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Nuclear Power Could Save the Planet
by Christopher Chantrill
AS WE ALL KNOW, our American liberals see themselves as the “reality-based” community that
believes in science rather than religious superstition and myths. If so, they will be interested
in the emerging science of hormesis, the idea that small quantities of toxins, even those that
kill at high concentrations, may actually be beneficial.
The principle was demonstrated by Dorothy L. Sayers in her Lord Peter Wimsey mystery, Strong
Poison. The not-very-lovely mystery novelist Harriet Vane is accused of poisoning
her lover, the unfold
Liberal Guru Dies. Who Knew?
by Christopher Chantrill
M. SCOTT PECK, author of perennial bestseller The Road Less Traveled, died on
September 25 of cancer. “Life is difficult,” he wrote. It is a series of problems and we gain the wisdom
to overcome them by discipline (and also through love, growth, religion, and grace). Who, among the
reading classes of a certain age, has not read his book, or known what it was about?
Appearing as it
did in 1978, Peck’s book was well-timed to offer a way for the baby-boom generation to sober up after the binge of the
Sixties without actually unfold
Ballroom Dancing? At College?
by Christopher Chantrill
HALF A CENTURY after rock-and-roll ate pairs dancing for lunch, it looks like
ballroom dancing is making a comeback—at the university.
Liz Lightfoot reports that Oxford and Cambridge Universities in England
are getting serious about an annual ballroom dancing competition between the two
schools.
It has become so serious that
Cambridge University has appointed its first permanent
ballroom unfold
The University: Sickness Unto Death
by Christopher Chantrill
IT’S UNIVERSITY week as various opinion media trot out their annual state of the academy pieces. In
James Piereson’s
The Left University we saw a picture of the university drawn using the German historical method,
penciling out the progress of the academy from teacher of absolutes to liberal research institution to the current
left university that amounts to an establishment of secular religion.
On the other hand,
After the Left University, What Then?
by Christopher Chantrill
IN AN IMPORTANT article in The Weekly Standard, James Piereson, longtime director of the
James M. Olin Foundation, takes a look at
The Left University
and what to do about it.
American universities have gone through three stages, according to Piereson. The first stage was
the British model: universities founded by Protestant denominations and designed
to transmit knowledge and right principles to the young in order to unfold
"Nobody Screws With Me"
by Christopher Chantrill
EVERYBODY IS worrying about the decline of male participation in the university. At present
“135 women are graduating from college for every 100 men.”
Instapundit has a lot
of links.
The big question is: Where are all the men?
Vectorsphere
has some interesting posts on this, inluding a post from a father whose son was earning $70k a year as an
electrician. Many young men drop out of college because they cannot stand unfold
Cherie Blair's Royal Progress
by Christopher Chantrill
THE PERSONAL is the political, they say. Whatever that may mean, we certainly like to imagine
that celebrities actually live the characters they portray. And we like to imagine
that the politicians of the other party are demonstrably not the kind, compassionate
souls that other people’s money (actually, our money) makes them appear.
A recent biography of Britain’s First Couple, Tony and Cherie: A Special Relationship,
by Paul Scott, gives us everything we want to believe about Cherie Blair, according to
China and Japan Confront Each Other
by Christopher Chantrill
THOSE OF US that expect a world ruled by China in 2050 often worry about a coming confrontation between the U.S. and China. Actually, it is more likely that the confrontation will be between Japan and China. In Ping Chong’s puppet show Cathay: 3 Tales of China the Americans are merely comic. But the Japanese are the murdering monsters that invaded China and killed innocent Chinese children and raped pure Chinese mothers. If you listen to the Chinese guides when you visit China, you certainly understand that they are not happy unfold
Sphere: Related Content | | perm | comment | print | 09/23/05 4:39 am ETWhy Democrats are so Obstructionist
by Christopher Chantrill
CONGRESSIONAL Republicans are puzzled by the intransigent opposition and obstructionist
tactics of the Democrats in Congress, according to
Gary Andres.
They recall the good old days when they were in the minority. They
would always put up a “comprehensive alternative” to the legislation proposed by the Democrats, and
suffer good naturedly as it went down to certain defeat.
But the minority Democrats of the twenty-first century don’t play by those rules. They unfold
Simon Wiesenthal, RIP
by Christopher Chantrill
THE GREAT ACHIEVEMENTS of the life of Simon Wiesenthal are well known: how he
set up a center for investigation of crimes against Jews during the years of the
Second World War; how his sleuthing helped the Israeli Mossad track down and bring
to justice Adolf Eichmann, the bureaucrat that efficiently organized the death camps in
which so many millions died.
