I get e-mails from a relative warning me about the secularization of the United States. The latest is the charge that the new dollar coins have omited In God We Trust from the face of the coin. The phase has been put on the edge of the coin. I think I will use the new coins.
I would like to recommend Liestoppers blog about the Duke Lacrosse case. They have a long discussion of the lawsuit I discussed in my last blog post. The list of defendants is much longer than I reported.
I have just seen a report that three other Duke lacrosse players have filed a suit against Mike Nifong, Duke University, and the city of Durham. Duke has settled with the three accused but the suit for wrongful discharge by Coach Pressler has been refiled. Duke continued to bad mouth Pressler. It isn't over!
Yesterday December 15th was Bill of Rights Day. December 15th was the day the Bill of Rights was ratified. I missed it but Tim Lynch of Cato wrote a wonderful piece on the blog Cato@Liberty. It is worth making the point that American still care deeply about the Constitution and Bill of Rights. I hope all my readers get and reread a copy of the US Constitution. If you don't have one you can get one from Cato Institute. They are a great stocking stuffer.
I hope you all read Radley Balko The Agitator. Radley has one of the best blogs on "war on drugs" and criminal justice matters. He has written great deal on the whole "swat" team raids about drugs. Radley Belko used to work for Cato and is now on line editor for Reason. He has a great blog.
I have posted about M Stanton Evan's book Blacklisted by History. Blacklisted by History is about Senator Joseph McCarthy who McCarthyism is named for. The definition of McCarthyism is false accusations, the smearing of innocent people. It is condemned by both the left and the right. The Evan's book argues this is a false picture. Yet I have doubts the truth will break through. McCarthyism has become a bad word. The facts are no longer enough. Orwell talked about controling the language
The Atlas Society has announced the site for the next Summer Seminar 2008. It will be Portland Oregon. We will have more information later.The Atlas Society got the message from last summer and will have a range of places to stay at.
There was interesting Washington Post story about historical preservation in our nations capital. The third Church of Christ Scientist which is located one block from Lafayette Square wants to move and sell their building. The Historic Preservation Board says they can't. The building which was build in the 60ths is one of the ugliest in DC. The board wants to keep it because it is an example of a type of architecture from the 60ths. The preservation board says there are no issues of religi
K C Johnson has announced that Durham In Wonderland with a very long post on Monday Dec 10 will be closing. No more posts. Prof Johnson is in Israel. DIW will be missed. Prof Johnson is a very honest man. I hope when Prof Johnson return he will keep us informed about PC.
Today is Little Richard's 75th birthday. He wasn't always my cup of tea. But he has kept going and going. He survived and given the history of Rock & Roll that's quite an accomplishment. Happy Birthday Little Richard! Thank You!
Apparently the case is coming to an end. It looks like relatively short sentences for all the defendants but convictions. I still waiting to hear from Al Sharpton.
Yesterday Jacques Barzun turned 100. He has written on a host of intellectual topics over the years. He introduced of intellectual ideas to average reader in an unpateronizing way A quick look at Amazon show more than 23 pages of entries. On the first two only one of the books was by another writer. He had book that is used as a complete book on the detective story. He has books on Joyce, the modern university, and teaching as a profession. There is an excellent article in the weekend ed
It's bigger and better than ever. It's an attractive package. That's the good points. Most of the items are too expensive. It has too much Leonard Peikoff, Peter Schwartz and Harry Binswanger. I must add that they also carry too much Ellen Kenner. If you have not not seen it you should. They will send you a catalog at no charge. I must also add that the staff is very courteous and competent. Highly recommended!
I watched Dave Mayer's and Will Thomas's speeches again. Dave's is really well done. Will seemed nervous. It was still fun to watch. I kept recognizing people in the audience.
Happy Thanksgiving! I wanted to thank my blog readers. I am very delighted I got to attend TAS's 50th anniversary of Atlas Shrugged. As I have said it was the best Objectivist event I have ever attended. I am also happy I was able to relive it by watching the event of Book TV. I want to thank Michael and Kat for all they do for OL. I also want to thank the regular contributors to OL. OL is a big item in my life and all of you are too. Thanks for Internet. I'm grateful to all those geniu
Since this January when I had a small stroke and was hospitalized for four days I have posted about my health. I had forty radiation treatments for prostrate cancer in August and September. Today I got the word that my PSA which was 12.0 before the treatments is now 1.9. This great improvement is very good news. This makes one grateful to modern medicine and good doctors. Thanksgiving is coming up. This is something one should be thankful for.
This movie is on TCM. At the time it came out there were lots of movies with priests and nuns. All of these individuals are well adjusted individuals.Today movies with priests the priests would be child molesters and the nuns would be sadists. The truth is that both pictures are false.
I have been looking over the winners of The Fountainhead Essay Contest. They are an interesting group. While the great number are from public schools there are a fair number from Roman Catholic schools. A quick looks suggests a good number are Asian. The winning essays are posted for the past years and the essays are quite good.ARI is getting an increasing number of high school students to take part in this contest. 20,794 students in the last contest. ARI should be greatly applauded.
In my post on OL about Ira Levin's recent death I refereed to Boys From Brazil as far-fetched. First I want to say that Boys is a good movie. It has some great acting including the saintly Gregory Peck as one of the worst villains ever done on film. The actor John Dehner has a brief role as one of the fathers that is as fine a piece of acting I have ever seen. Olivier is quite good. The young actor who plays the Hitler clones is very good. The science is wrong. Cloning has not even been p
My posts on Objectivist Living number over 2000. I hope my posts have been enlightening and enlightened. I also hope I have not long winded or boring. I proud of the fact I haven't done any plagiarizing.
This is one of my favorite movies. I saw it when it first came out and I try and watch when it is shown on television. It is not the history of Eliot Ness's bringing down Al Capone. It is an extremely romanticizing version of that story. Keep that fact in mind but enjoy it anyway. the acting is wonderful starting with Kevin Costner. Robert De Niro is a great Al Capone. The other members of the Untouchables are also very good. It was a first role for Andy Garcia. The great performance i
It is now on YouTube and as I have said elsewhere it is wonderful. I now see that long day made it hard at end of it when I think we were all tired. We can see again how much of a treasure Barbara is.
