Joe Biden gave a strong speech last night. The Republicans heckled, but Biden did not back down. He actually seemed to enjoy engaging the hecklers and I think the back-and-forth worked to Biden’s favor. Who could disagree with these issues? […]
Archives for 2023
What were those 1870 buttons all about?
Did anyone wonder why some members of Congress were wearing “1870” buttons? Here is Rory Murphy at Local Today: An “1870” pin worn by members of the Congressional Black Caucus and others at the State of the Union address. As […]
What’s the deal with those AR-15 lapel pins that GOP members of Congress are wearing?
Will Bunch explains at The Philadelphia Inquirer. A taste: The sight in recent days of Santos and several of his Republican colleagues parading through the hallowed halls of the U.S. Capitol with a mini-celebration of a killing machine that serves […]
Steven Mintz: “I find it stunning that the World Socialist Web Site remains the place to turn if one truly wants to understand…the controversies surrounding ‘The 1619 Project.'”
At his blog at Insider Higher Ed, University of Texas American historian Steven Mintz offers a brief review of both the AP African American Studies course and the American Historical Review‘s forum on the 1619 Project. His take on AP […]
Will Ben Sasse, the new president of the University of Florida, bow to Ron DeSantis?
Yesterday was former U.S. Senator Ben Sasse’s first day as president of the University of Florida. We are all waiting to see how he will get along with Florida governor Ron DeSantis, especially as it relates to “wokeness.” Here is […]
How a Trump third-party run in 2024 would prove catastrophic for the GOP
What might happen if Donald Trump does not get the GOP nomination for president in 2024? Peter Wehner has thought about this. Here is a taste of his recent piece at The Atlantic: It’s begun to dawn on Republicans that […]
Vocation and Public University Education: Reflections on Developments in Florida and Beyond
On a sweltering mid-August day in 1999, the day before I began my first year of college at the University of Virginia, I timidly knocked on the office door of the legendary David Kovacs, a world-known scholar of Euripides (although […]
REVIEW: Destination, Berlin
A new biography of Hilma af Klint forces a question: What is the purpose of art?
Break out the Entenmanns and Sanka because we got company!
This was my childhood:
Commonplace Book #239
Yet in how many tiny and inconsiderable trifles is this curiosity of our daily tempted: and how often we slip, who shall number? When people tell idle stories, it happens only too often that we first endure them, lest we […]
Pope Francis: “I think Benedict’s death was instrumentalized”
I recently read a blog post from Albert Mohler, president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, that used the death of Pope Benedict to score political points. Here is a taste of that post: Ratzinger was a great […]
On Fred Shuttlesworth
Here is a taste of Tish Harrison Warren’s New York Times piece on the late Birmingham civil rights activist: On Sept. 9, 1957, the very day President Eisenhower signed the Civil Rights Act and lawyers sought injunctive relief to force […]
Sometimes the “robber barons” and “greedy thieves” bring “death” to our hometown. Backstreets magazine closes shop.
In July, 2022, the editors of the Bruce Springsteen fan magazine Backstreets responded to outrageously high ticket prices for Springsteen’s current tour. If you aren’t familiar with this story, get up to speed here and here. For the first time […]
Evangelical roundup for February 6, 2023
What is happening in Evangelical land? Pentecostalism A 77-year-old woman is baptized. Bob Smietana on the “He Gets Us” campaign. Wheaton College is doing kingdom work: More on Wheaton: Marvin Olasky on Christian journalism. Russell Moore on police brutality. The […]
Finding the Good: NBA Father Figures
We have many cultural commentators today decrying the loss of the traditional family and the decline of fatherhood. Some of their concerns seem grounded in the previous decades—divorce is down, for example, and fathers are more engaged than they were. […]
FORUM: Why Review Books?
When done well, book reviewing can offer a foretaste of the Great Feast to come
Sunday night odds and ends
A few things online that caught my attention this week: The history of distraction Rod Dreher responds to this Hollywood’s links to the antebellum South Thomas Chatterton Williams on why he is uneasy with some forms of “anti-wokeness” Steven Kellman […]
Tim Keller hopes for spiritual revival
A lot of conservative evangelicals are calling for spiritual revival these days. Most of these calls are connected directly to a revival of American nationalism as if somehow the purpose of a religious revival is to advance a particular political […]
Charles Koch and his network will oppose Trump in the 2024 GOP primaries
The conservative, libertarian, free-trade organization Americans for Prosperity, led by billionaire businessman Charles Koch, does not want Donald Trump to be the GOP nominee in 2024. Today Emily Seidel, the CEO of Americans for Prosperity, released a memo on the […]
Commonplace Book #238
Throughout modern history, the greatest threat to democracy has come from…the denial of political legitimacy to those who fail to share one’s own views on key issues. Historians have devoted intensive study to the long and painful process by which […]