Carl Scott

Secret service man claims the Obama administration is lying about who made the decision to suspend White House tours. From time to time it’s good to remind ourselves of the laws of nature. Aristotle got most of it right, but we have to add a couple: Earth goes down. So does water. Fire goes . . . . Continue Reading »

Well, he thinks so . And far more importantly, in my sincere judgment, Mark Judge does too . Judge writes for Acculturated, the conservative website that seeks to explain Why Pop Culture Matters. So this post is a continuation of some observations about rap , but also, about the paradoxes of . . . . Continue Reading »

There’s an important Angelo Codevilla essay in Forbes : As Country Club Republicans Link Up With The Democratic Ruling Class, Millions Of Voters Are Orphaned .  Not sure if I agree of his analysis of the Republican Party, which is obviously the main point of the essay, but I do agree with . . . . Continue Reading »

A slight change of plans here—I had wanted to talk about this recent Conor Friedersdorf piece about the lack of conservative rap critics as part of a three-part essay called “Paradoxes of Conservative Pop-Culture Studies,” but I realized that to really to do that, I would have to . . . . Continue Reading »

With my Rock Songbook about to get underway again, I’d like to make a few observations about how I see it fitting, and not fitting in, into the recent uptick of interest in pop culture studies.  And that means some observations about such studies in general. There’s been lots of . . . . Continue Reading »

That, in a nutshell, is what Charles Krauthammer says the Republican position should be. Sounds good to me. Opinions? H/T Ben Domenech at Real Clear Politics. . . . . Continue Reading »

On one hand, boomer-age cultured (i.e., liberally-educated) conservatives who don’t know contemporary pop culture and are too lazy about learning anything about it; on the other, young liberals who know it but are unashamedly un-cultured (i.e., rejecting the canonical distinctions that genuine . . . . Continue Reading »

Over at Powerline , Paul Mirengoff makes a sensible argument against Black History Month, echoing calls from an NRO writer. Normally, I’d be at least open to the argument, would sincerely wonder what Shelby Steele would say about it, and would be interested in discussing Mirengoff’s . . . . Continue Reading »

Well, a better headline to describe the Panetta order to lift the combat ban for women is the one Powerline chooses: An Act of Wanton Destruction I have always had respect for Leon Panetta, based in part on good reports from relatives on his early career in central California politics. And there . . . . Continue Reading »

Here’s the third and final part of what I began with this 12-book-list . I knew my description of Mishra’s book would be the longest, which is why I changed order to treat it last. Second part here . 8) Alexis de Tocqueville, Letters from America , edited by Frederick Brown. You know . . . . Continue Reading »