Carl Scott

The great Lincoln, Montesquieu, and F. Douglass scholar Diana Schaub has a new essay out on Malcolm X, and the book on him by Marable Manning. Of course you need to read the Autobiography, but here’s a good thumbnail sketch of Malcolm’s life from an appreciative yet critical . . . . Continue Reading »

From the Armed Forces Journal, a very depressing article from one Lt. Colonel Daniel L. Davis, who’s been all over the country over the last year.  Read it all, but here’s a tidbit. . . . . Continue Reading »

Steve Hayward’s cookin’ with gas over at Powerline : “But the prize for this week’s liberal obtuseness about the Constitution goes to Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who told an Egyptian television audience that ‘I would not look to the U.S. Constitution if I . . . . Continue Reading »

[Note: by the criteria laid out in Songbook #12 , this is not a Rock song, but a rock n’ roll one.] Songbook #37 considered the New-Wave-cloaked revival of earlier rock and roll styles burbling amid the early 80s pop charts, but now it’s time to go down to the underground as X-Ray Specs . . . . Continue Reading »

In the thread below, Chantal Delsol graciously responded to my observation that her more recent book had dropped the occasional references to human nature used in earlier books. While still utilizing the term “natural” to reference to certain biological determinations, she affirmed that . . . . Continue Reading »

Literature-wise, for me the last year has been the year of Jane Austen and Charles Portis. My present Austen re-reading kick is due to my own idiosyncratic reasons, but my discovery of Portis is entirely due to seeing the Coen Brother’s version of True Grit . . . and I imagine I’m not the . . . . Continue Reading »

Those of you in the big markets, do go out and see this new adaption, by Ralph Fiennes, of the classic Shakespearean presentation of republican manliness and its tragic pitfalls. Here’s a brief Christian meditation on the film. And here are my somewhat pessimistic expectations for it that I . . . . Continue Reading »

The new book on contemporary French (and Catholic) political philosopher Chantal Delsol, Lucid Mind, Intrepid Spirit: Essays on the Thought of Chantal Delsol is now out. It features essays by Peter Lawler, Paul Seaton, Lauren Hall, and yours truly, as well as translated tid-bits from what Seaton . . . . Continue Reading »

[ Note: by the criteria laid out in Songbook #12 , this is not a Rock song, but a rock n’ roll one. ] The last Songbook post raised the problem of repetition, of “new music” that is only sort of new. The first sign that recorded pop music could not remain ever-progressive in its . . . . Continue Reading »

Paul Rahe is talking sense over at Ricochet , connecting a couple recent Obamacare dots. He lays out the case against Romney, AND the only way Romney can defend himself, quite well. . . . . Continue Reading »