Feeding Mind, Pursuing Truth
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- Blog 3 Columns
The Decline and Decadence of Our Manners and Dress14
- Culture
- July 19, 2021
Yesterday I was tapping away on the laptop when through the window I saw a young man walking up the drive toward the house. He was shirtless, wearing jeans and brogans—do they still call work boots by this name?—and I correctly assumed he was one of the crew repaving the driveway of the house across
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The Complicated Certainty of Death0
- Culture
- July 19, 2021
The One Certain Thing, by Peter Cooley (Carnegie Mellon University Press; 80 pp., $15.95). In “This Living Hand: A Visitation,” a poem from this outstanding testimony to a husband’s love for his wife and grief at her death, Peter Cooley writes about the crosses each wore. “Before they took your body to be burned/I scooped yours from
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Lifestyles of the Rich and Paranoid0
- Economics
- July 16, 2021
What do super rich people with multi-million dollar summer homes in the Hamptons and similar enclaves think about today’s troubled, often violent politics? Frank answers are seldom forthcoming given that an impolite answer might invite social ostracism and exclusion from A-list parties. But actions often speak louder than words, and a recent article in AVENUE
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Is Biden Really the Lincoln of Our Time?0
- Politics
- July 16, 2021
Traveling to Philadelphia Tuesday, President Joe Biden laid out in apocalyptic terms the gravity of the “threat” to American democracy from Republican efforts to reform and rewrite state election laws. We are facing the most significant test of our democracy since the Civil War. That’s not hyperbole. Since the Civil War. The Confederates back then
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Beauty and the Brutalist: The Architectural Effect on Our Souls0
- Culture
- July 16, 2021
There is a beautiful conservatory in my hometown that houses flower gardens year-round despite our chilly northern clime. Its soaring glass dome was built in 1915 and gracefully presides over a beautiful pond and manicured grounds in a stately way reminiscent of the Capitol dome. Several years ago, the park hosting the conservatory must have
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On Neighborly Conduct and Immigration0
- Culture
- July 15, 2021
Who Is My Neighbor? An Anthology in Natural Relations, by Thomas Achord and Darrell Dow (584 pp., $24.99). The headmaster of a classical Christian school has teamed up with a statistician to collect and sort thousands of quotations pertaining to human relationships from myriad religious, political, and historic figures. The result is an invaluable reference for patriots
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Congress, We’ve Got Your Number0
- Politics
- July 15, 2021
Dear Members of Congress: Some of you who are doing your duty in representing your constituents need not pay attention to this letter. You know who you are. For the rest of you, I have a question: Where in the name of our country are you people? Since Jan. 20, we’ve had a crisis at
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The Forgotten Conservatism of ‘No Country for Old Men’0
- Culture
- July 14, 2021
When students hear me introduce No Country for Old Men as a deeply political novel with a right-wing position on contemporary American society, those who have seen the film adaptation by the Coen brothers perhaps wonder if the movie and the Cormac McCarthy novel are unrelated entities that just happen to bear the same title. What they
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Feds’ Bill for No-Fly Secrets: $4,5360
- Politics
- July 14, 2021
I sent a simple request in April to my government for public data that taxpayers have the right to see. Through the federal Freedom of Information Act, I asked the Transportation Security Administration (as well as the Federal Bureau of Investigation) for the following information: No. 1: The policy statement outlining the processes and criteria
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