Random stuff I find interesting and you may not.
George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, John Adams and Teddy Roosevelt: What do these American Presidents have in common? They were all homeschooled. When we think about traditional education in America we tend to think of public schools, classrooms, and a one-size-fits-all curriculum designed to educate the masses quickly and efficiently. This type of education … Read more
The upcoming ruling by the US Supreme Court on racial preferences is certain to ignite yet another divisive debate about whether or not a person’s ethnic heritage should determine their treatment by the state and major institutions. After steady progress towards “race-blind” governance, the notion of equal treatment is disappearing in a frenzy of ethnic … Read more
Roe v. Wade was overturned on June 24, 2022. The pro-life movement had worked toward this goal for nearly half a century; at several points, it had seemed impossible. I was in Washington, D.C., that weekend and walked to the Supreme Court to see the crowds of angry protestors roiling in front of the steel … Read more
Sixty years ago, Beatlemania was rocking the world of music. Writing in the Atlantic, Colin Fleming refers to 1963 as “that magical and formative year for the band,” “the year the Beatles found their voice,” and “the band’s annus mirabilis.” It set the stage for their fabled first visit to America in February 1964. I … Read more
The high school graduation rate in Washington, D.C., is climbing. However, student school performance seems to be falling dramatically. While more and more seniors graduate high school, test scores are down and absenteeism is up. According to a recent report from the D.C. Policy Center, graduation rates at D.C. public schools and public charter schools … Read more
“We have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents,” MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry argued. “Educators love their students and know better than anyone what they need to learn and to thrive,” the NEA asserted. “Parents claim they have the right to shape their kids’ school curriculum. They don’t,” a … Read more
In a short 1814 fable from Russian poet Ivan Krylov, the Inquisitive Man spends three hours at a natural history museum and tells his friend he “saw everything there was to see and examined it carefully” and found it “all so astonishing.” The friend then asks what he thought of the elephant. The man retorted: … Read more
Less than a week after the Washington Post published a laughable survey purporting to show an overwhelming majority of people who “transition” away from their biological sex are filled with satisfaction, a transgender person showed just how exuberant her own transition process was by shooting up a Christian grade school. Tragic doesn’t begin to cover … Read more
Fifty years ago, then-Fr. Joseph Ratzinger and Ida Friederike Görres were watching their era’s equivalent of a livestream of the implosion of the Church in Europe. And they were asking the same questions about the “reformers” in the Church that many of us are asking today: Why are they so optimistic about their efforts that … Read more
First-year Sen. Katie Britt (R-AL) embarrassed Attorney General Merrick Garland and exposed intentional dereliction of duty by Justice Department officials telling federal marshals not to arrest people illegally demonstrating at the homes of Supreme Court justices. This should be treated as a real scandal, and an explosive one. At a March 28 appropriations subcommittee meeting, … Read more
Welcome to the Middle Ages. Have you ever stopped and asked yourself: How, in the year 2023, did humans begin to debate propositions like “Can men become women?” How can a society that invents vaccines and sends vehicles to other planets start to doubt the sexual dimorphism of humanity? Or begin to wonder whether our … Read more
An article about to be published in the Journal of Pediatrics is titled, “Decline in Independent Activity as a Cause of Decline in Children’s Mental Wellbeing: Summary of the Evidence.” The authors are three big names in child development: Anthropologist David Lancy, psychologist David Bjorklund and Peter Gray, a professor in the Dept. of Psychology … Read more
As federal spending continues to rise, accumulated federal debt will soon reach all‐time highs relative to the size of the economy. Federal debt held by the public will hit 107 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) in 2028, surpassing the previous peak after World War II. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) often highlights the rising … Read more
In 2007, I wrote a piece called “Taiwan’s Two Dozen: Who will dare have relations with Free China?” The piece is not available on the Internet, or at least I have not been able to call it up. Perhaps craftier Googlers than I can do so. Anyway, at the time, those 16 years ago, Taiwan … Read more
Democrats’ war on hidden fees glosses over their own role in nickel-and-diming residents. Democrats are still trying to get political traction for President Joe Biden’s remarkable claim that among the gravest threats facing America — gasoline, police, Marjorie Taylor Greene — is the specter of hidden fees in commercial transactions. But the president’s message doesn’t … Read more
This week, the University of Pittsburgh was under fire from State Rep. La’Tasha D. Mayes, who objected to conservative speakers, including competitive swimmer Riley Gaines, Daily Wire commentator Michael Knowles, and Daily Wire podcast host Cabot Phillips. Mayes’ objections reflect the growing anti-free speech movement, and its rationale of “speech-as-harm” that is sweeping the nation. … Read more
It’s the perfect headline for the major media’s preferred narrative, which means two things: Nearly every outlet will pick it up, and it’s mostly bogus. “So many doctors are being driven away by Idaho abortion ban that this hospital can’t deliver babies anymore,” one headline about Bonner General in Bonner County, Idaho, declared. “Idaho hospital … Read more
The 2018 film, All is True, starring Kenneth Branagh as William Shakespeare and Ian McKellen as Shakespeare’s patron, the Earl of Southampton, purports to be a depiction of the Bard’s final years in Stratford following his retirement from the London stage. Making no effort to remain true to the known facts of Shakespeare’s life, preferring … Read more
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter’s decision to seek hospice care and spend his remaining time in care at home has helped bring awareness to an industry that quietly serves people at the end of their lives. Hospice, which provides care and support services for patients who are terminally ill with a life expectancy of six … Read more
Book sheds vital light on Americans who waste far too much money pursuing an unreachable jackpot. For many lower-income Americans, the lottery “is more than just a game: It represents the likeliest path to financial stability, not to mention wealth,” Jonathan D. Cohen writes in For a Dollar and a Dream, his new book about … Read more
Leftists should be nice to rich people people because those entrepreneurs, investors, and business owners are the ones financing the federal government. However, there are too few rich people to finance a European-sized welfare state. Dan Mitchell Explains Why Class-Warfare Taxation Can’t Finance Big Government [L]ower-income and middle-class taxpayers are going to get … Read more
World Down Syndrome Day on March 21 celebrates people who have an extra partial or whole copy of Chromosome 21. People with Down syndrome, made in the image and likeness of God, just like everyone else, can and should be active members of the Church. Mark Bradford and his family have known that all along. … Read more
Conservative Americans must choose. Do they want Donald Trump to play a central role in Republican politics, or do they want to win elections and achieve the policy outcomes that supposedly inspired them to get involved in politics in the first instance? My question is literal, not rhetorical. Conservatives must choose. They cannot have both … Read more
Is it possible, I wonder, that in labeling everything that doesn’t serve the elites as “Fascist,” and erecting our understanding of most of modern history on the defeat of Hitler and his Reich, that we have fallen pretty deeply into the error of “becoming a lot like what we hate?” This is my contention, as … Read more
There are a lot of different ways to react to the rumors that former President Donald Trump is about to be indicted. Because we have a 24/7 media and endless content, every single possible reaction will be expressed these days, and there is room for all of them. Commentators can and should remark on the … Read more