In industrialized nations, particularly in the US (the most advanced of all nations), scientific and technological progress increasingly protects people from the environmental forces (such as famine, predators, extreme weather, and disease) that have plagued humanity since its origins. Such progress, however, also increasingly relaxes the forces of natural selection ...
Alt-Right groups such as the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and Neo-Nazis are right-wing organizations whose members are vile, fascist thugs. They have been routinely denounced for decades by both political parties, incessantly so after the ‘Unite the Right’ rally ...
Modern feminism was launched in 1963 with the publication of Betty Friedan's landmark book, The Feminine Mystique, which starkly revealed, to the bewilderment of then male-dominant American society ...
I have a conflicting message to my eight readers: kinfolk and two
friends equal eight. And it’s only seven readers when cousin Sidney
is busy or out of town ...
Having been married more years than I care to reveal, let me tell you that during our marital partnership we’ve only argued about two things: 1) the number of raisins per cubic inch ...
I love the first amendment. I’d swap the Magna Carta, bowling night, and the “right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” - all for that golden guarantee to freedom of expression ...
Can you imagine Adam - G-d’s first human creation in Eden’s green
meadow? See him, newly minted. His fresh body gleaming and his mind
totally empty of facts, attitudes, opinions - as empty as Eden is of
thorn bushes ...
When it comes to objective, non-biased perceptions of my fellow human
beings, I pride myself on my lack of bias. If three men in plaid
Walmart shirts knock me down, kick me passionately in the ribs ...
Guess what happens on May 22 through May 25. No, it’s not my wife’s
birthday. It’s an event that food lovers and oenophiles (that’s a big
word meaning wine lovers – I looked it up) circle on their calendars ...
According to the Wall Street Journal, James Dimon, CEO of J. P. Morgan
Chase, makes 23.1 million a year and probably has free access to the
Coke machine ...
A month after the mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, President Obama launched his campaign to reverse the increase in mass gun violence. With families of the victims in the audience, he ladled out a thick emotional stew ...
America was founded on the idea of individual liberty -- that free men are rational individuals whose interests are vastly more harmonious than antagonistic. As such, it was the first moral society. All previous systems ...
Our cleaning lady was smiling widely as she polished our dining room
table. And she was in such a good mood she didn’t drop or break a
single goblet or plate ...
I’m getting ready for the New Orleans Wine and Food Experience.
NOWFE, they call it: May 22 through 26. They do it every year. What
is NOWFE? To me it’s the kiss of ...
Where has she gone? You know who I mean. She wore her hair up -
impaled with a pencil - chewed gum, called you “Sweety” - maybe
“Honey” - and usually touched your shoulder ...
According to its website, Occupy Wall Street (OWS) is a people-powered movement organized in "response to the Great Recession caused by our financial and political leaders." It vibrates ...
Strangely, have you noticed that of all the sports, football wins the
corruption cup every year. I think the U of Miami should be awarded
permanent possession ...
I know, I boast too often about Jewish achievements - philanthropy,
the arts, science. Jewish names are sprinkled through the list of
winners. But Mr. fixits are not ...
Taxation was the theme as me and my good friend, Herb, hoisted a few
at the neighborhood pub the other night. It was his civic duty, he
noted, to suck up the suds. Did not our federal government benefit
from a healthy tax on alcohol ...
Mike and Gabe moseyed into a bar, their favorite watering hole, just over the county line. It was mid-afternoon on a hot Alabama August day. They were beat from framing houses since sun-up ...
Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur - as every Jewish child learns in
prekindergarten - are about forgiveness. Jews of all theological
stripes - even those whimsical souls who spread mayo instead of
mustard on their pastrami, eat sweet rolls on Passover, and think
the Pentateuch is an olympic event - regard these holy days with
extreme gravity ...
More than adultery, more than money, more than mothers-in-law, more
than an egg fried to a crisp so you can’t dip your toast in the
yellow, the telephone has contributed to divorce ...
I came up with the term “technothrope” as a tongue-in-cheek, somewhat sarcastic description of my love-hate relationship with technology. “Technothrope” has some Latin connotations of “one who loves technology” but I could just as easily have called this column the “mistechnothrope” because as often as I love new technology, I hate the consequences of humans using (and misusing) it. ...
