Since inception of The Texas Pilgrim almost fourteen years ago, I have reviewed over 100 books and recently my son-in-law asked me to list for him my top ten books, which gave me the idea to publish this special December edition. To do so, I considered not only those books I have reviewed but essentially […]
Archives for 2013
More of the Same at the Fed
Unfortunately, the country hasn’t yet had what it needs in the transition from Ben Bernanke to Janet Yellen as Chairman of the Federal Reserve, which is an in-depth discussion of monetary policy priorities. It’s not too late, however, and timely as this leadership transition takes place. Ms. Yellen is no doubt a distinguished economist, but […]
The Teacher College: End It, Don’t Mend It
We have prolonged the debate over teacher preparation and the primary nominal provider of it for too long, without any appreciable enhancement of the quality of preparation we desperately need for the advancement of student achievement. We need radical change, beginning with terminating undergraduate teacher preparation as we know it through colleges of education. […]
America Continues to Shrink
Norman Podhoretz has called it “Obama’s successful foreign failure”, Peggy Noonan has described “a new kind of credibility gap” and “a small President on the world stage”, and Fouad Ajami says that “Obama is lost in the Mideast bazaar” and is operating like “a lawyer lost in a region of thugs”. The common thread that […]
The Church and Secular Policy
Give to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s—Matthew 22:21 Last month, the National Council of Churches, the U. S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and the National Association of Evangelicals, along with a few other religious organizations, sponsored a “Faithful Filibuster” to encourage Congress to protect programs “that […]
Some Thoughts on the Elections
Some interesting results from around the country in the past week, a few of which might have implications for the mid-term elections in 2014 and the Presidential race in 2016. Here are a few odds and ends: New York City: The recent trend toward renewed prosperity in the Big Apple has probably just peaked with […]
The Debacle of a Progressive Con Job
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satisfied; but those who torment us for our own […]
Syria Follow Up
Since the September issue, the U. S. has backed away from a strike on Syria in favor of the Russian proposal for the disposal of all of its chemical weapons. This in effect means no penalty of Bashar Asaad for his deliberate murder of civilians and he survives. Now Russia and Iran collaborate for hegemony […]
Policy Uncertainty and Economic Growth
William A. Galston is a frequent contributor to The Wall Street Journal editorial pages with whom I don’t always agree, for example, in his declaration in the headline to an article this summer that “government is a good venture capitalist”. But his recent essay on federal policy uncertainty and its impact on the growth of […]
The Coming Disruption from Competency-Based Education
A couple of articles this past summer by Paul Fain in Inside Higher Ed (www.insidehighered.com) brought to my attention with more clarity the promise and inevitable disruption of the trend toward competency-based higher education. He reports on pilot programs now underway at a growing number of for-profit institutions and at least 25 or so […]
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