I wrote this article in the fall of 2008, shortly after I graduated, when I was much preoccupied with the question of meritocracy and the proper role of schools like Yale. My editor at Culture 11 declined to publish this draft, then the site went under and the piece was abandoned. I think I posted . . . . Continue Reading »
I can’t decide whether I have a legitimate reason to be annoyed with the opening sentences of this post by Diane Ellis Scalisi over at Acculturated, or whether I’m just being a snob. My default assumption is the latter, but you be the judge. Let’s take it line by line. This past . . . . Continue Reading »
I found the map referenced in Peter Lawler’s below post to be striking. I went over to Real Clear Politics to look at how Romney’s polling against Obama compared with John McCain’s polling against Obama. According to Real Clear’s average of head-to-head . . . . Continue Reading »
Erstwhile conservative (if I’m being generous) David Brooks laments the state of the conservative mind. When, apparently in another life, he worked for National Review , there were traditionalist conservatives and free market types. Now, he says, the free marketeers have totally . . . . Continue Reading »
In a 2004 Christianity Today cover story that helped introduce “emergent Christianity” to the Evangelical mainstream, CT editor Andy Crouch expressed hope that Brian McLaren’s project would not prove to be a revival of liberal Christianity: It’s not that . . . . Continue Reading »
at RandomHouse.ca (via Andrew Sullivan): ...In fact, comparing beer commercials from the Ukraine and the U.S. led Lantolf and Bobrova to an unexpected finding that highlights differences in how Americans and Ukrainians think about people. In the Ukrainian commercials, the study notes, “people . . . . Continue Reading »
Elizabeth Scalia on how the U.S. press plays Pravda : On September 11, on the eleventh anniversary of the worst attack yet endured on our shores, U.S. Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three aides were murdered, and their headquarters in Benghazi sacked. The U.S. Press unquestioningly accepted . . . . Continue Reading »
On the anniversary of the birth of the great film-maker Robert Bresson, our friend Shmuel Ben-Gad sends the link to an interview with the director . It’s in French, but subtitled. Bresson directed Diary of a Country Priest and The Trial of Joan of Arc among other films. Here is a . . . . Continue Reading »
At first glance it seems to be a Romney nightmare scenario : Which leads to Romneys nightmare scenario: If things dont turn around for Romney soon, those super PACs may give up on the task of electing Romney as president and turn to the task of encircling Obamas second term with a . . . . Continue Reading »
I promised to say more about this survey . In many respects, white working class Americans take a view of our current economic circumstances that lines up reasonably well with conventional Republican wisdom. They are more likely than their college-educated fellow citizens to think that the . . . . Continue Reading »