But it is the details of Wiesenthal’s life that are fresh and new, and cast a light
upon Eastern Europe in the first half of the twentieth century. He was born, for instance,
in unfold
"Don't Get Stuck on Stupid, Reporters"
by Christopher Chantrill
CONSERVATIVES are rolling in the aisles this morning chuckling about LtGen Honore’s advice to the media
yesterday. “Don’t get stuck on stupid, reporters,”
he advised.
Honore and Mayor Nagin
were trying to advertise information about buses for evacuation of New Orleans
in advance of hurricane Rita. But reporters wanted to talk about why the
preparation for this hurricane was different that the preparation for hurricane
Katrina.
So LtGen Honore decided to treat the highly objective unfold
They are Closing the Hospitals in Britain
by Christopher Chantrill
WHEN I READ James Bartholomew’s book
The Welfare State We’re In I didn’t really believe his claim that
the British National Health Service (NHS) hadn’t built a single hospital since it
was formed in 1948, and that mainly it had been closing hospitals in its 50 years
of monopoly health care provision. I resolved to keep an eye out for corroborating
evidence.
And of course who can forget the Canadian hospital in The Barbarian Invasions
that has a whole floor closed unfold
China's Emerging Middle Class
by Christopher Chantrill
WHEN WE CAN take a moment from the delicious pleasure of bashing the other guys on the Iraq
war, the evil Bush, hurricane Katrina, and right-wing ideologues on the U.S. Supreme Court, we often
turn to thoughts of China. What will happen when China takes over the world in 2050?
Here’s a little look at the emerging Chinese middle class, the “xiao zi” or “little bourgeois”
that is beginning to fill China’s bursting cities. Writes
Trudy unfold
One Small Step for Academic Freedom
by Christopher Chantrill
LAST WEEK OHIO state universities took a small step towards academic freedom for their students. As
David Horowitz writes,
“The Inter-University Council of Ohio has reached an agreement
with Senate sponsors of the Ohio Academic Bill of Rights (Senate Bill 24) to implement key
principles of academic freedom
in all public and private colleges and universities in the state.”
It’s a pity though that the Ohio media doesn’t seem to agree. According to Horowitz unfold
Germans in a Funk
by Christopher Chantrill
THE
GERMAN voters spoke clearly to their politicians in Sunday’s election. They are frightened. They
are fed up with the status quo but they are afraid of change. They are fed up with 5 million unemployed
but they don’t want to give their leaders a mandate to do anything about it.
That was clear from the reaction to the half-hearted trial balloon for a flat tax to replace
Germany’s current complex system of income taxation. Chancellor candidate Angela Merkel unfold
Blair Dumps Kyoto
by Christopher Chantrill
WHOSE SIDE is British Prime Minister Tony Blair on? For years he’s been toeing the line on global
warming and providing verbal support for the European approach, the carbon emission limits of the Kyoto
accord. Now, according to
James Pinkerton, he’s changed his tune.
At the Clinton Summit in New York recently he said he would be “brutally honest.”
"My thinking has changed in the past three or four years." So what does he think now?
"No country," he declared, unfold
San Francisco Earthquake was Worse
by Christopher Chantrill
WAS HURRICANE Katrina the worst national disaster ever? According to
Donald Luskin the San Francisco earthquake was worse.
It was worse in terms of total damage, worse in terms of looting, worse in terms of violence, and
worse in terms of federal and local government miscues.
The performance of first responders in 1906 was as dubious as it was in 2005.
Half the San Francisco policemen and firemen walked off the job, leaving whole districts unfold
Hero of the Hurricane: Wal-Mart
by Christopher Chantrill
OUT OF THE miasma of blame and media bias in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, one American institution
is emerging from the cloud of ruins like a firefighter emerging from the ruin of the World Trade Center:
Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart was first with a monetary contribution to disaster aid. Wal-Mart had pre-positioned
goods like generators and Pop-Tarts (!) at its distribution centers. Wal-Mart announced it would
open mini-Wal-Marts in the disaster area to distribute vital food and supplies to disaster victims.
And Wal-Mart already has nearly unfold
Nursing Home Owners Overwhelmed
by Christopher Chantrill
THE AUGUST New York Times kindly forgave the state and local governments in Louisiana for failing
to execute on their disaster recovery plans as hurricane Katrina bowled over their state. They headlined the government response thus:
“Federal Authorities Hesitated — Local Officials Were Overwhelmed.”
And rightly so. Everyone knows that when Democrats
fail to execute, it is Republicans that are to blame.
But no such understanding is being extended to nursing home operators that ignored
warnings to evacuate their patients. unfold
Leaving the Poor Behind
by Christopher Chantrill
CRITICS OF the president are shocked that in the evacuation of New Orleans before hurricane Katrina the
poor were left behind. Said Senator Kennedy: “those people who had cars and money got out,
and those people who were impoverished died.”
