being equal, I’d prefer to have a child in … More ...
Why does September 11 mean we should care about this? Old warlord proves thorn in the side of Afghan government. Afghanistan has never been fully under the control of any government. On the whole, that has not been so bad for those on the scene. So why should our soldiers stay there and try … More ...