uncategorized
On Seamus Heaney and ‘Success’

Seamus Heaney, perhaps the greatest Irish poet – and certainly the Irish poet receiving ...

uncategorized
John Be Nimble, John Be Quick

Sometimes keeping your skirts clean might involve jumping over a mud puddle and into oncom...

uncategorized
What Kind of Parents Produce a Miley Cyrus?

Well, since it’s the hot topic of the week I may as well hop on the Miley Cyrus bandwago...

uncategorized
‘Henry Wood Detective Agency’ Is Solid Entertainment

From time to time, I review a novel and tell you that I admired the writing, but did not...

uncategorized
Children and Cultural Norms

The cover of the latest edition of Time magazine features two beautiful people, a man and ...

uncategorized
Leonard, Michaels and the Passing of American Values

Two prominent authors of crime fiction left us in the last week, but only one received muc...

uncategorized
‘Unlimited’ Has Limits, But Rewards the Reader

Simon Orwell is a bartender who used to be an electrical engineer. When we first encount...

uncategorized
Albert Murray RIP

Albert Murray, one of the giants of American culture, died last weekend.  He was 97 years...

uncategorized
Russian Athletes’ Kiss Sparks Political Speculation

Now that American homosexual-advocacy groups rule the United States, they are trying to ad...

uncategorized
Breaking Bad’s Final Season Off to a Great Start

Breaking Bad’s final season is off with a bang, with two of the strongest episodes in th...

uncategorized
Detective Stories, Democracy, and Rule of Law

In his classic book on Golden Age mysteries, Murder for Pleasure, the critic Howard Haycra...

uncategorized
Daniel Day Lewis is Scary Good as Lincoln

Living in the land of Lincoln for way too many years, we’ve talked of heading down to Sp...

uncategorized
Book Review: ‘Island of the White Rose’

Island of the White Rose - By R. Ira Harris - Bridge Works Publishing - 2013 - Hardcover -...

uncategorized
Critiquing the Record of Our ‘Scientist-in-Chief’

An intellectual journal called The New Atlantis has an excellent 10-year-record of worki...

uncategorized
Getting Serious about Humor

The "progressive" urge to improve society from top to bottom—first flourishing in modern...

uncategorized
BBC America Crime Drama ‘Broadchurch’ Disappoints as Genre Effort, but Has Compensations

The new (to U.S.. viewers) British crime series Broadchurch premieres tonight on BBC Ameri...

uncategorized
Jeff Shelby’s ‘Thread’ Books Are Well Spun

One of the delights of owning a Kindle is that often, when you’ve finished a book in a...

uncategorized
Liberalism vs. Socialism

Winston Churchill, much like today's so-called "conservatives," talked one way but walked ...

uncategorized
‘Hard Case Crime’ Novels Perhaps Too Authentic Hard-Boiled

Hard Case Crime is an intriguing specialized imprint. Their publishing strategy, which I...

uncategorized
Book Review: ‘Faith on Earth?’

Faith on Earth? By Lou Poumakis. 2013 - Trade paperback - 152 pages - ISBN 978-0-9831957-8...

uncategorized
The Postmodern Liberal Mind and Obsession with Race

Howard Fineman is a quintessential “mainstream” journalist, moderately liberal, reason...

uncategorized
A Very Good Year

Ann Althouse has been blogging about her deceased father's record collection, which is h...

uncategorized
Life Imitating Art

Did you ever see the techno-thriller Stealth (2005)? Don't feel slighted if you didn't....

uncategorized
“Socialism and Its Menace”, Said the President

The President calling socialism a "menace"? Have we fallen into a time warp? In a manner ...

uncategorized
The Zimmerman Trial and the Postmodern Liberal Mind

It’s been hard to escape the post-mortem on the trial of George Zimmerman, who was found...

uncategorized
Koontz’ ‘Deeply Odd’ is Deeply Satisfying

In such a short time, Mrs. Fischer and I had achieved a degree of friendship that a...

uncategorized
Adjectival Jihad—With a Side Trip to Adverbial Adversity

Lately there has been a move to abolish—or at least severely curtail—use of the adverb...

uncategorized
TNT’s ‘Major Crimes’ Episode Tackles Gender Issues Without Moralizing

Last night's episode of the TNT police procedural drama Major Crimes used the subject o...

uncategorized
Abortion and Liberal Heroism

Modern liberals can be funny animals. Here we are over 30 years post Roe v. Wade, with a g...

uncategorized
Some Things Never Change — Christ and Mohammed

THEN . . . An anomalous instance — for the time period (1897) — of Islamic butchery p...

uncategorized
Where Were You in ’32?

It's instructive to see what preoccupied our predecessors. Some of these names and issues ...

uncategorized
The Differences Between Humor and Wit

Well over a century ago, one of the editors of The Atlantic Monthly (probably Bliss Perry)...

uncategorized
‘FrackNation’ on AXS-TV Tonight

A message from acclaimed documentary filmmakers Phelim and Ann McAleer: Last night HBO pre...