Some people are lucky, some aren’t. Take Larry Langford, a maven of
machines of chance. He’s one of the blessed ones. Lucky Larry, over
several years, won more than 1.5 million dollars off more than 500
Jackpots in a Shorter, Alabama electronic bingo casino. ...
I’m a map geek. As a child in the seventies, I always loved long trips with my parents. The day before, I would plan the best route and draw it on a map. During the trip ...
I’m a car nut. I’ve always loved automobiles, of all kinds, shapes and colors. I love the technology in modern cars and the lack thereof in older ones. I’ve owned many cars; not because I’m a car dealer, but because I grew up with ...
Life is easy down here in Huntsville. Maybe it’s the mountains to the North that block out alien winds. Yeah, the cotton fields have turned
to house lots and high tech industries, but we still smile at strangers ...
My friend, Herb, says he never met a traffic light he liked. “They’re
just like laws. Lousy ones never get dismantled and they clutter up
the intersections of my life.” The last piece of legislation Herb
respected was the Magna Carta. ...
I once read of a fabled Hindu mystic who could walk a hundred yards on
a bed of white, hot charcoal. Then, just for relaxation, he laid down
for three hours on a bed of razor sharp nails. Big deal - I bet he
couldn’t sit through my granddaughter’s ...
Energy crisis - bologna! How can there be an energy crisis when those
big, 8-wheeled enchiladas - stuffed with our flabby-legged kids -
dominate the morning streets? I refer to school buses. ...
America - the “melting pot” of nations we were called in the heyday of
immigration. The melting pot is the giant crucible of pardon my
French, competition, heated by the flame of capitalism - that made the
steel of the American temperament. Those poor “huddled masses” of the
early 1900’s that Emma Lazarus addresses in her poem became strong,
independent, liberty lovers once they dreamed the American Dream. And
it continues. ...
I like to bike down to our neighborhood park. The wind sings along
with the spinning bike wheels; an easy, five-minute downhill ride. On
the way down, you coast like a hockey puck on buttered ice. Of
course, going home is a chore that would daunt Sysiphus. As they say,
there ain’t no free lunch. ...
It seems that if despotism came to be established in the democratic nations of our day, it would have other characteristics: it would be more extensive and milder, and it would degrade men without tormenting them ...
The old fashioned print media - books, magazines, newspapers - all
passe. The pundits, from their TV pedestals, have announced the death
of reading. ...
[Paying more attention to the upbringing of children than can possibly be good for them]
In America we are currently living in a Kindergarchy, under rule by children. People who are raising, or have recently raised, or have even been around children a fair amount in recent years will, I think, immediately sense what I have in mind. ...
Years ago, when Jack Greenberg left the NAACP Legal Defense Fund to become a professor at Columbia University, he announced that he was going to make it a point to hire a black secretary at Columbia. ...
Those who put a high value on words may recoil at the title of Jonah Goldberg's new book, "Liberal Fascism." As a result, they may refuse to read it, which will be their loss -- and a major loss. ...
Sometimes there’s nothing so relaxing as sitting on your patio alone
enjoying a beer, with only the backyard birds for company. And
sometimes nothing beats a brew with a pal at your corner tavern. But
in both cases, there’s an uninvited and invisible third party ...
[A new dream city designed by central planners! Yah, right! That's the ticket.]
President Bush today makes his ninth trip here since Hurricane Katrina. He will find a tale of two cities--one almost back to normal, the other devastated. If you drive into New Orleans from the airport the back way, down Jefferson Highway to St. Charles Avenue, everything on the river side is as gorgeous and decadent as ever. Some live oaks have toppled, and many magnolias have died, but all the way to the French Quarter, the shops and restaurants are open, and people have come home. ...
The media seem to have come up with a formula that would make any war in history unwinnable and unbearable: They simply emphasize the enemy's victories and our losses. ...
They say time is money but a lot depends on whose time and whose money. For example, in California the San Mateo County Planning Commission has spent five years deciding what can and cannot be done with the site of an old racetrack that is no longer economically viable. ...
