Most who believe the end is nigh are mere curiosities, disappointment their shared reward. In contrast, Islamic terrorists know precisely when their world will end and they murder on their way out. Empathy doesn’t help me understand these terrorists. Economics and ethnology do. The explanation has less to do with money than with culture and […]

I’m writing this column while Leonard Bernstein directs the Mormon Tabernacle Choir’s The Joy of Christmas on my iMac. This is remarkable on multiple dimensions: artistic, cultural, political, and technical. I’m happily amazed. Imagine, Lenny in Salt Lake, the only American city in which he is a gentile. This musical genius from New York, who […]

Please don’t impose Tom Wolfe’s portrayal of licentious behavior at his fictive Dupont U on your children. His description of life at America’s top schools, I Am Charlotte Simmons, is captivating even when he describes appalling behavior. Trust me, college is not that hedonistic and undisciplined. Fortunately, neither are universities as monolithically “progressive” and politically […]

Tom Wolfe’s latest novel, I Am Charlotte Simmons, is infecting the zeitgeist. While few folks in the Gallatin Valley are likely to read the book, its theme is permeating our culture. Hence, it may ruin the holidays for parents of high school seniors and those whose freshmen are returning from college. Consider my review a […]

America is the most successful and prosperous nation in history. Personal tragedies aside, our afflictions are trivial. But not all good things go together. With wealth well distributed among our friends, we face the problem of finding gifts for those who want for little. The parents of my generation suffered through the Great Depression and […]