Shelby Steele calls him the “freest black man in America”, and the more I read of the life and worldview of Justice Clarence Thomas as reflected in his new book, My Grandfather’s Son and related interviews, the more I am convinced that he is correct in the purest sense of the word. Here is a […]
Archives for 2007
Thoughts on the Election, One Year Out
Michael Barone has it about right—so far we are witnessing a presidential campaign completely devoid of themes. As he characterizes it, neither party’s candidates have a convincing narrative. I’m afraid that what we now see is what we’re going to get, and I am singularly unimpressed by the field in this possibly most important watershed […]
Letter from Central Europe
My wife and I just returned from a very busy three-week tour of Rome and Central Europe, including stays in Warsaw, Krakow, Budapest, Vienna, and Prague, and other interesting stops between in places like Auschwitz and Birkenau, Czestokova, and the Slovak Republic. Lots of history here, and it was greatly enhanced with several cultural events […]
A New Low for the Nobel
After Jimmy Carter, Yasser Arafat, and now Al Gore, can Michael Moore be far behind as a prime candidate for the Nobel Peace Prize? It truly makes one wonder if there are any standards for truth and objectivity in awarding the prize, or has it entirely become a form of ratification of politically correct leftist […]
What Has Atheism Ever Produced?
Like many observers, I have wondered at the motivation for the rash of atheistic books that have achieved best seller status over the past year or so. All of a sudden, they are everywhere, and the electronic media has picked up the lead with follow up interviews and debates pitting their author/celebrities against surrogates for […]
Speaking of Divides…
Can you think of a wider one than exists between the leadership of our elite colleges and universities and the military culture, as evidenced by the current controversy over the appearance of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad of Iran at Columbia University? Columbia’s President Lee Bollinger just doesn’t get it. He would like us to believe that […]
The New Cultural Divide
Some years ago (June 2000), I wrote about the demise of the “warrior class” in America and the degree to which the military experience and the commitment to military service have been diluted in America’s leadership class. To me, this is a troubling development, because I have always believed, particularly since the time of my […]
Replacing the Broken Contract
I was struck over a year ago by comments by the CEO of General Motors who, in defending the company’s appeal for relief of its crushing legacy costs for health care and retirement benefits for its retirees, in effect said that it should not be expected to bear these costs in their entirety because they […]
The Larry Craig Episode
“Hate the sin and not the sinner” is a precept which, though easy enough to understand, is rarely practiced, and that is why the poison of hatred spreads in the world.—Mohandas Gandhi. So, did the Republicans rush to judgment of Sen. Craig in the recent “men’s room” sting operation? Sure they did, but the GOP […]
Summer Books
Einstein: His Life and Universe, by Walter Isaacson. This book has been on the NY Times best seller list for many weeks now, to no surprise. It is a very well written chronology of the life of a man whose exploits have become larger than life and the stuff of near-mythology for many among the […]
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