All’s Fair in Love and Old Age
One of the most underappreciated things about Ronald Reagan is the connection between his comedic gift and
his talent as an actor.
his talent as an actor.
Books & Culture
‘You Can’t Take It With You’ and An Argument for a More Civil Society
If our society prefers the “John Wick” world to the one Capra defined, it makes sense that we are in the mess we have.
Ronald Reagan’s Forgotten Respect for Human Dignity
Reagan shows us how Grover Cleveland Alexander was more than just a character in a movie to him. Alexander was a fellow human being with an interior life.
Second Rate Holmes
"Enola Holmes 2" tones down the wokeness, but it’s not enough to make it a good film.
The Hasty Hearts of Reagan’s Critics
Why should movies only be viewed through the lens of a critic?
All Hail Peter Morgan!
It’s high time for a miniseries about the highly imaginative creator of Netflix’s “The Crown.”
Concord Hymn
It really was a world-changing moment, that Battle of Concord, and yet how did it come about?
Storm Warning on the Waterfront
In his battle with the studio Stalinists, Ronald Reagan did not stand alone.
Soup and Sunflowers
Why are unspeakably middle-class kids throwing soup at paintings and glueing themselves to walls?
Should Terrorists Who Damage Great Works of Art Face the Death Penalty?
Or just life in prison without parole?
Surrender: Or Why I Will Always Love Bono
Bono might not be Jesus, but he re-introduced me to Him.
The Hill Mowing and a Refuge in Books
The added perspective of a memoir can be the
best salve for the soul.
best salve for the soul.
Lifting the Mask of Ideology
Ronald Reagan’s Hollywood experience taught him there is nothing worse than a free human being in the eyes of an ideologue.
Memory
We are subject to time, yet there is this God-given difference between us and all other creatures: we transcend time by memory.
The Modern Right’s Founding Mothers
Ayn Rand, Rose Wilder Lane, and Isabel Paterson fought valiantly against the New Deal’s redefinition of the American dream as equal access to state management.
Making Common Sense About Money Common Knowledge
John Tamny’s book, read by enough of us, really could succeed in making common sense about money common knowledge.
While Not Perfect, Hulu’s ‘Hellraiser’ Is Still a Great Flick for Halloween
Despite the uneven plot, flat characters, and underdeveloped themes, “Hellraiser” succeeds in the most important element of a horror film: It is scary and dark.
Ye and the End of Cancel Culture
Haunted by a tradition of an innocent scapegoat crucified out of fear and envy, we are constantly competing over who is the most victimized by events, past and present. But that’s not who Jesus was.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s
‘The Village Blacksmith’
Longfellow does give us, in the final stanzas, a moral to the poem, and that perhaps is not to our contemporary tastes.
The House of Funny Horrors
This Halloween let’s watch “Arsenic and Old Lace” for its great, macabre humor, the silly prejudices of “sweet” old ladies, loads of laughs, and as always, the incomparable Cary Grant.