Random stuff I find interesting and you may not.
Last week, President Donald Trump signed an executive order that marks his most decisive attack on the civil-service system so far. The order, “Exclusions from Federal Labor-Management Relations Programs,” ended collective bargaining for unions across most of the federal government. These unions have been a millstone around the neck of the government and taxpayers for … Read more
When marijuana legalization began in the U.S. over a decade ago, advocates promised sweeping benefits: an end to punitive treatment of users, especially minorities—thus striking a blow for social justice—and the creation of profitable, regulated markets driving economic growth. Legalization, they argued, would provide safer products and generate significant tax revenue, with minimal downsides, since … Read more
To the mainstream media, the question posed by this episode was obvious: Why are Americans so angry at health-insurance companies? And so reporters and opinion columnists got to work limning a portrait of the health-care industry—its profits, the salaries of its executives—and fleshing out the animus against it. The only relevant question in the wake … Read more
We should value free expression not so much for the truths it may reveal as for the vices it keeps in check. . . . A culture of speech restrictions leads us to regard disagreement as a crisis rather than an opportunity. For those who find success in targeting wrong-speakers, it fosters arrogance and a … Read more
New York City recently took a small step forward in correcting historical wrongs—at least, that’s what lawmakers would have you believe. The city council has passed a legislative package that would “fully examine the present-day impacts of injustices inflicted on Black New Yorkers and communities” and “advance necessary efforts to consider potential remedies that can … Read more
Rising social disorder in a post-Covid, defund-the-police America has forced cities and states to address new kinds of criminal outbreaks—from mass retail theft to squatting. Authorities have increasingly formed special police and prosecution units and toughened penalties in places as varied as New York City, Tampa, and Las Vegas to deal with these eruptions. Now … Read more
Brandon Johnson is rapidly establishing himself as one of the worst mayors in Chicago’s history. In just over a year and a half in office, his approval rating has plummeted to an abysmal 25 percent. This decline highlights broad-based discontent, not only among the civic and business communities but also in a significant portion of … Read more
How do you commemorate something still unfolding? That question looms large today, on the 365th day since October 7, as we grapple with the brutal reality of a world irrevocably changed. How do we honor the lives lost on that terrible day and in the ensuing war for Israel’s survival, while also committing to build … Read more
In 1974, the writer Jean Genet, an uncontested celebrity of the French Left, whose works extol the beauty of hoodlums, assassins, Black Panthers, the S.S., and Yasser Arafat’s Fedayeen, explained his attachment to the Palestinian cause: “It was completely natural for me to favor not only the most disadvantaged but those who distill hatred for … Read more
We need to defend America from Chinese spies with diligence and accountability, while avoiding witch hunts. A former high-level New York State employee has been charged with acting as an undisclosed agent for Communist China. This incident, along with other similar ones, presents a significant challenge to the United States: How do we effectively address … Read more
In response to the homelessness crisis, more states are diverting funds away from the preferred policies of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Citing the failures of California, which devotes more money than any other state to efforts based on HUD’s Housing First model, legislators in Florida, Georgia, and Utah took steps this year … Read more
Donald Trump’s recent comments about Kamala Harris’s shifting racial identity were an unforced error. It was a certainty that Trump would be unable to navigate the arcane and ever-evolving taboos around race without saying something that would provide fodder for several days of front-page “Trump is a racist” coverage in the New York Times and … Read more
A recent book suggests that local economic and cultural developments have shaped the rightward evolution of rural and small-town communities. . . . A recent book by political scientist Stephanie Ternullo, however, argues that this new conventional wisdom—that all rural and small-town politics is national—may be wrong. How the Heartland Went Red: Why Local Forces … Read more
Journalism, in part, is the work of turning up stones. Sometimes a reporter finds nothing underneath. Other times, he uncovers shock, scandal, or corruption. An entire twentieth-century lore, beginning with The Jungle and culminating in the Watergate reporting, portrays the reporter as a man who stands against the corruption of institutions. But as the Left, … Read more
UC Berkeley School of Law has some eminent conservative alumni, among them Pete Wilson, former governor of California; Ed Meese, attorney general to Ronald Reagan; and Ted Olson, solicitor general to George W. Bush. It could boast of this fact but doesn’t do so often. The mural in the school’s main foyer features Thelton Henderson, … Read more
The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness, by Jonathan Haidt (Penguin Random House, 400 pp., $30) In 2018’s The Coddling of The American Mind, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt contended that kids are inherently “antifragile”—that is, they benefit from adversity. But instead of “preparing the child … Read more
Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up, by Abigail Shrier (Sentinel, 320 pp., $30) Abigail Shrier’s first book, 2020’s Irreversible Damage, launched the mother of all cancel campaigns. Because the book attributed the sudden and inexplicable rise in juvenile gender anxiety to social contagion rather than the activist-approved explanation of social progress, Shrier, an … Read more
Why aren’t the students and professors who demand trigger warnings for discussions of rape in literature at the forefront of those denouncing Hamas’s atrocities? About ten years ago, when I was a young assistant professor at Bryn Mawr College and new to academia, I was taken by surprise when one of my students complained about … Read more
As cultural issues and free-speech battles dominate headlines, another fundamental problem infects America’s schools: the watering down of academic standards. During the pandemic, grade inflation ballooned in both K–12 and higher education. Even after students returned to in-person learning, lenient grading persisted. Recently, the New York Times reported that 79 percent of grades given at … Read more
Experts predicted that baby boomers would be broke in their old age. Instead, they’re one of history’s richest generations. By now, many retired baby boomers should be pinching pennies, at best, or battling destitution, at worst. For decades, the media and the experts they quoted warned that boomers weren’t saving enough for a comfortable retirement. … Read more
Today’s young people are encouraged to believe that they are traumatized by their personal experiences and the injustices of history. When I meet old acquaintances, we talk first about our aches and pains; second, we observe the lamentable state of the world; and last, but not least, we descant on our own good fortune not … Read more
When Kids Say They’re Trans: A Guide for Parents, by Sasha Ayad, Lisa Marchiano, and Stella O’Malley (Pitchstone Publications, 304 pp., $19.95) In the small world of gender-critical discourse, and for families torn apart by gender ideology, Lisa Marchiano, Stella O’Malley, and Sasha Ayad are already akin to cult heroines and household names. The three … Read more
The publication of Melissa Kearney’s book The Two-Parent Privilege is something of an event in policy circles. The economist and polymathic bibliophile Tyler Cowen surmised that it “could be the most important economics and policy book of this year.” Other blurbs from star economists David Autor and Larry Summers are no less admiring. It helps … Read more
Jack Cashill punctures the standard “white flight” narrative by letting former residents of urban neighborhoods tell their own stories. Our well-intentioned government—named the “Good Intentions Paving Company” by financial analyst James Grant—always seems to find itself scrambling to explain how its latest scheme for a better world has delivered us into an even lower circle … Read more
In 2017, the late Harvard business professor Clayton Christensen issued a dire prediction for American colleges and universities. “In 10 to 15 years,” he told a symposium on higher education, “50 percent of the 4,000 colleges and universities in the U.S. will be bankrupt.” Christensen’s observations drew from his and Henry J. Eyring’s book The … Read more