Monthly Archives: October 2009

The limits of Afrocentrism

The university’s decadent rituals of racial sin and expiation continue apace;  affirmative action hires and the ever-burgeoning student life bureaucracy make such self-engrossed wallowing intractable.  An “associate professor of philosophy” at Duquesne University, author of Black Bodies, Whites Gazes: The … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | 11 Comments

Hitchens At Work

Hitch at the top of his form.   (Click on  Play Clip.)

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Capitalism’s lost social capital

A few years ago Francis Fukuyama wrote Trust: The Social Virtues and The Creation of Prosperity. The short of it is that modern economies tend to be “high trust,” you can rely on more than simply your family to get … Continue reading

Posted in culture, economics | Tagged , , | 33 Comments

What We Do, Not What We Say

From an academic friend who knows a very great deal indeed about polls, voting, and public opinion (as in: he’s written books about them). There are two ways to find out what people think, believe, want, and like:  (1) Ask … Continue reading

Posted in culture, data, politics | 12 Comments

Cultural Adjustment

Here’s a little gem of multi-culti lunacy from the newspaper you have never, ever seen anyone reading: In Ohio, officials designing a seat-belt campaign aimed at the state’s large Somali refugee population wanted to adapt the popular “Click it or ticket” slogan … Continue reading

Posted in culture, law | 29 Comments

It’s not always better in Europe (?)

Matt Yglesias makes an observation that many colored people I have known have made (including family members): There’s often a kind of conventional idea on the left that the United States is an unusually racist society. And I think there’s … Continue reading

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Lions and Christians

Intelligence Squared is a privately-funded outfit staging debates in London. You can get a sample of the kinds of topics they debate from their home page. Free-market capitalism is so 20th century The threat to our civil liberties from an overmighty … Continue reading

Posted in culture, philosophy | 11 Comments

In hand-sanitizers we trust

A letter in the Wall Street Journal today makes a good point: In response to Lauren Winner’s Houses of Worship article “Swine Flu Spells the End of the Common Cup” (Oct. 9): If we as Christian believers hold to the … Continue reading

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Book Stuff

Some book stuff: (1) Are there any WAD blogs? people are asking me.  Well,  I’m running one on my own website here, and there’s some to and fro about the book on one of the Amazon history forums here. (2) The Russian translation of Prime Obsession … Continue reading

Posted in culture, Odds & Ends | 6 Comments

The Blue-Collar Gospel

Here, from America’s Newspaper of Record, is a story that touches my heart. Blue-collar work, whether it’s planting shrubs, pounding nails, tuning engines or laying bricks, can be just as rewarding as carrying a briefcase. In fact, it can be a whole … Continue reading

Posted in culture, Odds & Ends | 21 Comments