A whole slew of conservative (or conservative-ish) writers are taking on the idea of “illiberal liberalism,” by which they mean a liberalism that tries to exclude dogmatic religious communities from respectable public debate, or which puts such restraints on those communities (by, say, forbidding them to use religious justifications for their public-policy preferences) that they … Read more
It was no secret that life imitated art this past election, as, throughout the campaign season, fans of NBC’s The West Wing couldn’t help but draw parallels between the junior senator from Illionois who would become President of the United States and the freshman congressman from Texas who did the same thing in the fictional … Read more
Harvard students had Monday off for President’s Day and I made use of my free time by checking in on the final day of this years Harvard Speech and Debate tournament. A good friend of mine from high school was in town coaching his student in the tournament, and the guy made it all the … Read more
In honor or Presidents’ Day, C-SPAN released the results of a survey given to 64 presidential historians, asking them to rank all the presidents in ten categories ranging from Pursued Equal Justice for All, Crisis Leadership, Economic Management, etc. The results of those ten categories were then compiled to generate a list of all the … Read more
Also, w/r/t Sam’s post on how few Americans believe in evolution, I’d suggest there’s no way to ask an un-loaded question about evolution. Gallup uses “theory of evolution”, which is the sort of phrasing that could prompt coming down against it for fence-sitters; this is the primary rhetorical tack of creationists. Whereas a question that … Read more
On the 200th anniversary of Charles Darwin’s birth, only 39% of Americans believe in his theory of evolution. This is, naturally, quite disturbing. But there are even more interesting nuggets in that Gallup poll. How do you explain, for instance, the startling fact that 36% of Americans just don’t know whether or not they believe … Read more
As someone who studies history, one of the persistent historical puzzles is why America never developed a sizeable left. By “left” I don’t mean the Democratic Party, but rather the center-left parties that have tended to dominate politics in the large, First-World nations since the end of WWII. No one’s quite sure, and the difficulty … Read more
The New York Times often caters to the upscale tastes of its (quickly dwindling) readership: the Style section, the theater reviews, the wedding announcements. And that’s all well and good. But then, there are articles like this one. You see, apparently half a million dollars doesn’t get you very far in the Big Apple. Well, … Read more
Go ahead, click on it. Reassuring, am I right?
When I’m in the gym, I like to zone out by watching cable news while I run or bike. This is the only time I watch cable news, since I believe it turns your brain to a much resembling tapioca. With less flavor. Anyway, I’ve observed that cable news commentators of all political persuasions seem … Read more