"It cannot be overemphasized that Muslim terrorism is a symptom of Islam that may increase or decrease in intensity while Islam proper remains permanently hostile."
Omniculture
One Brave Thing
"Bravery is the capacity to perform properly even when scared half to death." — Omar N. Bradley
Simon Cowell for President!
OK, that's a tongue-in-cheek suggestion. For one thing, he’s not a U.S. citizen. But attorney and legal and constitutional analyst Maureen Martin is convinced we need a presidential candidate with the “X Factor” Simon Cowell promotes and embodies.
Does Government Have the Right to Issue Licenses … for Anything?
The requirement for marriage licenses in the U.S. has been justified on the basis that the state has an overriding right, on behalf of all citizens and in the interests of the larger social welfare, to protect them from disease or improper/illegal marriages; to keep accurate state records; or even to ensure that marriage partners have had adequate time to think carefully before marrying.
Ethos Is a Choice
Reglazing the broken windows of our popular culture — the argument from character. by Warren Moore I was discussing argumentation with my frosh this morning, and while most of the class was devoted to Stephen Toulmin’s elements of argument, we spent a little time talking about the Aristotelian idea that ethos — the appeal based on the character of the speaker — is typically formed during the rhetorical act itself. In simpler terms, this is why one should avoid spelling/grammar errors on one’s resume, for example — it diminishes the applicant’s ethos. Likewise, decisions regarding tone and diction impact a speaker’s ethical standing, and thus his rhetorical effectiveness. (Indeed, even my use of his in the preceding sentence marks me to some audiences as an old frump, and possibly sexist in the bargain, even if it’s happening under the radar.) For an example of this, consider the career of Charles Rocket, or more recently, Michael Richards. But of course, this sort of diminution of ethos can only operate when there are standards or taboos (depending on one’s perspective). This brings us to a recent article by Myron Magnet at City Journal. Magnet reviews the recent kerfuffle between the mayor of
The Evasion of the Earbud People
It would be a mistake to blame the technology. As usual, it’s how people use — and abuse — it: Now that the Earbud People have invaded, they’ve taken over subways, academia, buses, and sidewalks from coast to coast and around the globe. They’re passively receiving sounds that they alone can hear. Other than mob violence or criminal behavior, theirs is the most antisocial public behavior one can imagine. Its only rivals are the Bluetooth-enabled cell phone conversations that turn all who engage in them into irritating public speakers, exposing their private thoughts to the unwilling listeners in the world at large. The young take all this for granted. They know no other ways of behaving in public. But to those who remember the pleasures of either conversation or solitude, the loss suffered by the Earbud People seems tragic. Earbud people are like heavily-medicated people — swathed in an inner universe that’s at once protective and unreflective. They’re neither in touch with others nor with themselves. Maybe they are once they’re at home, or at work, but they lose a lot of the joys of living when they’re out in public by encasing themselves, like walking mummies, in the sounds
Behold: Libertarian Ron Swanson’s Pyramid of Greatness
If you are not familiar with the show Parks & Recreation on NBC, I highly recommend it. One of the heroes of the sitcom is a character named Ron Swanson, played by Nick Offerman. Ron Swanson is a staunch libertarian, and his “meta joke” for the show is that he’s the head of the Parks Department in the town of Pawnee, Indiana—and his goal in life is to shut down that department (and most others) because they are useless wastes of time and the hard-earned money of the people. In a recent episode, a repeat, Ron explained to a fourth grader who John Locke was. And by helping himself to 40 percent of the girl’s lunch, how taxes work. Her assignment was to write an essay on “Why does government matter?” After a few hours with Ron, she handed in a two-word essay to her teacher: “It doesn’t.” It made me smile, and of course Ron Swanson was beaming from ear to ear. He is the best sitcom character on TV—a libertarian who is not mocked but is instead the sensible one on this popular NBC sitcom. This is on network TV! I have a feeling the Hollywood writers who created
Cultural Marxism — Is It Here to Stay?
If it does, you can blame … J. R. R. Tolkien? . . . one of the things that I talk about is what I like to call “West Coast White nationalism” because West Coast White nationalism, a lot of the people that I know on the West Coast who think in terms of a racially defined new order of society, you take one look at them and you think that they’re hippies or you think that they’re liberals. Their lifestyles and their attitudes embrace a lot of things like Eastern spirituality, and drinking fruit juice, and wearing sandals, and granola, and vegetarianism, and organic food and organic farming, all these sort of things that you think are kind of hippie things. If you look at the roots of a lot of the West Coast hippie culture and also the hippie culture in Europe for that matter, a lot of it goes back to Tolkien. What doesn’t come from the New Left, let’s say the Frankfurt School and things like that, a lot of it comes from Tolkien which is pretty much directly connected with European Traditionalism. — Greg Johnson According to this view, ’60s hippies took Tolkien’s “message of
Amy – Whatcha Gonna Do?
And so it has come to pass that Amy Winehouse has joined the 27 Club. Other members include Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Kurt Cobain – all bright, groundbreaking talents who self-destructed before they reached their 28th birthdays to the detriment of pop music in general and their fans in particular. Mind you, I’m no scold when it comes to indulging in recreational pharmaceuticals, but I find it tragic when such activity becomes a lifestyle of addiction, despair, and death. I can’t – and won’t – presume to know what drove Ms. Rehab, the Lizard King, Mr. Hand Tricks, the Pearl, and Mr. Nevermind to self-medicate themselves to such an extent that drug abuse led to their respective deaths. But I will stick my neck out to assert the personal demons that killed them also might have been responsible for the art that made them celebrities in the first place. The Dionysian urge guiding many artists to creative heights may lead them to believe too highly in their celebrated artistic status. Convinced that they are indestructible, they knot themselves to the umbilical cord of death by imbibing, snorting, or injecting their drug of choice, perhaps in the belief
A Chat with My Daughter
by Warren Moore My fourteen-year-old was reading about the horror in Norway this afternoon, and asked me what the news meant by “right-wing extremist.” I told her that was a term for Nazi sympathizers and the like. Then she said, “There are left-wing extremists too, right? Like the PETA folks who burn government labs and stuff?” “Or like the Greenpeacers who vandalize genetically modified crops,” I said. “Why’d they do that?” “Because the crops aren’t ‘natural.’” “Well, they aren’t plastic, are they? That’s just dumb. Like the people on Whale Wars,” she said. “I can’t stand them; they’re a bunch of self-righteous jerks. I mean, they’re attacking ships with actual human beings on them. It’s not like the whales are choosing to fight back. If the whales start going Moby Dick on the Japanese, then I’ll be impressed.” “Well,” I said, “now when the Great Aquatic Mammal Rebellion begins, you’ll be blamed as an instigator.” “Meh,” she said. “Then we’ll just have to bomb the oceans… which will suck for us, too. But it’ll look cool. And it’ll take care of those rapist dolphins, too.”
Recent Comments