Even or especially ordinary people know that when celebrities possess a singular artistic greatness, their lives are not for envy or imitation. Two of the most revered and beloved American celebrities were Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson. Certainly their deaths plunged us into grief in a way . . . . Continue Reading »
Maggie Gallagher on the real problem with contraceptives : The problem is not the Pill. The problem is the idea, which promoters of the pill introduced and promoted with great fanfare, that we have separated sex from reproduction. We teach the young to think of pregnancy as a rare emergency, an . . . . Continue Reading »
“Never apologize and never explain,” said John Wayne in She Wore a Yellow Ribbon , “it’s a sign of weakness.” However prudent the Duke’s advice may be, if public figures were to heed it the media would soon go out of business. Apology-abetting, rather than . . . . Continue Reading »
Wonder why the Euro keeps collapsing? D er Spiegel ‘s German-language website cites a new study showing that by 2025, the number of German workers aged 19 to 24 will fall by nearly 5 million, while the number of workers close to retirement will rise by 1.4 million. The aging pattern is . . . . Continue Reading »
Why do art collectors pay millions of dollars for works that have no apparent material value? In a lengthy and rambling essay, Matthew Brown makes a persuasive case that the market for modern art can be traced back to the tradition of relic-adoration: Prior to the Renaissance, and even during it, . . . . Continue Reading »
My good friend and a thinker I admire greatly, Pejman Yousefzadeh, has read my book The End of Secularism and commented on it. I am very happy to have him read it because he is one of the few non-Christians of whom I am aware who have read the book. Because I value his opinion so highly, I . . . . Continue Reading »
For today’s “On the Square,” a reflection on the revival of Memorial Day he thinks we are experiencing by Anthony Esolen, The Soldier’s Rough Charity . We are witnessing, he writes, a certain revival of Memorial Day, along with a revival of something better than the disdain . . . . Continue Reading »
Celebrities, generally speaking, are fairly irresponsible or selfish—out for themselves. They have less reason than us not to be. They have rare opportunities to do whatever they want whenever they want. And not having been raised (as aristocrats once were) for their privileged lives, they . . . . Continue Reading »
I wrote here a few weeks ago about how Donald Berwick, the president’s appointee to run Medicare and Medicaid, is a big health care rationing advocate. Now, his boss, Kathleen Sebelius, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, has more than implicitly agreed with Berwick’s . . . . Continue Reading »
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