We do not often think that Jesus Christ and the New Testament justifies capitalism. To the extent that capitalism means greed and self-indulgence, I should think not! Greed and self-indulgence are root human sins and will be manifested in any […]
Howard Ahmanson
Why We Need Regionalism
In our time, politics and culture are increasingly oriented to the national scale on the one hand, and the immediate neighborhood on the other. A book, The Increasingly United States, by Daniel J. Hopkins, highlights this. However, in my view, besides […]
The USA: First World, Third World, or Western World?
The United States has always been somewhat ambiguous about whether its primary loyalty was to the European Western World or to the Western Hemisphere (i.e., the Americas). The Founders thought of themselves as upholding the rights of Englishmen, which they […]
Dick Dale: 1937-2019
I always thought of Dick Dale as a local phenomenon, but his recent death got national coverage. The most thorough and best article was one in The New Yorker, a magazine which might well have turned up its nose during […]
Conferences on Urbanism
A Home in California: Are Our Communities Sustainable? Event Details:Tuesday, March 26, 20199 AM – 5 PMPepperdine School of Public PolicyWilburn AuditoriumMalibu, CAFor details and registration, click here In this conference Pepperdine’s School of Public Policy bring together a unique mix […]
Which Western Civilization? We’re on our Third One.
These days many people are trying to defend ‘Western Civilization’. Yet, at the moment, Western Civilization seems to be moving into Version 3.0, and the form it will take is not fully clear. So what, actually, are they trying to […]
Some Kind of Christmas Tree
We were planning to be abroad this Christmas, but our plans changed. It was just our nuclear family, so we didn’t get a tree; but I found this in our room and brought it down. I thought we needed some […]
Dealing with Bangladesh: A Plan for Adaptation
In the Appendixes to The Lord of the Rings, we learn that the Rohanians came from the north at a critical point to assist Gondor in one of its wars. Out of gratitude, Gondor gave them a stretch of its territory […]
Romans 14 and the Political Divisions of the Church
We live in a time when the classical Protestant church [and, less openly, the Catholics and Orthodox] is often divided over political issues – especially over the character of the current President of the United States. We have Trumpite churches […]
What Umlaut Really Is, And How English Has It
Most people think an umlaut is the two dots over a letter that you often see in German and some other languages. A number of Anglophone rock bands have decorated their names with ‘metal umlauts’, not affecting the pronunciation, in […]