When I was a kid growing up in Boonville, North Carolina (population 600), my public library was the comic book and magazine section near the front of Weatherwax Pharmacy on Main Street. Because I occasionally spent the 12 cents to buy one of the comic books, Mr. Weatherwax tolerated my hours spent sitting on that
READ MORESenator Kamala Harris from California is one of the Democratic authoritarians running for president. In his recent essay “Kamala Harris and the Cult of the Presidency,” Tyler Curtis documents alarming executive actions Harris promises to take if elected president. In September, at a CNN town hall on climate change, Harris was asked this question: “Would
READ MORESitting in the park recently, my contemplations were interrupted by a man wielding a large camera, three young ladies pacing behind him. Motioning to the bench on which I was sitting he asked, “Can we use this for our photo shoot?” “Oh, um, sure,” I said. Glancing over my shoulder as I left, I saw
READ MOREWhat happens when you suggest that someone’s failure to get something they believe they deserve is due to widespread – even systemic – maliciousness? Social malfunction. African American economist Thomas Sowell, in Discrimination and Disparities, puts it this way: Those who seem to be promising an end to existing group disparities, as a result of
READ MOREWe are passing from the modern age to the postmodern age. If the modern age rested upon the idea of objective truths with reason as our guide, the postmodern age rests upon the rejection of the objective and the embracing of the personal, the belief that truth is relative to the individual. Nietzsche gave
READ MOREI must confess I am torn on impeachment. Not the “whistleblower report” or the House Democrats’ looming inquiry into President Donald Trump, that is, but on the question of whether impeachment should become a routine form of White Housecleaning or remain, as impeached former President Bill Clinton often said of abortion, “safe, legal and rare.”
READ MOREMany years ago, when I was teaching at Providence College, I showed up for a meeting of the faculty senate. That was rare for me. I loathe campus politics. But a friend of mine had put forward a proposal for a program in Classics, and I attended to lend my support. It turned out that
READ MOREJob prospects for young men who only have a high school diploma are particularly bleak. They are even worse for those who have less education. When young men experience joblessness, it not only threatens their financial well-being but their overall well-being and physical health. Could a high quality and specialized technical education in high school
READ MOREWith the exception of some entomologists, few people are fans of cockroaches. We may admire the beauty of a butterfly, the industry of an ant, and the intricacy of a spider’s web, but show us a cockroach, and we’re ready to roll up that magazine we’re reading and swat away. In 1975, I rented a
READ MORE