I’m scared to death of the lady in front of me. Including the weight
of the SUV that she’s driving, I’d guess the two of them weigh in at
about 4300 pounds. It’s weaving and bobbing. She’s trying to travel
in all three lanes at once. You gotta be a helluva driver to manage
that. And she’s on her cell phone, too. ...
[But what will the feminist-dominated domestic violence coalitions say?]
Last week, with international terrorism still the center of attention, the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings on a different kind of domestic security issue: the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act. The legislation, which funds programs aiding victims of sexual assault and family violence, is the kind of measure no one wants to oppose for fear of appearing insensitive or even antiwoman. But maybe now, 11 years after the passage of the original measure, is a good time to reevaluate some of its premises and policies. ...
This weekend, I went out for a bout of activist carousing with Ban the Ban, a group opposed to the District of Columbia's proposed ban on smoking in bars and restaurants. I had expected to see plenty of heated arguments about the merits of the ban between smokers and non-smokers, and I did. I had not expected to see non-smokers attacking the ban on principle locked in debate with smokers who, between languorous puffs and grey exhalations, welcomed it as a means of reducing their own smoking. ...
[ASH's website screams "if you can smell it, it may be killing you!." We should worry more about the stench of the nanny state.]
Last Tuesday, the D.C. City Council heard testimony on a bill that would make it illegal to smoke in a bar, even if the owner, the employees and the customers all agree that smoking should be permitted. ...
Ever wonder how dependent the American people have become on the federal government compared to, say, a generation ago? Now, thanks to The Heritage Foundation's new study, "The 2005 Index of Dependency," we can answer that question -- but be forewarned; the data doesn't paint a pretty picture. ...
Ministers Louis Farrakhan, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Washington, D.C.'s Mayor Anthony Williams and others recently met to discuss plans to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the October 1995 Million Man March. Whilst reading about the plans, I thought of an excellent topic for the event: how not to be poor. ...
["Our elected officials are turning to the law to be our nanny, our teacher, our preacher, our doctor and our psychiatrist. We have laws that tell us how to think (hate crimes laws), what to eat (government interventions to stave off the "obesity crisis"), whom to love (state preferences for heterosexual couples), how to sin (vice laws and excise taxes), how to entertain ourselves (FCC regulations on broadcast and, potentially, cable programming), and way too many restrictions on what we can and can't do with the property we own (zoning laws, building permits, environmental regulations, etc.)."]
According to the newspaper The Guardian, British college students Richard Smith and Luke Bateman plan to go on a crime spree in the U.S. this summer. ...
Do you feel more or less free today than you did 10 years ago? If you happen to be a property developer, sit on the board of a public corporation, often travel by air, like to spend your own money supporting political candidates and causes you believe in, or are outspoken in your Christian beliefs, you almost certainly answered the above question, "Less free." ...
Center for World Capitalism's 1996 Davis Essay Contest, 1996
The citizens of market-oriented societies, especially the United States, have long been considered "individualistic"; that is, (by world standards) unusually self-reliant, independent, and free-thinking. ...
Excerpted from 'Letters from an American Farmer', 1781
I WISH I could be acquainted with the feelings and thoughts which must agitate the heart and present themselves to the mind of an enlightened Englishman, when he first lands on this continent. He must greatly rejoice that he lived at a time to see this fair country discovered and settled; he must necessarily feel a share of national pride, when he views the chain of settlements which embellishes these extended shores. When he says to himself, this is the work of my countrymen ...
One of my favorite bars in the world is the Bar Antic ("Old Bar" in Catalan), on the second floor of a rickety building down a narrow cobblestone street in a crumbling Spanish textile town. It is a speakeasy ...
A haunting picture of a thin and forlorn-looking African girl has this caption under it: "A 12-year-old girl, given up as a slave to atone for a crime by a member of her family, stands at the beck and call of a traditional priest in Tefle, Ghana." This is not a painting of something that happened long ago. It is a photograph that appeared in the New York Times of February 2, 1997. According to local customs, some crimes can only be atoned for by the family’s giving up one of its young virgins for sexual enslavement. ...
