Conservatives deal with facts and reach conclusions; liberals have conclusions and sell them as facts.
I volunteer with a youth choral group. In music theory today, one of the boys, who is learning sight singing, laboriously sounded out several tunes, and was then asked to name each of them. He was able to name Frere Jacques, Happy Birthday to You, and even My Bonny Lies
Continue readingOne of the problems with oppositional behavior is that, while you may think you’re in control, you’re not — you’re just in constant reactive mode. Thus, if you ask me to sit down and I reflexively refuse to sit down (“you can’t boss me around”), I’ve ceded a form of
Continue readingIf Bookworm were here (she’s on a much needed mini-vacation and will be back tomorrow) she would surely mention that oil prices have dipped below $60 a barrel and are at a 6-month low. Also, the fed declined to raise interest rates for a change. Assuming the good news continues
Continue readingI bought a new car the other day, a Buick Lucerne. My LeSabre has served me well for 150,000 miles so I looked forward to my new Buick. It is an excellent car, but one thing bothers me. The LeSabre has the old Buick logo of three shields — one
Continue readingBeing Jewish, I can’t reach Patrick’s ultimate conclusion that “Jesus is the answer,”* but I sure can agree with everything else in his post. He explains why we must support the Pope’s thesis that reason and religion have to take a role in public debate today because our enemies, using
Continue readingIn my continuing review of bumper stickers I saw one yesterday that said, “You cannot win a war any more than you can win an earthquake.” Leaving aside the silliness of this comparison, it can be used to make a point quite different than the bumper sticker owner intended. You
Continue reading[NGA, as opposed to the familiar NGO, is not a typo. I’ll explain in a minute.] I had lunch with DQ today and, at his request, gave him a run-down of Israel’s history, starting with Herzl and modern Zionism. I took him through the Eastern European pogroms; the declining Ottoman
Continue readingI’m always stunned by the shallowness of liberal thinking about international affairs. Granted, it’s hard to be deep on a bumper sticker, but surely they can do better than the ones I’ve been seeing lately. “In an eye-for-an-eye world everyone will be blind.” Well, yes. Of course, if the other
Continue readingI’ve already confessed to my weakness for chick lit, and expanded upon my disgust with the recent imports from Britain, which assure incompetent, drink-sodden women that the best looking guy in the room will see through the miasma of failure that hangs about them and sweep them off in a
Continue readingWhile I work, I like to listen to talk radio in the background. (I use KRLA’s site, which has great streaming audio.) Today, however, I couldn’t stick with it. I was listening to Michael Medved talk about the very real possibility that the same portable missiles that are raining down
Continue readingI used to date a man who liked to blame me when things went wrong. Sometimes, of course, the blame would be merited, but as often as not, the matter at issue would be his fault or, indeed, no one’s fault. I got tired of the arguments. Eventually, when the
Continue readingThe title of this post is part of the title of an article Rick Perlstein wrote for The New Republic: “What is Conservative Culture? Mass Martyr” is the full title (and you can read it if you register). Although I no longer agree with its politics, TNR is, I think,
Continue readingAre you tired of America bashing? If you are, refresh yourself by reading Edward Bernard Glick’s article explaining why you probably shouldn’t take it all that seriously: When European intellectuals and their U.S. counterparts proclaim that the peoples of the world hate the U.S., they have it backwards. Americans are
Continue readingI’ve been thinking a bit lately about America’s unique focus on the individual and not on the State. (I blogged about it here, when I was thinking about nations that turn on their own citizens.) The fact that power resides with the individual in America is one of the bulwarks
Continue readingMy internet got into the holiday spirit and shut itself down. So it’s only now that I’m able to do what I intended to do long ago: Wish all of you a very happy July 4th!
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