Blog 3 Columns

Homer on Why Hospitality is the Greatest Virtue 0
- Culture
- March 1, 2019
Perhaps you would like to know what virtue I consider the greatest of all. For me that question is not a difficult one. Though I celebrate courage in my Iliad and perseverance in my Odyssey, there is a third, greater virtue, apart from which civilization can neither thrive nor survive. I speak of xenia, a
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Experts Claim Assisted Suicide isn’t as Painless as We’ve Been Led to Believe 0
- Culture
- March 1, 2019
In places where assisted dying and euthanasia are legal, patients are promised a peaceful death without pain or distress. But in a chilling article in the journal Anaesthesia, an international group of scholars observe that some of these deaths could be inhumane, with patients awake and conscious but unable to move or react. In fact,
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Will the Future Judge Us in the Same Way We Judge the Past?0
- Culture
- February 28, 2019
The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there. – L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between In the summer of 1973, I spent a week in Bavaria, where I met an older woman whom I’ll call Heidi. Fifty years before, Heidi’s father managed a hotel on the Chiemsee, frequently hosting Adolph Hitler, who at that
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My Family Fled Communism When I Was 6. Now We Fear Our Nightmare Has Followed Us Here 0
- Economics
- February 28, 2019
Following the State of the Union address, I found the state of the nation surreal. I kept skimming past articles about the Democratic Party’s proposed economic stimulus packages, collectively known as the Green New Deal. They propose to fund unsustainable sectors like solar panels—which are already heavily government-backed—by targeting more self-sufficient industries, like meat production.
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John Wayne: The New Confederate Statue 1
- Culture
- February 28, 2019
Writes a reader from Southern California: “Apparently John Wayne is the new Confederate statue.” She sent a link to this op-ed column in the Los Angeles Times. Excerpts: Most people familiar with the life story of John Wayne are aware that the late movie star was a dyed-in-the-wool right-winger — after all, he was still
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Effort to Abandon Electoral College Gains Steam. Here’s What It Would Ruin for America.0
- Politics
- February 28, 2019
Colorado is joining a list of states attempting to overturn the way Americans have selected their presidents for over two centuries. The Colorado Legislature recently passed a bill to join an interstate effort called the “interstate compact,” to attempt to sidestep the Electoral College system defined by the Constitution. Gov. Jared Polis, a Democrat, called
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Are Marie Kondo and Jordan Peterson Using the Same Method to Build Their Audiences?0
- Culture
- February 28, 2019
About a month ago, my social media feeds were suddenly filled with pictures of aesthetically pleasing and space-conserving methods of folding laundry. Sale posts also skyrocketed as people cleaned out items that did not spark joy, and many of my millennial friends had a renewed interest in “tidying up.” The reason for these trends?
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The Double-edged Sword of Economic Sanctions Against Venezuela 0
- Economics
- February 27, 2019
Venezuela is going through one of the worst economic crises of the last century. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Venezuela’s GDP has fallen nearly 50 percent since 2014. To understand the magnitude of Venezuela’s economic downturn, Spain’s GDP fell by 30 percent… during the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s! In other words, a
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The Coming Socialist President?0
- Politics
- February 27, 2019
Lately we have seen numerous conservative commentators posit the thesis that the Democrats are disqualifying themselves from a 2020 presidential victory by lurching too far left on key economic and social issues. The idea is that the American people simply aren’t prepared to follow the Democrats into the leftist territory that seems to be their
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Homer on Why Hospitality is the Greatest Virtue 0