Around June 17 or June 18, 1858 — which is to say, a hundred and fifty years ago, less a few days — the mail delivery at Charles Darwin’s house south of London included a package from Alfred Russel Wallace, a naturalist doing field work in Indonesia. In the package was Wallace’s paper On The Tendency of Varieties to Depart Indefinitely … [Read More]

The cultural contrast between intriguing guests and apparently brain dead yack TV hosts has John Derbyshire lamenting :   ” It’s not the dumbing-down that bothers a lot of us fogeys so much, it’s the loss of interest in things and stuff.” I’ll say- gone are the days when   Massachusetts and California overflowed with the not so wretched refuse of … [Read More]

For those who haven’t been keeping up with Caledonian affairs, Scottish independence has been brought onto the agenda by the victory of the anti-unionist, pro-independence Scottish National Party in the general election for the Scottish Parliament last year. The SNP victory comes after about half a century of solid domination of Scottish politics by the Labour party (now in regional opposition … [Read More]

What prompted this whole discussion about race and alleged racial differences—Christopher Roach’s post here, and my response—was the presidential campaign of Barack Obama, his rise as the putative Democratic candidate, and I want to bring the discussion back to its source. Because Obama, as a personality and the likely Democratic nominee, really does refute the mythology promulgated by the racialists. He … [Read More]

Justin Raimondo’s post about racial differences has generated many responses.  I will let others argue about the science of race and IQ, but I would like to make a comment about Justin’s assertion that: Murray Rothbard rightly warned us to be wary of statistics, which are, of necessity, the instrument of government social engineers, and I would venture to say that … [Read More]

Since Justin showed me the courtesy of responding to my objections to his statements about Hillary-voters in West Virginia, I am herewith returning the favor. Because of the brevity of my blog retort to his commentary, it seemed necessary to add these words in order to make my views explicit. Like Justin I find those white “racists” who voted for Hillary … [Read More]

There’s nothing to put a damper on your columns about food and wine like a grumpy old doctor who tells you have to lose 50 pounds. A dour World War II Navy veteran, he was the only Cigna doctor with an open appointment, and I had some symptoms that needed checking out. “I had a man in here last week,” he … [Read More]

On the question of conservatism, one can count on two things: First, that at any moment, some opinion-monger or other is holding forth on the nature of conservatism, and, second, that nearly everything he is saying is unedifying. Conservatism as conventionally understood is either vacuous (“conservatives respect tradition—except when they don’t”), asinine (“conservatives resist change”), or imperceptible (“conservatism is no more … [Read More]

From my kitchen window, I have watched a little boy grow up to be a man. I live in what Americans with great economy of expression refer to as a brownstone, actually a townhouse. It is on 71st street off Park Avenue. My father bought it for us 30 years or so ago, and both my children refer to it as … [Read More]

Yesterday, in an already much remarked upon column, David Brooks reviewed the state of the kulturkampf  between “assertive atheists” and “defenders of faith” by way of a discussion of developments in neurobiology.  Brooks’ central insight is that the “cognitive revolution is not going to end up undermining faith in God, it’s going to end up challenging faith in the Bible” by … [Read More]