Helen Andrews

The political blogosphere tends to treat social science very, very nicely, even when social science is being ridiculous (e.g. “Heritability of eating bread in Danish and Finnish men and women,” which the National Affairs blog did not want you to miss ). I suppose it’s because so . . . . Continue Reading »

From Shiva Naipaul’s travel essay about the Seychelles, “Fall from Innocence”: He refers to a fifty-rupee note adorned with a group of emblematic coconut trees. When examined from a certain angle, the fronds patterned themselves into the letters S-E-X. (I was given a tie adorned . . . . Continue Reading »

The Chamber of Commerce in Britt, Iowa, is backing off its proposal to help out with the National Hobo Convention, which has been held annually in Britt for the last hundred years and organized by the Chamber for a number of those. Why? Because the budget proposal submitted by the hobo-convention . . . . Continue Reading »

I’m glad that my disability article has been so well - received , but reader after reader has pointed to one unanswered question — actually, two unanswered questions that mean the same thing. (Don’t worry — these questions make sense even if you haven’t read the . . . . Continue Reading »

Matt Zeitlin reminds us that Princeton was once “an intellectual playground for entitled male WASPs,” and Adam Serwer is defending multiculturalism’s efforts to make Princeton less so. Our own James is wondering how America’s “quantitatively superqualified” can . . . . Continue Reading »

. . . from his dissent in Rutan v. Republican Party of Illinois , in which the majority of the Court held that hiring or firing low-level government employees based on party affiliation violated the First Amendment, dealing a blow to the “If there’s a job that can’t be done by a . . . . Continue Reading »

Via Hit & Run , I see that Gerard Magliocca of Concurring Opinions has called Huey Long “the forgotten man in The Forgotten Man ,” by which he means that, whatever you want to say about FDR, at least he wasn’t Huey Long: Among other things, [Governor Long] wanted to establish . . . . Continue Reading »

When I suggested on this blog that “all politics is tribal,” Conor Friedersdorf, Daniel Larison, and Andrew Sullivan all slapped me down like I’d talked about their mothers. Which I suppose, in a way, I had. Their argument was that, by comparing politics to family, I had . . . . Continue Reading »

It appears that many intelligent people think I’m completely wrong . Still, in spite of the very sensible responses I’ve read, I’ve not yet been convinced to walk back my argument. But it seems that I should clarify it a little. I write this post from a coffee shop, and the . . . . Continue Reading »