by Mark Franke Last week I shocked my wife. I changed my mind. About baseball, of all things. Specifically, I changed my mind about Pete Rose’s status as ineligible for election to the baseball Hall of Fame at Cooperstown. I should admit that I hadn’t given a whole lot of thought to it. My inclination was to give preference to his activities on the field rather than to those off it. After all, basing a…

A Generation’s Mea Culpa  BEFORE WE GET TOO OLD and before our ChatGBT assistants go woke, we should put together a comprehensive list of the stupid ideas held by our generation, particularly the really, really stupid ones to which we have clung long past the point we should have known better. I’ll start. 1. That Charles Darwin explained why we are here — We continued the misunderstanding of  Darwin’s theory. It was about species adapting over time, not the spark that kicked the whole show off.…

Andre Carson, Home-Grown Phony  IT IS ODD that Seventh District Rep. Andre Carson hasn’t addressed this week’s arrival of South African refugees. — he is tight-lipped, you might say, not a peep. That is so even though he is outspoken on the floor of Congress, gratingly so, welcoming refugees of all circumstances and protecting their “rights.” But call his office and see if you can get a comment. We couldn’t. A semi-black middle-class Indianapolis kid from a Baptist background, Carson rode affirmative…

Stereotype Fatigue THERE ARE TWO TYPES of people, my grandmother would say, those who believe there are two types of people and those who don’t. This is the paradox of stereotypes. If we were to be honest, most of us at least notice stereotypes if not act on them. It is built into our DNA — wrongly so, the progressives lecture, something that must be torn from the social fabric at all cost. Well, good luck with that. You will have…

Redefining American Greatness “Nothing is so important for freedom as recognizing in the law each individual’s natural right to own property.” — Milton Friedman WE HEAR A LOT about making America great again but not much about what made it great in the first place. That, and not an embazoned baseball cap, would seem the place to start. In your opinion, then, what made America great, and what will make it great once more?  I’ll go first. Few today…

A Global Music Catastrophe THERE IS ALWAYS a generational clash of musical tastes. As for me, though, now three generations past my teenage collection of Buddy Holly monophonics, the progression has reached the point I no longer recognize what is playing as music. It has been explained to me that this is to be expected, that each generation has an ear for a different style, that it is what God intended.  I’m not buying it. Indeed, we may be…

Media: a Click Here, a Click There IN THE INTEREST of saving you precious reading time, this column has recommended skipping articles under headlines that contain modal verbs, i.e., “should,” “must,” “ought.” To find examples, just pick up your morning newspaper, blog or sub stack. They will be full of it . . . I mean, full of them. Modal verbs in journalism are excited attempts by the writer to position himself as “in the know” on a…

Profanity Is a Political ‘Tell’ AS A SEASONED COPYEDITOR I recoil at the ever more common profanity in my daily reading. My inclination is to prohibit it, as do the contributors to our backgrounder and journal columns.  I have had to grant, however, that outside of blasphemy it may have a place in the larger conversation, albeit a carefully proscribed one. For like it or not, expressive speech in the form of the rude imperative phrase,…

Our ‘Terrorist’ Discourse “This is not America. This is a terrible nightmare. Somebody slap me and wake me up because I’m ready to get on with it.” — Jasmine Crockett A PEW RESEARCH CENTER survey found that voters it described as members of the “Progressive Left” accounted for only 6 percent of the national electorate and only 12 percent of the Democrat Party coalition. Yet, they are the most politically engaged segment of the party and are disproportionately powerful in shaping…

by Richard McGowan, Ph.D. An outcry greeted the Supreme Court after its ruling that prohibited the use ofaffirmative action in admissions. Opponents of that ruling quickly argued that legacyadmits to schools also do not deserve ‘preferential treatment.’ Legacy admits “are oftenfavored in the application process to encourage alumni ties and donations” and do notdeserve an edge. However, the arguments against schools providing a preference for legacyadmits misrepresent the function of admissions departments. Some anecdotes mighthelp…