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Saving Willy Loman

The focus on the increase in death rates for white Americans between ages 45-54 in the media obscures equally troubling results in Anne Case and Angus Deaton’s recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, “Rising morbidity and mortality in midlife . . . . Continue Reading »

Bret Stephens and Trump

The Donald Trump phenomenon continues, and so does the commentary upon it. In the Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephens termed the latter “a parade of semi-sophisticated theories that act as bathroom deodorizer to mask the stench of this candidacy.” Rusty Reno took note of Stephens’s . . . . Continue Reading »

To Dissolve the People

Bret Stephens is fed up with Trumpism and he's not gonna take it anymore. As his column in yesterday's Wall Street Journal makes clear, Stephens is appalled that people aren't appalled by the appalling Donald Trump.  The tone of his column suggests that Bret Stephens may be losing his . . . . Continue Reading »

Rainbow White House

I write this post not as a partisan, but as an American. The White House should not ever be used as an icon or celebration for any particular political or even social cause or purpose, regardless of our personal belief on the rightness of that cause. It just shouldn't.There are many . . . . Continue Reading »

Public Schools and the Wall of Separation

The famous phrase “wall of separation of church and state” today enjoys the status of legal precedent, but here’s a curious fact. The phrase comes from the letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to the Danbury Connecticut Baptists who feared that state politicians would suppress them. When the Baptists received the letter, however, they didn’t celebrate and publicize the statement. They didn’t even record it in the minutes of their proceedings. “They pretend it never existed.” Continue Reading »

What Lu Lingzi Saw in America

One of the persons the Boston Marathon bombers murdered was Lu Lingzi, a Boston University graduate student from China. From Shenyang, where her parents now mourn the loss of their only child. So far there are two other murder victims, a child named Martin Richard, and the young woman Krystle . . . . Continue Reading »

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