Carl Scott

Would it be Grace Kelly? Audrey Hepburn? Ingrid Bergman? Cate Blanchett? Helena Bonham Carter? I tend to forget actresses’ and actors’ names unless I see them in five or more films, so even though I’ve seen plenty from Hollywood’s Golden Era and thus vaguely remember a lot of . . . . Continue Reading »

Another good point Veronique de Rugy made on NRO was that . . . these constant changes in the law . . . inject a lot of uncertainties in an already uncertain environment. . . . The law says one thing, and the government does another. If I were an insurance company, I would seriously wonder what . . . . Continue Reading »

Over at NRO’s Corner, Veronique de Rugy correctly questions whether Obama’s announced “fix” today, where he says insurance companies won’t be required to suspend existing plans, is a change he has the legal authority to make: . . . can he just decide not to enforce the law? . . . . Continue Reading »

Hey, I know, this is Postmodern Conservative , and I should be telling you how the deep thought of Alexis de Tocqueville, Walker Percy, and The Velvet Underground’s third LP applies to the disastrous Obamacare Roll-out.  But, beyond my knowing about such things, I’ve not got much . . . . Continue Reading »

My favorite symbolic scene in 12 YEARS A SLAVE is when Solomon Northup plays his fiddle at a white dance party in the South. It calls to memory his earlier having done so as a free black in the North. Whereas the northern party was an open, coy, and perfectly natural linking of erotic interest with . . . . Continue Reading »

Ours are crummy and low times by all sorts of measures, but they do have their good sides. We finally, for example, seem able to cinematically look slavery in the eye. We’ve had the material since the origins of film-making. Solomon Northup’s book about his experience as a free black . . . . Continue Reading »

Here are a few nuggets from the interview with Ben Sasse that Pete highlights below. I think most Americans believe in a basic social safety net. But if there are 3–5 million hard-to-insure people right now, why are we disrupting the 165 million persons in an employer-sponsored insurance . . . . Continue Reading »

You’ve heard of group-think, right? Terrible phenomenon, caused no one to stand up to LBJ when the fateful decisions that got us further entangled Vietnam were being “debated,” for example.  Psychologists can tell you all about it. Today, Marc Thiessen , a pull-no-punches . . . . Continue Reading »

I mentioned the new biography on Duke Ellington in an earlier post, and this weekend NRO has an interview with its author Terry Teachout, titled Duke 101 .  I can’t recommend the book enough—the interview highlights some of its contributions, and begins to suggest why Teachout is the . . . . Continue Reading »

“What we are witnessing is the dismantling of what will be remembered as the finest medical system in the world. It still is for now, but it won’t be for long.” This via Ricochet’s Jack Dunphy , recalling a recent conversation with a doctor friend. His personal doctor is very . . . . Continue Reading »