Recently I was struck by an editorial exchange initiated by Dr. Joyce Brothers in Parade magazine, who suggested that the lack of respect and values seen in today’s popular culture is due to a “lack of shame”. This was followed by a rebuttal op/ed in The Houston Chronicle from Brene Brown of the University of […]
The US/EU Divide
The recent addition of ten nations to membership in the European Union is a good time to revisit the rift that exists between the U. S. and certain EU members, mainly of “Old Europe”. A number of political players and commentators, chiefly those who disapprove of the foreign policy of the Bush administration, would have […]
Super Turning Point?
Don’t look now, but it may be possible that the halftime show at the Super Bowl in Houston may prove to have been a watershed event in the turnaround of public attitudes about limits on cultural pollution. In the interest of damage control, the producers of this product want to focus on the few seconds […]
A Double Standard In Responsibility
It has always been puzzling, but instructive, to me that the victims groups and their allies in the plaintiff bar are quick to find justification to go after McDonalds for childhood and teenage obesity and the tobacco companies for causing cancer while completely (and conveniently) ignoring the entertainment industry, particularly the music business and Hollywood’s […]
The Post-Human Century?
Last year I invited readers to submit their thoughts as to what grand themes will dominate the 21st century, and I highlighted some of the responses in recent issues. As promised, my own views follow. As the issues of war and peace and the defeat of totalitarianism were the dominant global themes of the century […]
The Closure Myth
I was struck by a couple of seemingly unrelated news and commentary pieces lately that converged to bring my attention to the concept of “closure”. One item was on the conviction of Bobby Frank Cherry in the 1963 bombing that killed four young Birmingham girls. Another was the report that there are about twenty thousand […]
Has Anything Changed?
In the wake of the attack on the U. S. last September, most commentators were of the opinion that a fundamental chord was struck in the collective American psyche, that our value systems were threatened in a way that would force a new sense of solidarity and community. Some even hinted that the attack and […]
The Search For The Civil Society
Among the overworked buzzwords of the past several years have been “civility” and “civil society”. Civility in my context here is taken to mean the highly desirable tone and demeanor with which political discourse and debate are pursued and has even had implications for the newly created virtue of “bipartisanship”. Civil society has been defined […]
The American Century And What Comes Next
It has often been observed that one cannot understand the modern world without understanding the First World War and all that it dismantled and introduced. Among other things, it ushered in what Walter Lippmann and others dubbed “The American Century”, but tragically, with a lot of help from an intellectual class that failed us miserably, […]
Reflections On Murder At Santana High
In the days following the recent school murders in California, I was struck by how predictable the media have become in reporting these incidents. First, only gun-related violence commands such saturation coverage. The Los Angeles incident several weeks previously in which a teenager deliberately ran down and killed four people in his auto made only […]
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