When I first read an essay by Anthony Kronman excerpted from his new book The Assault on American Excellence in the Wall Street Journal, I immediately drafted a letter to the editor to point out …
Book Reviews
The Fake Promise of the Internet
Earlier this century, when a friend of mine who was in the Web business asked me to join his company not as a techie but as a thinker about the…
A Damning Audit of Education
When I picked up my son from the airport on a cold December night, one of the first questions I asked him was about his courses in the private liberal…
Corpus americanus
Barbara Ehrenreich, the celebrated activist writer (not sure what title suits her best), has unleashed a sobering critique of American society and its obsession with perfect bodies, wellness, and the…
The Quest for Antifragility
Not long ago, I wrote about Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s Skin in the Game, his latest book in a series of book publications that form a whole called Incerto (Latin for…
America and the Future of Europe
In a recent review essay, I discussed the future of Europe in the time of Muslim immigration into the Old Continent; but, in this one, I share Régis Debray’s lament for…
Nations Without Honor
Respect to Tamler Sommers for daring to write Why Honor Matters, a book about a subject that, in my opinion, hasn’t had any currency whatsoever in the life of Americans…
The Risky Business of Being Human
I just finished reading a book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb titled Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life and am now wondering whether I will ever be able…
Behold a Prophet from the Lands of Canada!
Behold, ladies and gentlemen, the new prophet (I will call him Teacher from now on) who has appeared in the province of Alberta, growing up in the frontier town of…
Islam and the Future of Europe
To celebrate New Year’s Eve in 2017, German authorities sounded more like the vice cops who roam the streets of a few Muslim-majority nations: They created safety zones for women…