The Amish versus the recession
A heartbreaking story from Forbes. Here’s the money quote: “Most people say they’re tightening their belts. Well, we don’t use belts, so I guess we can say we’re tightening up our suspenders and rolling...
Author: Will
File this one under “things I don’t usually admit to”
John Podhoretz’s Star Trek review is pretty darn good.
Holiday in Cambodia
Well, not quite. But an old friend of mine has an excellent summary of recent developments regarding Cambodia’s genocide tribunals.
The Salad Bowl
Jonah Goldberg makes an odd claim in his latest column: The mainstream perception that conservatives are close-minded and dogmatic while liberals are open-minded and free-thinking has it almost exactly backward. Liberal dogma is settled:...
I dare you to make less sense
These days, “Orwellian” has become a convenient synonym for “things I don’t like,” so I hesitate to use the word in any context. But I don’t think anything else does justice to the sheer...
“A Tale of Two Exurbs”
One downside to Republicans’ lack of interest in “new ideas” is that they’ve effectively ceded policy discussions on a host of emerging issues to liberals, which is presumably why this fascinating piece on exurban...
“Bankers get fired, people who fail poor black kids don’t”
I suspect conservatives will find a lot to like in Geoffrey Canada’s full-spectrum approach to inner-city education.
Teaching Moments
This depressing Los Angeles Times story inspired a pretty interesting debate on teacher unions over at the American Scene. In comments, Freddie mounts a persuasive defense of union-backed tenure for professional educators, arguing that...
The Underdog
Gladwell’s latest article is a fun excursion, replete with guerrilla tactics, the press defense, and a few egregious over-generalizations. Read the whole thing here.
Libertarianism, Rightly Understood
Libertarianism does have public relations problems, and it’s not because most people are stupid or immoral. It’s because libertarians have done a terrible job countering the widespread suspicion that it’s a uselessly abstract ahistorical...
Hate Crimes (III)
Andrew Breitbart takes a flying leap over the shark with his latest bit of commentary (emphasis mine):
Look Back in Anger
I suspect the debate over torture, atomic weaponry, and morality is rapidly reaching the point of diminishing returns, but I did want to say one last thing on the subject before moving on. For...
Hate Crimes (II)
National Review’s David Freddoso raised a few smart objections to pending hate crimes legislation:
War Crimes, Then and Now
In the course of a very thorough fisking of Michael Goldfarb’s latest attempt to justify torture, Julian Sanchez makes the rather banal observation that failure to prosecute war crimes in World War II doesn’t...
Time to Pretend
One thing I like about the blogosphere is that everyone ignores the rituals and forms of establishment politics. To take a recent example, no one bothered to pretend that Arlen Specter switched parties for...
You’re a Grand Old Flag
Everyone should go read this take on the Confederate Battle Flag over at Ta-Nehisi Coates’ place.
Hate Crimes
The House is considering new legislation that, as best I can tell, provides state governments with grants for combating hate crimes and mandates additional penalties for criminal acts motivated by racial, religious or sexual...
Barre None
In the middle of a phone conversation with a local Wilkes-Barre reporter, I noticed that her pronunciation of Barre comes out sounding like “burra,” not “bar.” A co-worker with family in Pennsylvania confirms that...
