Ross Douthat writes something that strikes me as very right (well, he often does that.) Romney’s speech last night was extremely vague on policy. If you went into the night not knowing what Romney wanted to do, you left the night not having learned much of anything. It was all personality . . . . Continue Reading »
Contra persisting anti-Shariah sentiments, 2011 survey findings show that mosques are a great source of good in their communities. Hesham A. Hassaballa notes: Among the surveys findings: 63 percent of mosques conducted outreach activities in the past year, such as open houses for . . . . Continue Reading »
The Moscovore has the buzz : Beekeepers throughout Russia are up in arms over the move of Moscow’s high-profile honey fair from prestigious Manezh Square in the capital’s downtown to a shopping mall on the outskirts of the city: a ruling that would appear to be yet another attempt by . . . . Continue Reading »
5. An IRA man named Ó Conaill always makes a point of drinking more whiskey than any Protestant he may be drinking with, but this policy makes him bad company: He has to go to the toilet every few minutes because he lost a bit of his bladder in a shootout with the RUC. 4. Kevin Myers, our . . . . Continue Reading »
The San Francisco Chronicle reports that California’s Assembly has passed a bill allowing “more than two” individuals to have legally recognized claims to the parenthood of a child: Lawmakers approved SB1476 by Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, on a party line vote, . . . . Continue Reading »
1. Romney gave a win by default speech. The theory seems to be that what is holding the marginal voter(s) back from supporting Romney is that they think he is a guy who doesn’t care about anything but making a buck for himself and that “humanizing” (I hate that word) is the key to . . . . Continue Reading »
Peter J. Leithart on the dark side of gratitude : In The Gift, first published in the 1920s, the French ethnologist Marcel Mauss describes several Pacific Rim gift economies. Mauss argues that exchanges among these tribes are radically different from exchanges in money economies. In . . . . Continue Reading »
Shulamith Firestone died this Tuesday at the age of 67, reports the Times . Back in June, Patrick Deneen penned an “On the Square” about how Firestone’s thought is being rejected by some young women today. It amounts to a sort of intellectual obituary to read alongside the . . . . Continue Reading »
I just saw a funny Tweet from @jimnorton, in which he “condemns” Mitt Romney’s father for “murdering roses” when he placed one on his wife’s bedstand every night. (Romney scored emotionally in last night’s speech when he recalled that his mother found . . . . Continue Reading »