In 1942, C.S. Lewis published The Screwtape Letters, in which Screwtape, a devil, mentored his nephew Wormwood on how to manage his patient, so as to serve their common spiritual master. Screwtape advised: “Jargon, not argument, is your best ally in keeping him from the Church.” “Do remember you are there to fuddle him.” Wormwood failed […]
Earlier this week the Vatican published a 16,000-word document reaffirming Catholic condemnations of a wide range of moral issues, from war to surrogacy and human trafficking. Dignitas Infinita, or “Infinite Dignity”, is both a philosophical and a theological essay, appealing to open-minded people of all faiths and none. Seldom has there been so much media coverage about a […]
The human rights situation in Venezuela has been dire for many years, with little indication of improvement. Since 2014, there have been 15,800 politically motivated arrests, and over 270 political prisoners continue to languish in Venezuelan jails. The misguided economic policies implemented by successive socialist governments have led to 19 million people facing malnutrition and a severe lack […]
This year’s was a particularly memorable April Fools’ Day. First, Scotland’s new Hate Crime and Public Order Act came into force, making it illegal to “stir up hatred” against people based on their age, disability, religion, sexual orientation, transgender identity or other protected characteristics. It’s a fool’s errand to try to police hatred — a subjective and […]
Female genital cutting is a barbarous practice that should have been consigned to the ash-heap of history long before this world experienced the pleasure of beholding my angelic baby face. Unfortunately, however, for the first time after a steady decline over two decades, it is now on the rise worldwide. Sadly, the biggest contributors to this increase […]
If you’re white and you buy your children chocolate eggs to eat this Easter, aren’t you training them to become infant white supremacists? This question is so incredibly stupid that it could only be posed by someone with a PhD. Sad to say, even chocolate has now been tarred with the brush of “white supremacism” […]
Fat and sick: that’s what Elon Musk, the billionaire founder of Tesla and SpaceX, says birth control will make you. The X owner has made waves over the past few weeks with his comments on his social media platform concerning the harms of hormonal birth control. It all started on January 30, when conservative commentator […]
Wall Street‘s DEI Retreat Has Officially Begun. As DEI gets more divisive, companies are ditching their teams. These are not headlines I thought I’d be reading in 2024, but it’s a happy day when legacy news sites as hegemonic as Bloomberg and The Washington Post are using such clear language to flag the retreat of DEI from corporate America. […]
Argentines witnessed something amazing last week: the government’s first budget surplus in nearly a dozen years. The Economy Ministry announced the figures Friday, and the government was $589 million in the black. Argentina’s surplus comes on the heels of ambitious cuts in federal spending pushed by newly-elected President Javier Milei that included slashing bureaucracy, eliminating government publicity […]
Tom Holland’s Dominion: How the Christian Revolution Remade the World has become an important apologia for Christianity in our times. Four years after publication, the book, whose author is sympathetic to Christianity but not exactly a Christian, continues to help Christian and non-Christian Westerners appreciate the biblical roots of their civilisation. It even recently helped prominent atheist Ayaan […]
More than 20 years ago, the American political commentators John Judis and Ruy Teixeira wrote The Emerging Democratic Majority. In this influential work, they argued that America’s changing demographics would result in the Democratic Party achieving lasting political dominance. The growth of Democratic-leaning minority populations (particularly Hispanics and Asians) combined with the increased preference for Democratic […]
“The elite are out of touch” is hardly headline news — except when we get some concrete data on just how out of touch they are, as we did this month. According to a poll commissioned by free market advocacy group the Committee to Unleash Prosperity and conducted by RMG Research, the “top 1 percent” earners in America — […]
A groundbreaking study out of Chicago has confirmed a troubling trend that is changing America: the depopulation of our cities. This leading-edge analysis, Depopulation and associated challenges for US cities by 2100, was a team effort from the University of Illinois Chicago. Their shocking conclusion? Half of America’s 30,000 cities will have population decline this century. […]
Claudine Gay’s inexcusable rise and overdue fall from grace proves one thing. What a far cry many entitled, nepotistic, mediocre, self-righteous but celebrated black leaders of today are from more introspective, self-aware, meritocratic black leaders of yesterday. In 2007, when Gay was made Harvard’s professor of African American studies, within months of joining its faculty, Denzel Washington’s film The Great Debaters became the first film […]
It’s been right chilly of late here in the Shenandoah Valley, so the other day I trashed the planet and fired up the wood stove. Global warming will arrive come spring. Then out of the blue, my auroral languor was rudely interrupted by a ping on my device. I decided to take a look. What […]