R. R. Reno

It’s old news, but consistently ignored. In her 2011 book, Manning Up: How the Rise of Women Has Turned Men into Boys , Kay Hymowitz reports basic facts about gender, income, and status. Here are some arresting statistics. Women between 25-34 with college educations now outnumber men in their . . . . Continue Reading »

Today Commentary Magazine ’s website features my contribution to a symposium on the future of conservatism that was published in their January issue. These reflections are part of my larger concerns about the future of American conservatism, which I elaborate on in the Public Square in the . . . . Continue Reading »

A friend’s wife recently gave birth. He reports that the New York birth certificate asks for the sex of the mother, and the sex of the father. I was taken aback. How could the State of New York be so behind the times? Don’t the bureaucrats in Albany know what the T in LGBT stands for? . . . . Continue Reading »

Since the first of the year I’ve been working to catch up. A friend had sent a useful article by Chrystia Freeland, ” The Self-Destruction of the 1 Percent ,” and I finally got around to clicking through and reading it. Freeland has an interesting story to tell about Venice. The city went . . . . Continue Reading »

The weekend edition of the Wall Street Journal featured an article advocating the decriminalization of drugs. Economists Gary Becker and Kevin Murphy argue the war on drugs has failed, and social costs of continuing with our current laws are too high. Their solution is to legalize drugs use, and . . . . Continue Reading »

I keep a little black book of notes, thought-sketches, and quotations. It’s my slapdash storage device for ideas. Now and then I reread the pages, and when I do I’m reminded yet again that nine tenths of mental progress comes when we circle back and think old thoughts again. Enduring truths are often fugitive. They need to be made permanent residents in our minds by regular intervals of remembrance… . Continue Reading »

Daniel Henninger has gone down the rabbit hole. In his column for the  Wall Street Journal he inveighs against the countless ways in which the tax code is manipulated by legislators to reward this or that constituency—-or donors and lobbyists, as the case may be. The . . . . Continue Reading »

Last summer, billionaire hedge fund manager and major Republican donor Paul Singer put up $1 million to launch American Unity. His goal was to break down the Republican party’s opposition to gay marriage and thus remove political resistance to the triumph of gay rights. Singer and his billionaire . . . . Continue Reading »

Over the years I’ve come to realize that “relativism” is the wrong way to describe the way in which secular elite culture approaches moral questions. It’s obvious that all things are not permitted, which is why Pope Benedict coined the term “dictatorship of . . . . Continue Reading »

A friend was talking to me recently. He observed that the post-election drama in Washington seems to be about more than taxes and spending. Everybody seems to feel that the stakes are high, and two visions of the future of America are being contested. “It’s . . . . Continue Reading »