The Democrats, at their convention, stood so stridently for the rights of the liberated single woman that they offered the Republicans the opportunity to counter with a defense of the […]
This is my second installment in a series on excellent TV shows and the 2012 election. I’m skipping over Girls for now and turning to the HBO series Big Love. […]
We’re having a conference—sponsored by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute—at Berry College next Friday and Saturday on POP CULTURE and REAL CULTURE. All the details can be found here. YOU are […]
Well, you can’t miss the new film Lincoln. Here’s the big reason: Daniel Day-Lewis’ Lincoln is pretty much WHO we will think of when imagining the person “Father Abraham” from now […]
Here’s a thought of the novelist Walker Percy’s searching character Will Barrett in The Last Gentleman: For until this moment he had lived in a state of pure possibility, not […]
It’s been fashionable for a long time now to deny all evidence for human uniqueness, for the singular greatness of members of our species. So it’s refreshing to read Michael […]
For a couple of days, I was inclined to buy the theory that Obama won the election because his campaign was so “metric driven.” Metric driven in this case seems […]
The president’s decisive 60+% electoral college victory can be contrasted, of course, with his very narrow popular vote margin. Our Constitution has the effect of magnifying his win, giving it […]
A good thing about ELECTIONS is that they remind us we have a CONSTITUTION. They especially remind us that we’re a really, really constitutional people. Lots of Americans really hate […]
So one reason for LIBERAL EDUCATION is to give students some sense of the genealogy of our ideas. It seems as if everyone believes in free persons these days. Not […]
James Ceaser, perhaps our most distinguished student of American politics on the conservative side, isn’t about predicting the outcome of elections. That’s actually hard to do. And those political scientists […]
So the best reason to read a “great book” is that you might learn a lot from it about who you are and what you’re supposed to do. In that […]
So I’ve gotten a lot (meaning several) emails complaining that I haven’t gotten around to keeping my promise of talking about Allan Bloom’s The Closing of the American Mind. Well, sorry. […]
Here are the most sensible thoughts about the election that have come to my attention: 1. Romney has had considerable momentum since the first debate. It’s come to an end, not […]
So Scott Jaschik explains—in Inside Higher Ed—that parents and students still want the prestigious brand of the liberal arts college. Lots of leaders, after all, have been educated at such schools, […]
Sure he is, according to Walter Russell Mead. Mead’s Meadea, of course, is one of the most savvy and erudite blogs around. One reason, it appears, that Mead is voting […]
Well, if all you had to go by is tonight’s debate, you’d have to say yes. Romney’s presentations were clearer, tighter, more incisive, more eloquent, more factually detailed, and more […]
So says an outstanding young conservative public intellectual—Helen Rittelmeyer. It’s true enough that conservatives still do accuse the Democrats—or, more precisely, the liberals—of being moral relativists. Rittelmeyer quotes Paul Ryan […]
So, a few of you have asked, why have you stopped talking about movies? It’s not that I’ve stopped seeing them. The truth is that movies have gotten so much […]
So Romney is taking a big and deserved hit for his stupid and arrogant remark that 47% of Americans won’t vote for him because they don’t pay income taxes and, […]