The title of this essay is borrowed from the title of a recent article by John Bolton in National Review in which he lays out the challenge we now face in the Middle East from the latest personification of radical Islamist jihad in the form of the Islamic State, commonly known as ISIS or ISIL. […]
Archives for September 2014
Meanwhile, In Ukraine and Elsewhere
Matthew Kaminski, writing in the Wall Street Journal, suggests that while the West forgets history, Vladimir Putin is busy repeating it with his 19th century foreign policy, and leave it again to George Kennan to characterize the Russian mind: “Russia can have at its borders only vassals or enemies”. Kaminski’s response is that the problem […]
Texas School Finance: Here We Go Again
Once again, after a significant delay in issuing a written decision, a State District Judge has finally ruled in favor of over 600 school district plaintiffs that the Texas school finance method is unconstitutional, primarily because it “cannot provide a constitutionally adequate education for all Texans” and “it is financially inefficient because all Texas students […]
A Tipping Point for College Athletics
Mark the date: The recent court ruling against the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the O’Bannon case combined with a decision by the NCAA in effect creating a division of “superconferences” will serve as the impetus for the acceleration of the downward spiral of the highest levels of college athletics into farm systems for […]
Summer Books
The Twilight of the American Enlightenment: The 1950s and the Crisis of Liberal Belief, by George M. Marsden This review and reappraisal of the debates that shaped the country’s post WWII history reveals that both the left and the right have been unable to provide for religious diversity in public life, a failure that continues […]