Latest Posts

February 18, 2026

Marty Supreme and the Return of the Antihero

Most Oscar movies have no audience and few admirers and are instantly forgotten (name last year’s winner). One exception is Marty Supreme, which has just received nine Oscar nominations. More surprising, it has already reached into the IMDb Top 250, at 238 and climbing (dedicated fanbase). Continue Reading...
February 17, 2026

Journalism 101: The Heart of the Matter

A question from an inquiring mind: “How can we who live in this age of podcasts, email newsletters, Substack opinions, social media digressions, and 24/7 streaming distinguish between mere information and wisdom?” Continue Reading...
February 12, 2026

Marriage: The Free Market We Take for Granted

Western novels, songs, and films make many assumptions about love and marriage. Yet one underlying expectation continues to shock the non-Western world and once shocked our ancestors. This expectation is dispositive spousal consent: the belief that a marriage is valid because two individuals freely choose one another, rather than because their families or political authorities approve the match. Continue Reading...
February 10, 2026

We Can’t Afford to Ditch the Rich

Why Democracy Needs the Rich by John O. McGinnis arrives at a moment when public discourse treats wealth less as a social fact and more as a moral pathology. Consequently, McGinnis writes into an atmosphere thick with slogans, suspicion, and ritual denunciation. Continue Reading...
February 06, 2026

John Locke on the “Iron Laws of the World”

On January 5 in an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN, Stephen Miller, deputy chief of staff to president Donald Trump, defended the administration’s alarming embrace of military intervention in Venezuela and imperialistic aspirations more broadly on the global stage: The United States of America is running Venezuela. Continue Reading...
February 05, 2026

Modern Times for Our Time

What we call Western civilization is in a precarious state today, challenged by the loss of religious values, a threat from aroused Islamic radicalism, romantic notions of “collectivism,” and a dangerous decline in the value of freedom of speech and thought. Continue Reading...
February 04, 2026

The Prodigal of Leningrad

In my memories, December 31 in Leningrad, Russia, was always cold. Of course, the city has been called St. Petersburg, its pre-Revolutionary name, for much of my life, but for the almost decade that I lived there, it was Leningrad. Continue Reading...
February 02, 2026

Iran’s Brutal Religious Persecutions

Iran’s Islamist regime is staggering toward its unofficial 47th birthday: the return of Ayatollah Khomeini to Tehran on February 1, 1979. Although a broad coalition overthrew the long-ruling dictator Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, Islamic hardliners took control and created a regime that was even more brutal. Continue Reading...