David Mills

The opening to Justice Antonin Scalia’s powerful dissent in the DOMA case,  U.S. v. Windsor : This case is about power in several respects. It is about  the power of our people to govern themselves, and the power of this Court to pronounce the law. Today’s . . . . Continue Reading »

The average persons’ opinions are, as far as I can tell, generally positive on New York City’s new rent a bike program , except for those living in neighborhoods where the racks have been badly placed and those who dislike anything that makes New York look more like Europe. At least one . . . . Continue Reading »

Among the rough and ready tests of character, this seems a very good one, not infallible but close to it, accounting for the occasional hard day, bad headache, annoying companions: “The way people treat restaurant staff is, I think, a kind of poker tell, revealing a person’s character . . . . Continue Reading »

Today’s linguistic trivia: According to the “NB” column in the  Times Literary Supplement  (in the May 24th issue, not available online), the phrase “I don’t give a damn” ought to be “I don’t give a dam.” The dam is an Indian copper . . . . Continue Reading »

Which is to say, not just fathers but fathers married to the mothers of their children. Those who insist Americans should approve, or at least not worry about, the growing number of what are somewhat euphemistically called non-traditional families “conveniently ignore, or are in complete . . . . Continue Reading »

An introduction that proves to be a deep and thought-provoking, and even convicting,  introduction: Leon Kass on The Ten Commandments , with the subtitled “Why the Decalogue Matters.” For example, this summary of “Honor thy father and thy mother”: Summing up: the . . . . Continue Reading »

The fifth edition of the American Psychological Association’s  Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders “is also, frankly, a disaster for children assigned behavioural disorders,” says Northwestern professor Christopher Lane, interviewed by Spiked!   . . . . Continue Reading »

On Monday Brother Dominic Verner wrote of his happy discovery of the statue of Father Francis Duffy in Times Square (that part of the square is actually officially titled “Duffy Square”). Readers will want to know more about this priest and t he wikipedia entry is a good place to start. . . . . Continue Reading »

Of interest to many readers will be David Goldman’s latest,  A Yeshiva Curriculum in Western Literature , published in  Hakirah: the Flatbush Journal of Jewish Law and Thought . “How should religious Jews approach the high culture of the West?”  David . . . . Continue Reading »

• The parish, Immaculate Conception down on First and Fourteenth, is the one Richard John Neuhaus served for so many years, and one of the places, we suspect, that made him so fond of quoting the famous description of the Church as “here comes everybody.” Beside us, at the Easter vigil, was . . . . Continue Reading »