Inhuman

A North Korean story.

La volonté générale

Czech president Vaclav Klaus meets the children of 1968. They don't care what he thinks, or how people voted. Being true heirs of Rousseau, they EMBODY the will of the people. The poor guy thought totalitarianism ended in 1989 ("19 years ago").

Garbage in garbage out

Spengler sees a silver lining in the economic crisis.

Soma

Just wait until your employer provides you with some good stuff for free.

England is finished

When you read the word "understanding" (as opposed to learning) six times in the same paragraph and hear that children will be taught "practical skills" for "real-life situations" (as opposed to any real content), you can be sure that an educational system is being actively destroyed by a clique of academic pedagogists.

Ideology rules

If you care to know how bad the situation really is in Pakistan, an excellent source is Syed Saleem Shahzad . To him it seems absolutely obvious that the ONLY reason the Pakistanis may crack down on out-of-control Islamic militants is because of the pressure from Washington. That suggests that this plan is probably wishful thinking.

Creeping vocationalism

Victor Davis Hanson again. After you skip the first seven paragraphs on the merits of classical education (nothing wrong there, just a bit cliche), his analysis of what's happening to the university system is quite acute.

Leave them alone

Ross Douthat again, this time on the Republican party and pro-lifers.

Warm and fuzzy and content-free

All of us who work in education have met powerful people like Ms.Darling-Hammond.

The end of the left

Peter Berkowitz reviews the latest book by Bernard-Henry Levy. Apparently BHL regards Nietzsche as the embodiment of the liberal spirit. Since he is a respected philosopher we must hold our judgement, but for anybody else this opinion would suggest excessive intake of cocaine.

Economic un-reality

A bad response to the disasters wrought by the financiers would certainly be let politicians run the economy. The truth is that both the prevalence of finance and the prevalence of politics are symptoms of social and cultural weakness, since both are means, not ends.

Seeing clearly

The stories of the Japanese martyrs are quite moving.

Piotr Verchovenskij goes to San Francisco

The current outburst of ideological violence will sound familiar to those of us who love Dostoevskii (or who know the history of Europe, 1789-1989).

Showdown?

Hopefully this will not come to pass. The US bishops seem willing to stand up and fight.

Offer something

Ross Douthat trashes George Weigel.