Author: Eric Scheie

In an amusing and thoughtful piece, Jonah Goldberg looks at the supreme condescension behind the hiring of Dave Weigel to “cover” conservatism. Here’s the subtext — lurking inside what Goldberg calls “the ballad of David Weigel, a blogger for The Washington Post, briefly assigned to cover the ‘conservative beat’”: What is the conservative beat? According…

God bless Justin for ruining my day by telling me about a wonderful family friendly film titled “The Kids Are All Right.” The plot is fairly simple: Two children conceived by artificial insemination bring their birth father into their family life. The parents are lesbians (played by Julianne Moore and Annette Bening) and as to…

Justin (who used to blog here but who for reasons I can’t fathom stopped) has often been a helpful source of post ideas, for he knows how to find things which are certain to fiendishly irritate me. For example, yesterday he told me about San Francisco’s plan to ban the sale of pets in pet…

What martyrdom is greater than making yourself a human bomb detonating it among the enemy? What spiritualism is greater than this spiritualism in which a person loses all feeling of his body and life for the sake of his cause and mission? — Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, the spiritual leader of Hezbollah, who…

One of my pet peeves has long been the movement to abolish pets, and ultimately, all ownership of animals. I have blogged about this so many times that I probably sound like a broken record, but today I learned that San Francisco is seriously considering banning the sale of all pets — except fish: Sell…

There’s a new book out by WorldNetDaily bigwig Joseph Farah, titled “The Tea Party Manifesto: A Vision for an American Rebirth.” While I have not read it, if what Farah says here is any indication, I think the book is his attempt to redefine the Tea Parties and basically glom onto* a movement started by…

I learned about this interesting form of Sardinian polyphonic music today, and I’m sorry it took me so long, because I find it nothing short of amazing. A tenore is practised by groups of four male singers each of whom has a distinct role; the oche or boche (pronounced /oke/ or /boke/, “voice”) is the…

I wish I hadn’t been forced to watch this painful YouTube video showing Liza Minnelli hawking her wares on the HSN, but I did, mainly because a friend emailed me the link and beseeched me to get through it to hear a great line from a caller. Sure enough, at approximately 4:15 – 4:20 thew…

The TSA (Transportation Safety Administration) has decided to block — as “inappropriate for government access” — all Internet websites which contain “controversial opinion.” I have no idea whether that would include ClassicalValues.com. Are the opinions here controversial? What does that mean? An opinion that is controversial? Or an opinion about a controversial issue? Or are…

I realize that this is an old issue, but still, I have a lingering question. By what standard are Pat Robertson’s pronouncements (that the Haitian earthquake was God’s punishment for Haitian voodoo) ridiculous, while sanctimonious scoldings by environmentalists are seen as valued insights into the human condition? Seriously, check these ravings out: …The British tabloid…

The Detroit Free Press has an article today about a homeowner in the Detroit suburb of Inkster who fatally shot one of two thugs who invaded his home in the wee hours of the morning: An Inkster homeowner fatally shot a man who had broken into his house early this morning, according to police. Two…

The Philadelphia Inquirer has a news story of the sort I’ve seen many times. So many times that it might as well be generic. A small child was killed by his mother’s boyfriend: A 21-year-old Nicetown man, who police said fatally struck a toddler he had been disciplining, was formally charged Sunday with murder. Malik…

What do you do when it’s the Fourth of July and you have a blog but don’t have anything to say? Say “HAPPY 4TH!” I guess. And supply some completely useless but entertaining trivia, in the form of fun facts I want to be true! Did you know that…. The Taft’s owned the last presidential…

A lingering question which arises from yesterday’s post about Cultural Marxism is this one: Are ideas by one person responsible for behavior of others? Let’s start with, Who is responsible for an idea? Normally, credit goes to whoever has a new or original idea, regardless of the idea’s rightness or wrongness. If some engineer were…

Rarely have I been so disgusted as I was when the Philadelphia Eagles hired the dog torturing psychopath Michael Vick. I had a feeling that regardless of whether he ever harmed dogs again, the man would be nothing but trouble, and guess what? It’s looking like the guy who once ran “Bad Newz” kennel continues…

Political correctness sucks bigtime. My biggest objection to it is that the focus on the proper language and rectifying “power imbalances” and shit like that gets in the way of reasonable communication, especially if you’re white, because anything you say can be interpreted as having a white privilege male power racist sexist subtext. And subtexts…

Of life’s many annoyances, one of the most irritating to me is bad driving. More often than not, the bad drivers I see are distracted. While there is no curing drivers who are distracted by their own brains, the most frequent visible distraction I see involves an incompetent driver driven to further displays of incompetence…

Sarah’s last post — “You Are NOT my Mother” — was one of the most compassionate arguments I have seen in favor of leaving people alone. Whatever became of true compassion? Sometimes I think that in the name of compassion, compassion is being destroyed. Those who want to rule us forget that compassion does not…

While it’s rather tough to defend Dave Weigel’s unhinged rantings about Matt Drudge or his arrogant attitude in general, it has increasingly become apparent that something about the release of personal remarks that he had emailed to a private site just smelled funny. My suspicion was that the Post — for reasons unknown — wanted…

While I have absolutely zero sympathy for corrupt public officials (see my extensive posts about the scandals surrounding Philadelphia’s Mayor Street), I find myself wondering why it is that the entire Michigan electorate should be forced to step in and wipe the asses of the voters of Detroit. At least, that’s my take on this…