The central commandment found in American etiquette Torah is this old chestnut: Never discuss religion or politics. Do so, and you run the risk of offending those who hold different views. This is a grave sin, because polite society, after all, is an ideal predicated on the polite fiction that . . . . Continue Reading »
In his first speech as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Mike Johnson sounded like a preacher in a pulpit: “I believe that Scripture, the Bible, is very clear that God is the one who raises up those in authority,” he began. “He raised up each of you, all of us. And I believe that . . . . Continue Reading »
It was surreal. President Biden began his State of the Union speech by invoking the Nazi threat. More than eighty years ago, Biden reminded us, Franklin Roosevelt rallied the nation, as “Hitler was on the march,” and “freedom and democracy were under assault.” Today, the president warned, . . . . Continue Reading »
Living within a stone’s throw of the nation’s leading collection of Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood art housed at the Delaware Art Museum, I was familiar with Dante Gabriel Rossetti’s art but not his poetry. I therefore appreciate having been enlightened by Brian Patrick Eha’s “Rossetti the . . . . Continue Reading »
On June 2, 1987, the National Enquirer published a photograph of Donna Rice sitting on the lap of Gary Hart. When, earlier that spring, rumors surfaced of an affair between the actress and the Democratic Senator, the backlash had been strong enough to end Hart’s promising campaign for . . . . Continue Reading »
Something is wrong. Throughout the West, people are angry, anxious, and discontented. Paradoxically, the ill temper arises amid wealth unimaginable to our recent ancestors. (But perhaps this is not a paradox after all. Recall 1 Timothy 6:10: “For the love of money is the root of all evil.”) . . . . Continue Reading »
Aaron M. Renn joins the podcast to discuss his new book Life in the Negative World. Continue Reading »
I am not looking forward to the prospect of the next few months in this election cycle. I am myself a caregiver, and I have to take care of myself in order to do my job; I have to preserve my sanity. Continue Reading »
A few months ago, I predicted that the Francis pontificate would seek to establish cordial relations with the Rainbow Reich. (See “While We’re At It,” January 2024, composed late November 2023.) In mid-December the Vatican issued the declaration Fiducia Supplicans, vindicating my . . . . Continue Reading »
On July 4, 1776, as several dozen sweating American colonists sat in the stuffy Pennsylvania State House wondering what would befall them for having dared to rebel against their king, a lone, hungry Spanish priest lay in the windswept stone plaza of a Hopi village wondering what would befall him for . . . . Continue Reading »
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