Americans these days are nothing if not angry, but are we angry at the right people? Consider the recent set-to between President Donald Trump and CNN’s designated Trump tormentor, Jim Acosta. The irrepressible Acosta was declaiming to the president that the caravan of Central Americans making its way through Mexico to the U.S. border could […]
One night in New York City, a young college student named Seth Barkas was accosted by two teenagers pretending to be panhandlers but actually intent on robbery. Their knives dealt him wounds from which he died a few days later. The crime and its aftermath hit Seth’s kid sister Janet hard: If I spoke about […]
The English language has its peculiarities. Two English words that appear to be opposites to one another can instead be synonyms. If someone is telling you something you don’t want to hear, you may find his “blunt” and his “pointed” comments equally galling. Conversely, a single word can have two opposite meanings. “Sensitive,” for example. […]
Before there was Donald Trump, there was George Steinbrenner. In the eyes of his fellow New Yorkers and of many others around the country, no public figure more closely resembled the south end of a horse headed north than Steinbrenner did. Steinbrenner was the principal owner of the New York Yankees for 37 years, from […]
Among conservatives, just about everyone hopes to see Brett Kavanaugh join Neil Gorsuch on the United States Supreme Court. And we all have our little lists of activist precedents that never would be missed, should they ever come up for review before a thoroughly originalist court. Some think big: Nothing less than Roe v. Wade […]
Every day of the week, marriage counselors work with unhappy couples whose relationships have been soured by unresolved grievances. In such cases, the counselor’s job usually involves more than simply getting one spouse to own up to his or her offenses. The aggrieved one may also have to come to terms with her or his […]
Did you hear about how Facebook censored a passage from the Declaration of Independence as “hate speech”? The Vindicator, a small daily newspaper in Liberty, Texas, had been posting passages from the Declaration on its Facebook page in the days leading up to July 4th. The project went smoothly until it reached the part that […]
A young man is thrown into a jail cell full of haggard prisoners. They are sitting on benches around a central bucket that serves as their latrine. Silently, they indicate to him the rules of the house: Everyone sits still with his mouth shut, looking toward the cell door. Every now and then, a guard […]
Queens, New York, 1964: Barmaid Kitty Genovese was walking home from work on the night shift when Winston Moseley, who had gone prowling for a woman to kill, attacked her with a knife. “Oh God! I’ve been stabbed!” she cried, and a man leaned out his upper-story window and shouted, “Leave that girl alone!” scaring […]
Guess who spoke these words: I believe no one can read the history of our country without realizing that the Good Book and the spirit of the Saviour have from the beginning been our guiding geniuses. … Whether we look to the first Charter of Virginia … or to the Charter of New England … […]
In 1824, a retired James Madison was corresponding with the writer Henry Lee IV, half-brother of Robert E. Lee and son of the Revolutionary War hero “Light Horse Harry” Lee. The former president is known to history as “the Father of the Constitution” and the man who helped shepherd the Bill of Rights through the […]
When choreographer Agnes DeMille was interviewed for a documentary about her famous uncle Cecil B., she had a wonderful story to tell about the “Hays Office,” the body charged with enforcing Hollywood’s Motion Picture Production Code. She had been hired by her uncle to provide a bit of pagan titillation for DeMille’s production of “Cleopatra.” […]
A young woman buttonholes a musician with whom she’s recently had a one-night stand—“a stupid experiment,” as she later calls it. She has to remind the young man who she is, because he can’t even remember her name. Then she tells him: “I’m going to have a baby.” As she stares into his eyes, his […]
I know an elderly gentleman in San Antonio who, though he has spent decades working in America as a surveyor and cartographer, has never lost his Russian accent. In 1941, his chances of living a long and happy life were very slim, but here he is, an American paterfamilias. His is a war story, as […]
When the great Thomas Sowell retired from writing commentary in 2016, he wrapped up his farewell column this way: With all the advances of blacks over the years, nothing so brought home to me the social degeneration in black ghettoes like a visit to a Harlem high school some years ago. When I looked out […]
In the 1955 crime drama “The Desperate Hours,” a businessman and his family are taken hostage by a gang of escaped convicts. A struggle of wills and of wits ensues, with the businessman (Fredric March) and the lead convict (Humphrey Bogart, in the last of his great gangster roles) each striving to secure his side’s […]
An old joke tells how various newspapers would report the end of the world. The New York Times says: “World ends: Story and analysis on page B11.” The Wall Street Journal’s version: “World ends: Markets take a beating.” USA Today runs with: “World ends: Full-color pullout, state-by-state highlights inside.” And the Washington Post? “World ends: […]
Another day, another massacre, another argument. Seems like only yesterday we were arguing about the slaying of 26 people in Sutherland Springs, Texas. Before that, it was Las Vegas (58 dead). Before that, it was Orlando (49 dead). Before that, it was San Bernardino (14 dead). Before that, it was Sandy Hook (27 dead). And […]
Juan Leonardo Quintero was a pretty good yard man. His employer, Camp Landscaping of Deer Park, Texas, valued his services so much that the boss bailed him out of jail when he was arrested on a morals charge, and after Quintero pleaded guilty and was deported to Mexico, Camp lent him the money he needed […]
It’s too soon to comment in any detail about what happened at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival Sunday night in Las Vegas. There’s too much we don’t yet know, and too much of what has already been reported doesn’t add up. But it’s clear that what President Trump has called “American carnage” is […]