Articles 356
Of Dullards, Whales, Frustrations, and Shirts Like Fetters
What of those who have never once thought it their duty to amuse their readers?
Waking Up, Smelling the Constitutional Coffee
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Wichita, KS Dahlia Lithwick and Ezra Klein are a couple of my favorite pundits in the whole blogosphere. Lithwick is snarky, and Klein is wonky,…
An Anglophile Confesses
Back in May, 2005 – on May 4, to be precise – my wife and I were invited to the 59th annual Boat Race Dinner of the Washington Oxford and…
Attributes of the Gentleman or Mr. Darcy’s Rules of Engagement
Even in a democratic age, where social classes are fluid and poorly demarcated, the gentleman is characterized by these five attributes.
Simplicity “Bleg”
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] I'd like to call upon the collective wisdom of the Front Porch Republic, to help me with a new class I'll be teaching in the…
This Is My Son: Two Years Later
Devon, PA. Two years ago this week, President Obama delivered the commencement speech at the University of Notre Dame. Great numbers of students, faculty, alumni, and American Catholics protested the…
“Southern Conservatism”: The View from Brooklyn
The James Madison Program at Princeton often provides an unexpected breath of common-sensical fresh air in the academic fever-swamps. Last March it held a conference on the work of the…
Poetry and the Common Language
This piece was originally posted at the University Bookman. Check out their site for other similar articles! --- If there is one principle which is nearly axiomatic among our contemporaries…
Regret Minimization
Jeremy Grantham is paid to make people money. Among his clients is Dick Cheney, who, based on Grantham's advice, was well-positioned before the economic collapse (as I noted at the…
The Death of bin Laden: On Violence and Civil Religion
Holland, MI. Around 11:00 Sunday night I received a text from a friend informing me that Osama bin Laden had been killed by US military and intelligence units. I confess…
He Deserved It
[Cross-posted to In Medias Res] Wichita, KS That's a terribly unChristian thing to say, I know. To speak in moral terms--to speak of "desert"--in matters of war is to invariably…
Just in Time for a Royal Wedding
Noble marriages have a certain appeal to even staunch republicans like ourselves. Could it be for something other than celebrity and The Dress?
The Moral Implications of Dictionaries
I suppose we all grow unduly annoyed at times with certain cultural foibles which are really quite trivial in comparison with the dire and momentous crises which are rapidly…
Pride and Prejudice and Porn
If we are witnessing the passing of the gentlemen, there is much to lament. Perhaps it’s time for the gentleman to make a comeback.
Deracinated Meritocrats and the Marriage “Debate”
Devon, PA. I just received a link to a video that records the encounter of members of the TFP (The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family, and Property)…
How Bonds Really Did It
With the Barry Bonds’s trial ending with a slap on the wrist for the lesser charge against him and a mistrial on the greater charges, it is time to divulge…
The Mosh-Pit of Philosophy, the Pedestal of Science, and a Plate of Green Beans
Last Saturday, I had the pleasure of addressing the ISI Conference at Taylor University, “Whose Capitalism? Which Free Market? Exploring the Moral Dimensions of the Market.” My message to the…
Going Home
The South, repatriated ex-slave Ned Douglass lectured his Louisiana neighbors in Ernest J. Gaines’s novel The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, is “yours because your people’s bones lays in it;…
Probable Cause
Attorney John M. Berry Jr. in Kentucky is defending his right to criticize a decision made by the state's Legislative Ethics Commission. Was his language at fault? Or is someone…
Untaxing the Virtues
What the political mainstream ignores, unsurprisingly, is that any change in how we raise revenue cannot be only about balancing the numbers. It also involves judgements about the texture of…
History’s Long Road to Tyranny: Tocqueville and the End of Equality
Devon, PA. I have just finished teaching Alexis de Tocqueville's Democracy in America with my freshmen students. In a way I have not witnessed before, they were compelled by his…
Magpie Education for Small-Mouth Bass
We’re like small-mouth bass, and we’ve swallowed the technological treble hook.
Why We Need Jane Austen or How to be a Gentleman with Examples Good and Bad
Austen provides something for which young people—even the jaded ones—secretly long.