Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
Or more properly the (Alexander) Boot: What comes naturally to most Americans is ‘the pursuit of happiness’ stipulated in their founding document – not the pursuit of beauty or, God forbid, the truth. This has produced the happiest society in the West, and also the least Western. There’s a price to pay for secularism, and …
Continue reading "The Provincial Boors Get Their Comeuppance"
It's the goal of @pbenedictii, the new Headmaster of my old Episcopal prep school, St. Andrew's in Boca Raton: Q. What would you say is your priority? A. We have to prepare our students to be global citizens and will change the curriculum to understand that citizenship. Meanwhile across town we have the blog of …
@markdtooley documents it well: Former U.S. Senator Harry Byrd, Jr. was buried on Saturday in Winchester Virginia after a brief funeral at Christ Episcopal Church, with which the Byrd dynasty was long associated. Presiding at the funeral was his former colleague retired U.S. Senator John Danforth, an ordained Episcopal clergyman who also presided at President Reagan’s …
Continue reading "Genteel Episcopalianism is Indeed Gone: A Family View"
One of the more recent kerfuffles in the Anglican world surrounds the recently adopted statement of belief by FiFNA (Forward in Faith North America for those who aren't nourished on the Anglican alphabet soup), the Anglo-Catholic organisation. The point of controversy is #8, which affirms that the (first) Seven Ecumenical Councils are in fact "ecumenical …
Continue reading "On Councils, FiFNA, Icons and Intercession"
Over at Patheos, Connor Wood wonders why: Liberal Protestantism is dying. Rod Dreher says so in a recent column in The American Conservative, and the statistics back him up: for decades, liberal and mainline Protestantism has been on the decline in the US, with some denominations (such as the United Church of Christ) losing adherents …
Continue reading "Leaving Liberal Churches: Where the Treasure Is"
Ramesh Ponnuru attempts to sort things out about the potential field of viable Republicans for the 2016 Presidential race. But, as was the case at the start of the 2012 handicapping, the most important criterion is left out: is the person an Ivy Leaguer? Let me remind my readers that we have not elected a …
Continue reading "Applying the Ivy League Rule to the 2016 Republican Presidential Field"
And have a plan to do something about them too: The most obvious new element of the president’s regionalist policy initiative is the July 19 publication of a Department of Housing and Urban Development regulation broadening the obligation of recipients of federal aid to “affirmatively further fair housing.” The apparent purpose of this rule change …
Continue reading "They Really Do Hate the Suburbs After All"
The Gnome of Princeton is at it again: So what’s the matter with Atlanta? A new study suggests that the city may just be too spread out, so that job opportunities are literally out of reach for people stranded in the wrong neighborhoods. Sprawl may be killing Horatio Alger. Let's start with the key observation: …
Continue reading "Paul Krugman's Moronic Take on Sprawl and Upward Social Mobility"
The tyranny of GPS and synthetic materials is broken on the Pacific: It took a thousand or so miles of sailing with the long, powerful waves of the Pacific Ocean for Hannah Jenner, a rising star in ocean racing, to get comfortable in this year’s Transpacific Yacht Race. Jenner, a 31-year-old from Britain, is used …
Continue reading "Iron Women and Wooden Ships, A Winning Combination"
Well, it's not quite down to my pastor's favourite mantra, but it's close: We are number 1 right? USA! USA! No one can beat our wealth creation machine, our economic dynamism, our level playing field and our bastions of higher education. We have a middle class that is the envy of the world, right? Well, …
Continue reading "The American Middle Class: Broke, Busted and Disgusted"
Positive Infinity 