Well, Senator, and whose fault is that?
The ground theme of the conservative movement of the last half-century is that if you encourage
helplessness, and sustain helpless people in their helplessness with programs and pensions, as the
welfare state does, then you will increase the number of unfold
More Liberal Brainwashing at the University
by Christopher Chantrill
THE STORIES keep trickling out. About the astonishing culture of liberal postmodernism in the university.
About how it is enforced with the threat of shame and the power of employment. Here is the latest
installment from a Resident Assistant at a Catholic university somewhere in America,
“Athena Kerry.”
“Athena” tells of the hiring process she went through to become a Resident Assistant at a residence
hall. The applicants were invited to design a residence unfold
Can Blogs Challenge the MSM on Katrina?
by Christopher Chantrill
SUNDAY HEADLINE in
The New York Times: “Federal Authorities Hesitated — Local Officials
Were Overwhelmed.” Yes, the poor little local officials. The whole thing was just too big for them.
And the newsweeklies are echoing the MSM line.
Can the conservative blogs change the story? That is, can they change the story from
the current MSM groupthink that Bush failed and make the MSM’s shoddy reporting the story?
Blogger Jeff Goldstein
fisks the unfold
The Meaning of New Orleans
by Christopher Chantrill
WHAT IS THE meaning of Hurricane Katrina? That is the big question as we move from the shock battle of the blame game to the aftermath. And there is nobody better equipped to provide guidance than the American philosopher Lee Harris, who writes for TechcentralStation.com. In three articles this week, Harris unpacks the hurricane aftermath with the practiced hands of a man who has studied philosophy and has also lived life. In doing so he penetrates to the heart of the problem that unfold
Sphere: Related Content | | perm | comment | print | 09/09/05 4:43 am ETSticking up for Price Gougers
by Christopher Chantrill
THE FIRST THING that the media and camera-hungry politicians look for after a national
disaster are price gougers.
Woe betide the evil gas stations that put prices up when
supplies tighten! The reporters and politicians are shocked by the greed of the price gougers.
How could they do it?
Thanks for nothing, pal. When I went to my local Arco gas station, on Friday September 2, the
price was nobly unchanged from before the unundation of New Orleans, but what use was that? A
battalion of TV watchers had descended on the gas unfold
Get Your Education Myths Here
by Christopher Chantrill
WE ALL KNOW a lot about schools. We know they are underfunded. We know that
teachers are underpaid. And we know that Johnny can’t read.
Actually, write
Jay P. Greene & Marcus A. Winters, we’re wrong.
Schools aren’t underfunded. Anything but.
In fact, public K-12 spending is approaching $10,000 per pupil
— double what it was three decades ago, adjusting for inflation. And total
school spending is approaching $500 billion — more than unfold
Guardian Leftie Bails on Schroeder
by Christopher Chantrill
YOU’D THINK that the chaps at Britain’s lefty Guardian would love German Chancellor Schröder.
He’s as solid a Social Democrat as you could imagine. He’s defending the European “social model” from
the evil forces of Anglo-American globalization. He’s earned standing “O”s for his strident (and
convenient) anti-Americanism. So why is
Martin Kettle bailing out on the Unions-Kanzler?
Well, it’s because of a personal failure of leadership, whatever that unfold
Parents Saving Their Children
by Christopher Chantrill
AS EVERYONE continues with the delicious pleasure of the blame game, it is well to remind ourselves
what the Katrina aftermath is really all about.
It is about children getting separated from their parents.
In this story reported by the Los Angeles Times we learn of seven children found
wandering around an evacuation center under the supervision of a seven-year-old.
How could that happen? How could parents so neglect their children as to allow them to become
separated from them in such a crisis? The answer is salutary. unfold
The Welfare State in Action
by Christopher Chantrill
WHAT HAPPENED in New Orleans after hurricane Katrina was not a natural disaster,
writes
Robert Tracinski. It was man-made. Man-made over the last 40 years
of the welfare state.
What kind of people would not club together after a disaster to help each other?
What explains bands of thugs using a natural disaster as an excuse for
an orgy of looting, armed robbery, and rape? What causes unruly mobs to storm the
very buses that have arrived to unfold
Allan Bloom Was On Our Side, Claims Liberal
by Christopher Chantrill
WHO WOULD HAVE thought that the man that liberals sneered at for his best-selling
The Closing of the American Mind would some day come to be celebrated at the
back of The New York Times Book Review as a writer who would probably be on the side
of liberals today?
You see, even while they were publicly excoriating Allan Bloom for his reactionary views,
some liberals actually appreciated what he was doing. According to
Jim Sleeper: unfold
The Battle of New Orleans
by Christopher Chantrill
UPDATED FROM the war of 1812 to the present era.
