I resigned my membership in The Philadelphia Society, the prestigious fraternity of movement conservatives, a couple years ago, but as I continue to pay my wife’s dues, I still read the Society’s communications from time to time.  Evidently, the topic of TPS’s upcoming national conference is “How to Transmit the Legacy of the Great Conservative Thinkers of the 20th Century”—a topic … [Read More]

If you believe The Truth is Out There, then I highly recommend that you avoid the latest “X-Files” movie , stay in, and read Tom Piatak’s fantastic article on the conservative impulses in the original series. Even a perusal through “The X-Files”’s rather fascinating and discursive Wikipedia entry would be more rewarding than a viewing of I Want to Believe. In … [Read More]

Halfway through my sophomore year of high school I was overwhelmed by an impulse to become more traditionally feminine, which I satisfied by getting a job in the children’s section of the public library.  I remember presiding over a storytime circle of elementary schoolers in which I tried to guide them towards an appreciation of modern art—“It’s a kind of picture … [Read More]

The most enduring superheroes—Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman, Captain America among them—were all born in Lower East Side at some point between 1938-1944. Their creators were almost entirely first-generation Jews. The current theory of this all runs something like, “‘double identity’ of being a Jew in America + adolescent power fantasy = superheroes who conceal their true indentity.” In the words of … [Read More]

Friedrich Nietzsche observed, “it requires more genius to spend than to acquire”—making money being a question of diligence and cunning, wasting it a matter of taste. When the great philosopher wrote these words, he was actually concerned with the pervasiveness of the ascetic ideal among the capitalist elite: “The most industriousness of all ages—ours—does not know how
 to make anything of … [Read More]

I’ve never been one for ruthless consistency. I learned young the fine art of emotional doublethink, from the experience of being at one and the same time:   An orthodox Catholic who mentally assented to official Church teaching on sexuality, according to its 1917 formulation in the old Catholic Encyclopedia.   A teenage boy.   You needn’t read James Joyce to … [Read More]

My Southern suspicion that New England is full of crazy people gained another exhibit for the prosecution last week.  The “Parade of Horribles” in Beverly, Mass., a Fourth of July tradition of grotesquerie that is exactly what it sounds like, featured several floats mocking the Gloucester “pregnancy boom” in which seventeen girls at one high school decided that sixteen was an … [Read More]

I reported to registration to receive my official totebag, T shirt, and condoms. In the bustle, I was only able to grab three packs, but luckily, Students for a Sensible Drug Policy and NARAL were handing out prophylactics in the display area (unfortunately labeled “Screw the Drug War”). The Campus Progress National Conference had begun. Campus Progress is the Left’s answer … [Read More]

One probably shouldn’t look to the New York Times for analysis of the ongoing Death of the West; however, Russell Shorto’s latest article in the Magazine, “No Babies?” is worth considering, if only because it’s one of the more interesting—and interestingly wrong—Left-liberal responses to the European birth dearth. Quoting Hans-Peter Kohler of University of Pennsylvania, Shorto opines, ‘high fertility was associated … [Read More]

Summer is here! Therefore, rich New Yorkers are going out to the Hamptons to compete for status. One of the many ways they do so is of course to build big and expensive houses. In the past, competition among the super-rich has inspired America’s most distinctive architectural styles—for example, the famous “Shingle Style”  that became popular in the late 19th century. … [Read More]