The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Conclusions in Search of Evidence: Sex and the Modern Female Journalist

My two daughters are named Kennedy and Reagan, and one of my sons is named Jefferson, so I’m not against the trend of presidential names, but probably you shouldn’t name your daughter “Carter.” That was my first thought when I encountered the name Carter Sherman, who writes for the U.S. edition of the Guardian. Knowing […]

Death by ‘Equality’

Captain Becky “did not turn left”: As they flew south along the Potomac River on the gusty night of Jan. 29, the crew aboard an Army Black Hawk helicopter attempted to execute a common aviation practice. It would play a role in ending their lives. Shortly after the Black Hawk passed over Washington’s most famous […]

‘I Am Trying, and Admittedly Failing, to Understand How This Makes Sense’

One should never try to “make sense” of Amanda Marcotte. Ever since she first burst upon the national consciousness in 2007 — as one of two feminists (the other being the execrable Melissa McEwan) hired to blog on behalf of Democratic presidential aspirant John Edwards — Marcotte has been an inspiration for mockery hereabouts, and […]

Against Euphemisms

However much you hate the creeping totalitarianism of our time, you don’t hate it enough. Let me quote this: One of Orwell’s most important messages in 1984 is that language is of central importance to human thought because it structures and limits the ideas that individuals are capable of formulating and expressing. If control of language was […]

The Dumbest Take on the 2024 Election

A few weeks ago, I bought a copy of Thomas Sowell’s 1987 book A Conflict of Visions as a gift for a young man who was struggling with his political views. My intention is, once he’s finished reading that, to give him the second book of that Sowell trilogy, The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation […]

About That Book You Didn’t Read

It is not my habit to criticize or argue with people in the comments, but I got a bit miffed by this today: There’s a phenomenon called “political lesbianism.” That’s a situation where a heterosexual woman becomes so filled with feminist zeal, and political hatred of men, that she actually becomes a lesbian despite not […]

How Trump Derangement Syndrome, #MeToo and Tumblrinas Ruined Disney

You probably never saw Raya and the Last Dragon, which was not exactly a box-office blockbuster — it barely broke even — and is certainly not destined to be remembered as a classic Disney cartoon. Nevertheless, Raya and the Last Dragon is historically important because the 2021 film marks the decisive turning point in the […]

Unwanted and Unloved: Younger Americans Are Facing a Lonely Future

When my children were little, I quickly discovered a cause for concern that most people never seem to notice: What was the point of raising my children properly, if everybody else was raising their children wrong? Eventually, you see, my sons and daughters would grow up and find spouses, and what were the chances they […]

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