Current Affairs
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James Bowman, writing in The New Criterion, on the waves of hysteria provoked by Rick Santorum's social conservatism, worth quoting at length: John Nichols, blogging for The Nation, wrote that Mr. Santorum “has no qualms about rewriting the Constitution as a social-conservative manifesto.” Whether or not he would have any qualms, he would not, even as president, have any power…
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…that Jesse Jackson missed an opportunity to throw gasoline on a fire.
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“So you’re all for like, yay, freedom, and all this stuff,” said the first questioner, a woman. “And yay, like pursuit of happiness. You know what would make me happy? Free birth control.” (college student to Mitt Romney)
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"…who watch Fox News, listen to Rush Limbaugh, and read The Weekly Standard." That's on the envelope of an ad for Commentary that I received today. Sorry, folks, you're 0 for 3 on that list. Though actually the offer is sort of tempting: $19.95 for a year. Commentary does publish some stuff that interests me. But also…
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Sowing the Wind From some Olympian height it might be amusing to see the dedication with which mankind pursues folly. No sooner do we flee one error than we fall, swooning, into the arms of another. How naive we were in the 1960s to think that the end of legal racial segregation would mean a…
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On Not Reading Books Don't worry, I'm not about to argue against reading books–just asking myself why I've hardly opened one since sometime around Thanksgiving. It began with the fact that I had a project at work that had to be finished by the end of the year, and that was going to require working…
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There But For Fortune I watched, in snippets over a week or so, the above-named documentary about Phil Ochs. Once considered along with Dylan a major "protest singer," Ochs had a considerably lesser artistic gift, and stuck with left-wing activism long after Dylan had withdrawn from it. I never listened to him very much, because…
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Microfascism Several weeks ago, in a comment on my post about David Bentley Hart's essay on American religion in The New Criterion , Rob G mentioned another TNC piece, this one by William Gairdner, called "Getting Used to the F-Word," saying it was "even better" than Hart's. I had read it when it came out, and…
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My great-aunt Ann was a diehard Democrat who believed that in the realm of politics FDR was the Creator and JFK the Messiah. I don't think she lived to see the JFK myth put pretty thoroughly to rest (as much as it can ever be–the true believers seem to be pretty committed still). But she…
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I suspect that anyone who is at all on the rightward side of the political spectrum is feeling very much like this. (Who is "Reince Preibus"?!?)
Light On Dark Water 