Articles

Virtual reality’s increasing grip on how we live

Since the 1990s, we’ve seen two broad social changes that few observers would have expected to happen together. First, youth culture has become less violent, less promiscuous and more responsible. Childhood in the United States is safer than ever before. Teenagers drink and smoke less than previous generations did. The millennial generation has fewer sexual […]

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A stand against political correctness in Chicago

We have gotten so used to seeing college presidents caving in to so many outrageous demands from gangs of bullying students that it is a long overdue surprise to see that at least one major university has shown some backbone. Dr. Robert J. Zimmer, president of the University of Chicago, has spoken out in the […]

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Why Trump has no hope of winning over black voters

So now Donald Trump is campaigning for the black vote. (Long, awkward pause.) Like so much of what Trump has said and done, this new outreach forces writers like me to conduct scatological studies, framing Trump’s actions in their historical and intellectual absurdity. But, here we go. Trump, who got just 1 percent of support […]

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What does it really mean to love America?

It has been quite a month in politics. On one side, the Democratic National Convention was very much a celebration of America. On the other side, the Republican nominee for president, pressed on the obvious support he is getting from Vladimir Putin, once again praised Putin’s leadership, suggested that he is OK with Russian aggression […]

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The Democrats win the summer with GOP messages

Donald Trump has found aa way to save the Democratic Party. He’s abandoned great patriotic themes that used to fire up the GOP and he’s allowed the Democrats to seize that ground. If you visited the two conventions this year, you would have come away thinking Democrats are the more patriotic of the two parties—and […]

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Differences don’t equal discrimination

If there were a contest for the most stupid idea in politics, my choice would be the assumption that people would be evenly or randomly distributed in incomes, institutions, occupations or awards, in the absence of somebody doing somebody wrong. Political crusades, bureaucratic empires and lucrative personal careers as grievance mongers have been built on […]

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