Year: 2009

The great humanitarian scandal

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The current financial crisis elicits explanations, excuses, and blame from the full breadth of the political spectrum. There are no shortages of would-be saviors to our pallid pocketbooks, and none loom as large as government–sponsored humanitarianism. It’s a view in which the gap between the rich and poor, widened by the abuse of power, must … Read more

The changing meaning of hate

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Swift on the heels of the new definition of tolerance, the meaning of hate is being slowly eroded by the tides of cultural abuse. Take, for example, this recent report in the San Francisco Chronicle (emphasis mine): In papers filed Thursday night in U.S. District Court in San Francisco, City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s office argued … Read more

Fast food presidents: Obama is a Five Guys guy

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President Obama’s visit today to Five Guys in D.C. (a favorite of my own, when I’m in an artery-clogging kind of mood) likely made some burger-flippers happy and some Secret Service officers nervous: But I couldn’t help remembering this all-too-realistic portrayal of another fast-food president: White House food must be really bad…

What’s next, Putin on Facebook?

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Looks like President Obama should give some serious consideration to missile defense, because the cold war isn’t over — the Russians have now discovered the internet: One of the Kremlin’s pet new media projects has been a site called liberty.ru. It’s been set up under the auspices of the Fund for Effective Politics, a think-tank … Read more

Leon Kass’s grand tour of humanity

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Last night’s 2009 National Endowment for the Humanities Lecture with Leon Kass was, unsurprisingly, superb. Kass, who among other things assembled the first President’s Council on Bioethics, is the epitome of a renaissance man due to his diverse background of study, gave a lecture entitled, “Searching for an Honest Man: Reflections of an Unlicensed Humanist.” … Read more