Month: September 2004

I watched tonight’s debate, and Kerry’s polished debating skills were matched by Bush’s sincerity and consistency. (Hard to call overall — although I suspect the media will call it for Kerry.) Both men flubbed a few times, Bush stammered occasionally, and he did look tired. I think he’s under more pressure than Kerry. It was…

The debates have not started yet, but has Lapham declared Kerry the winner? Depends. Here’s Glenn Reynolds (noting that you can vote to declare Kerry the winner now, here): Unless Kerry melts into a puddle on the floor, the media spin will be that he did well and helped his campaign. I just turned on…

Best of the best Be sure to visit this week’s Carnival of the Vanities, which is hosted by Last One Speaks. A truly great party this week. The theme? Gilligan’s Island! Complete with pictures! It’s a very clever arrangement of posts, including beached gems like these: Rogue Pundit on poppies without morphine, which sounds almost…

I don’t particularly enjoy writing about personal details of my life, but I thought I should share a dream, in the hope that I can better understand it. Dreams are of course where the realities (what we know) morph into the symbolic (what we want ourselves to know, but often resist). Some drag queen —…

Seems like I’ve been so wrapped up with Leon Kass lately, I’ve forgotten to water the rest of my hate garden. Along comes Henry Miller to remind me. Thank you, sir. Professional worrier Jeremy Rifkin’s pronouncements always remind me of the characterization by one-time Speaker of the House of Representatives Thomas B. Reed of his…

Can anyone identify the victims in these two stories? First, reporters from the New York Times have been implicated in a plan to tip off a terrorist “charity” about an impending raid: September 29, 2004 — The Justice Department has charged that a veteran New York Times foreign correspondent warned an alleged terror-funding Islamic charity…

In an official-looking press release, Barbra Streisand has weighed in on freedom of the press, and against big media cowardice. She slams the American media for being intimidated and silenced, and in light of the recent uproar over ankle-biting, I think this is an important enough matter to be treated with the utmost seriousness, and…

After a recent post by Justin (which linked to some rather sickening web sites specializing in “body modification”), I was asked how any of that could relate to Classical Values. The answer is easy (and it’s something I have posted about before). A major war was started by the emperor Hadrian’s legislative attempt to stop…

J.D. Bernal penned these words back in 1929, two years before Huxley wrote “Brave New World”. So far we have been living on the discoveries of the early and mid-nineteenth century, a macro-mechanical age of power and metal. Essentially it succeeded in substituting mechanism for some of the simpler mechanical movements of the human body….…

This from This is London: This is the moment when a woman was captured on CCTV lying unconscious in the gutter of a busy road, suffering from a serious head wound. Police raced to the scene after traffic was forced to swerve around the 25-year-old victim as she lay bleeding. Um … why wasn’t traffic…

Jay Manifold at “A Voyage To Arcturus “and “The Rhetorica Network“have cooked up a nifty idea. ….a mechanism whereby a symbiotic relationship between blogging and traditional forms of journalism can be deliberately cultivated. Reporters can use it to quickly authenticate highly technical or specialized story elements with subject-matter experts (SMEs) drawn from the best the…

Here’s Bruce Springsteen, discussing his decision to politicize his career: Your audience invests a lot in you, a very personal investment. There is nothing more personal, in some ways, than the music people listen to. I know from my own experience how you identify and relate to the person singing. You have put your fingerprints…

Pennsylvania’s moderate incumbent Senator, Republican Arlen Specter, is facing a new threat, not from his own lackluster opponent, but from Barack Obama! Much as I prefer Barack Obama to Alan Keyes, I wish Obama would stay the hell out of the Pennsylvania senatorial campaign: Barack Obama is running to represent Illinois in the U.S. Senate,…

This story is a perfect example of the kind of rude and uncivilized behavior called “disorderly conduct.” Sakinah Aaron was walking into the bus area at the Wheaton Metro station several weeks ago, talking loudly on her Motorola cell phone. A little too loudly for Officer George Saoutis of the Metro Transit Police. The police…

Here’s a problem that cries out for deeply serious consideration. …. As with cosmetic surgery, Botox, and breast implants, the enhancement technologies of the future will likely be used in slavish adherence to certain socially defined and merely fashionable notions of ?excellence? or improvement, very likely shallow, almost certainly conformist. This special kind of restriction…

What’s this catblogging deal, and how do I cash in? I don’t own any cats, so my only opportunity to engage in catblogging would be on those occasions when (despite my cat allergy) I visit someone who has cats. I did that over the weekend, and here’s the closest I can come to catblogging: Notice…

Via Andrew Sullivan, I found this amazing leap of logic by Charles Colson: The jihadists claim that wherever freedom travels?”especially in America and Europe?it brings sexual license and corruption, decadence and depravity.” CT managing editor Mark Galli made the same point in these pages soon after 9/11. Islamic militants are angry at the West, he…

Remember how Philadelphia’s Mayor Street handily won reelection after an FBI bug was found in his office last year? Prominent national Democrats like Terry McAuliffe swooped in with war whoops of “Watergate” and evil Bush racism, and what would have been defeat was transformed into victory. I thought readers might enjoy another glimpse into local…

I don’t know if this post is about moral relativism or not. But now that the dust has settled a little bit over the most recent bout of beheadings, I think I should address a couple of questions. People have questioned the propriety of telling people where they can download the various beheading videos, while…

I happened to catch a few minutes of the Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace and they were talking about Bush playing the expectations game. The line of they day came when one of the talking heads quoted Ed Gillespie of the RNC as calling John Kerry the best debater since Cicero.