Some states are working to circumvent recent SCOTUS rulings meant to protect conscience rights. Which states is what’s proving interesting, and disturbing. Read More… In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), in which the majority of the court ruled that the Constitution supports a right to marry for same-sex couples, many Americans in the “wedding business” faced a dilemma. Bakers like Jack Phillips and web designers like Lorie Smith found themselves unable to deliver...

The story of John Newton’s conversion is legendary. His hymns, like “Amazing Grace,” perennial favorites. His pastor’s heart, exemplary. His fight for an abolition of the slave trade, monumental. But none of this came quickly or easily. Read More… John Newton (1725–1807) is a pivotal figure in the English evangelical revival or awakening. His is an early example of a settled evangelical ministry in the second half of the 18th century, involving pastoral work, hymn-writing, and even mentoring the likes...

The latest recipient of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences has contributed much useful data in understanding the role of women in the workforce. Her restraint in policy prescriptions may, in fact, be her greatest contribution of all. Read More… Harvard’s Claudia Goldin is our newest Nobel laureate in economics. Her accumulated efforts have helped us better understand women’s roles in the labor market—both historically and in contemporary society. It’s worth noting that the economics prize isn’t one of...

The Chilean Miracle of the 1990s is usually pointed to as a win for the Chicago School of economics, which advocated laissez faire capitalism, limited regulation, and cuts in government spending. But that was then, and this is the era of Bidenomics and a “post-liberal” New Right. Are free markets as dead as General Pinochet? Read More… Louis Menand wrote a curious article for the New Yorker called “The Rise and Fall of Neoliberalism.” The article is curious on two...

A new book by Alexandra Hudson offers hope in our contentious times, a better way to confront differences. Now it’s up to us to take the advice seriously. Read More… Our world is suffering a deep unrest. The term “civil war” has been thrown around more than once in reference to the deep divide that seems too broad to risk crossing. And it’s not just the protests that devolve into riots or the January 6storming of the U.S. Capitol—it’s the...

The stark polarization that marks our politics may be more a misclassification of certain positions. A little history lesson is in order. Read More… Back in the 1970s, Sixty Minutes had a regular feature called Point/Counterpoint, which came at the end of every show. Each week there would be a different topic. Journalist Shana Alexander would present a standard-issue “liberal” version of the argument while James J. Kilpatrick assumed the “conservative” side. Although the sparring partners sniped at one another,...

This true story of the systematic murder of Osage Indians for their oil is both foreign and familiar territory for the director of Goodfellas, The Wolf of Wall Street, and Silence. Read More… What do we think about when we think about Martin Scorsese? Many of us think about gangster stories, especially ultra-violent, grisly, and operatic ones. He helped bring the genre into the modern age with his masterpieces Mean Streets, Goodfellas, Casino, and The Departed. Even when he strayed...

More Americans than you think support training in diversity, equity, and inclusion. And why are more and more corporations looking beyond it? Read More… Once considered the highest rising feature of America’s business spaces, the cliffs of corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) are slowly eroding under the reliable and unrelenting tide of American apathy. Fewer and fewer businesses are seeking to hire a chief diversity officer, and those who manage to get hired are finding their jobs often paired...

For those trapped behind the Iron Curtain, Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four seemed more a documentary than a work of dystopian fiction. How did a man who had never traveled munist Russia get so much so right? Read More… The collocation in the title captures the thoroughgoing exploration of the topic in a phrase: George Orwell and Russia. Masha Karp is not the first to ponder George Orwell’s relationship to Stalinist Russia—and the relationship of both Stalinist and munist Russia to Orwell—but...

A new documentary about the parable novelist and social critic demonstrates, however unintentionally, why we’ll probably never see the likes of Wolfe again. Read More… Conservatism doesn’t really produce or nurture writers nowadays. The notable exception in the past couple of generations is Tom Wolfe, who died in 2018. Wolfe was universally beloved. He sold millions of copies of his various writings. Wolfe had a distinctive Southern-gentleman plete with “trademark white suit and vest, a high-necked blue-and-white-striped plemented by a...