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Annals of Cultural Change: Deer Season a Half-Century Ago

By Paul Kengor This week hunters across America storm the woods loaded for deer. For yet ...

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Conservative Negativity and the Reports of America’s Demise

We all know America is going to Hell in a hand basket, and the rest of the West is pretty ...

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A Devilishly Good Mystery-Thriller

I've been pleased, especially since I got my Kindle, to discover some writers who are lif...

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‘Hope and Change’ Is in the Grand Tradition of . . . John Stuart Mill?

Roger Kimball has a think piece on PJ Media that calls into question some of the foundatio...

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Hemingway in Perspective

Hemingway’s Boat: Everything He Loved in Life, and Lost, 1934–1961 by Paul Hendrickson...

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Escape from Supervillainy

Seeking color amid the darkness and grit My daughter and I were talking about comics la...

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A Sign of the Times

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The Increasing Irrelevancy of Degrees in English — Or, An Object Lesson in Shooting Yourself in the Foot

The Modern Language Association (MLA) shows signs of being . . . in a state of panic over ...

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“The Unquiet Bones” Provides Comfortable Medieval Entertainment

If you're mourning the end of Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael novels, you could do a lot wo...

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Right-Wing Hatred Kills, or Not

We are coming up on another anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy, and anoth...

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What’s Wrong with Higher Education?

Plenty: Since World War II, a college degree was rightly seen as the key to middle class u...

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Nick Lowe: The Old Magic Is Still There

About five years ago, Paste magazine asked 50 music industry professionals to name their f...

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Is This the Way the World Actually Works?

Can it really be this simple? . . . what’s going on in the USA? Alas, the US economy is ...

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And They All Think Just the Same

Yesterday morning, while driving to work, Malvina Reynold's song "Little Boxes" popped int...

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Woody the Lovable Nihilist

You gotta love Woody Allen. Most atheists claim, and some vehemently, that finding meaning...

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Getting ‘Expelled’

All atheists aren't Darwinists, but nearly all Darwinists are atheists. Why? Ben Stein'...

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Penn State Scandal Exposes Unseemly Media Motives

The Penn State University football scandal has been ugly in a variety of ways, but not ...

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Get ’em While They’re Hot — You Have a Month and a Half Left to Buy 100-Watt Edison Light Bulbs

Insanity isn't just inheritable. Judging from what's happening with America's energy polic...

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We’re All Responsible for This Economic Mess — And Other Convenient Lies We Like to Tell Ourselves

It's true: for a con game to work, it does take two — the sharper and a willing gull —...

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Does Government Have the Right to Issue Licenses … for Anything?

Let me not to the marriage of true minds Admit impediments. (Shakespeare, Sonnet 116, ll. ...

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‘For Conspicuous Valor,’ a Conspicuously Good E-story

A novelty in publishing which has come in with the e-book, almost unremarked, is the e-st...

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Your Friendly Neighborhood Bureaucracy Strikes Again — A Tax on Christmas Trees

Christmas tree sellers who sell more than 500 trees annually must pay it to the Federal Go...

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Value Inversions

   

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Science and Humility: With Relativity Under Question, Will Materialist Philosophy Be Next?

We live in an age when the epistemological certainty of science is supposedly an unquestio...

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Ongoing Movie Box Office Decline Suggests Recently Popular Genres Are Fading

The U.S. cinema box office continues its long decline. New release Tower Heist finished be...

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The Next ‘Blade Runner’ — Prequel, Sequel, or Remake?

Assuming it gets made: The visuals and sound design in Blade Runner are simply arresting. ...

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Kinsey Covers for Deviant Sex

The only unnatural sex act is that which you cannot perform. — Attributed to Alfred Kins...

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Minatory Lessons from the Republic of South Africa

Like South Africa, America is destined to degenerate into a dominant-party state. — Ilan...

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The Unsubtle Gay Subtext of the X-Men Movies

“If it weren’t for gays, honey, there wouldn’t be a Hollywood.” — Attributed to ...

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Historian Ferguson Calls for U.S. ‘Reboot’

In an interesting analytical essay in Newsweek based on the ideas in his book Civilizati...

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‘Temporary Duty’ Is an Extended Pleasure

First of all, the disclaimer: Although I didn't get the book free, I should probably note...

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Why Does Everybody Hate Capitalism?

We see no reason to mitigate the instability of free markets. That’s what makes them so ...

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Germans Discover Dubious ‘Beauties’ of Going Green—A Glimpse of America’s Future?

Subsidies for the solar panel and windmill industry have already had a lasting aesthetic e...