(After lyrics by Jimmy Driftwood, sung by Lonnie Donegan, see
here,
here and
here.)
In August ’05 we took a little trip
Volunteers and Guardsmen down the mighty unfold
The 2008 Fix is In
by Christopher Chantrill
WHAT FOOLS we were to think that George W. Bush was an imbecile. It is all so clear now. How he arranged 9/11 just as the Arab nation suspects—but not as an excuse to invade the Land of the Two Holy Places, oh no. It was part of a fiendish plan hatched by Karl Rove to boost Mayor Rudolph Guiliani and to scotch the presidential plans of Hillary Clinton. Then Bush set up the war in Afghanistan and Iraq to distract the anti-war left. And, of course, he crossed up the Democratic mayors and governors of the Gulf Coast so that they unfold
Sphere: Related Content | | perm | comment | print | 09/04/05 9:05 am ETChildren of Nature in the Midst of Civilization
by Christopher Chantrill
HOW IS IT POSSIBLE? After 160 years of public education, fifty years of social service agencies,
a vast infrastructure of government programs and interventions, how is it possible for a great American
city to descend into lawlessness in a couple of days?
The answer is developed by
Nicole Gelinas in City Journal. New Orleans really doesn’t have a government
worthy of the name.
New Orleans has no real competent government or civil unfold
The Blame Game Begins
by Christopher Chantrill
AS THE DEMOCRATS crank up the blame game, citing a planned “cut” in the budget of the
New Orleans District Corps of Engineers budget
here and
here as a reason to blame President Bush for
the devastation, conservative
Michael Ledeen waxes lyrical about the insouciance of cities that live
under constant threat of annihilation.
For decades, unfold
Chappies
“But I saw a man yesterday who knows a fellow who had it from a chappie
that said that Urquhart had been dipping himself a bit recklessly off the deep end.”
—Freddy Arbuthnot
Dorothy L. Sayers, Strong Poison
Hugo on Genius
“Tear down theory, poetic systems… No more rules, no more models… Genius conjures up
rather than learns… ” —Victor Hugo
César Graña, Bohemian versus Bourgeois
Education
“We have met with families in which for weeks together, not an article of sustenance but potatoes had been used; yet for every child the hard-earned sum was provided to send them to school.”
E. G. West, Education and the State
Faith & Purpose
“When we began first to preach these things, the people appeared as awakened from the sleep of ages—they seemed to see for the first time that they were responsible beings...”
Finke, Stark, The Churching of America, 1776-1990
Conversion
“When we received Christ,” Phil added, “all of a sudden we now had a rule book to go by, and when we had problems the preacher was right there to give us the answers.”
James M. Ault, Jr., Spirit and Flesh
Postmodernism
A writer who says that there are no truths, or that all truth is ’merely relative’, is asking you not to believe him. So don’t.
Roger Scruton, Modern Philosophy
Faith and Politics
As far as the Catholic Church is concerned, the principal focus of her interventions in the public arena is the protection and promotion of the dignity of the person, and she is thereby consciously drawing particular attention to principles which are not negotiable...
[1.] protection of life in all its stages, from the first moment of conception until natural death; [2.] recognition and promotion of the natural structure of the family... [3.] the protection of the right of parents to educate their children.
Pope Benedict XVI, Speech to European Peoples Party, 2006
China and Christianity
At first, we thought [the power of the West] was because you had more powerful guns than we had. Then we thought it was because you had the best political system. Next we focused on your economic system. But in the past twenty years, we have realized that the heart of your culture is your religion: Christianity.
David Aikman, Jesus in Beijing
Religion, Property, and Family
But the only religions that have survived are those which support property and the family.
Thus the outlook for communism, which is both anti-property and anti-family, (and also anti-religion), is not promising.
F.A. Hayek, The Fatal Conceit
Conservatism
Conservatism is the philosophy of society. Its ethic is fraternity and its characteristic is authority — the non-coercive social persuasion which operates in a family or a community. It says ‘we should...’.
Danny Kruger, On Fraternity
US Life in 1842
Families helped each other putting up homes and barns. Together, they built churches, schools, and common civic buildings. They collaborated to build roads and bridges. They took pride in being free persons, independent, and self-reliant; but the texture of their lives was cooperative and fraternal.
Michael Novak, The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism
Society and State
For [the left] there is only the state and the individual, nothing in between. No family to rely on, no friend to depend on, no community to call on. No neighbourhood to grow in, no faith to share in, no charities to work in. No-one but the Minister, nowhere but Whitehall, no such thing as society - just them, and their laws, and their rules, and their arrogance.
David Cameron, Conference Speech 2008
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