David Rodeback's Blog

Monday, January 9, 2006

Selected Readings (Catching Up, Part I)

It has been a while since I did this. Some of these pieces are a few weeks old -- but still good enough to merit attention . . .

It has been a while since I did this. Some of these pieces are a few weeks old -- but still good enough to merit attention, I think. I've grouped today's list under six headings. There's more to come in a later post. Note that most of the links are to archives at the Jewish World Review, mostly because at that site the links still work after a week or two or four.

Enjoy.

The Best of the Best, in my subjective and fleeting opinion, and not in any order:

• Orson Scott Card has some interesting thoughts about happiness and recommends a new book in "The Children of Divorce."
• Mona Charen on the "slut culture" and some people who rebelling against it.
• Tony Snow on the relative merits of having a plan versus having a clue.
• Dave Barry's annual Year in Review (first-rate comic relief). Read it aloud to someone you love.  The man has a gift.
• Tony Snow on Democrats suppressing a report for partisan gain, and Republicans letting them.
• The Horatio Alger Association's biography of Jon Huntsman. (Thanks to Heidi Rodeback for the link.)
• Joshua Muravchik says 2005 was a good year for freedom. (This is about as scientific as "political science" gets.)

Listening to Terrorist Phone Calls without Warrants (mostly)

• George Will says they shouldn't, and shouldn't have.
• Paul Greenberg attempts to put the facts into historical, linguistic, and rational perspective.
• So does Frank J. Gaffney, Jr.
• Kathleen Parker does the same, more passionately and more colloquially.
• Cal Thomas and Michelle Malkin defend it. So does Jonah Goldberg, but he has more fun than the other two.
• Linda Chavez takes the Democrats to task for fighting the wrong war and says they can't have it both ways:

Either we are fighting an all-out war on an unconventional enemy that has already proved its ability to exploit our legal system and operate within our own country, or we aren't. Either we want the government to do all it can to interrupt any future attacks, or we don't.

• Dick Morris strikes a similar note and lists some essential things in the Patriot Act that the Senate Democrats have filibustered out of existence. It's a little scary.
• The same Dick Morris notes some double standards related to the leaking of classified materials. (He's not the first or last.)
• Charles Krauthammer addresses the legal and Constitutional issues.
• This piece by Debra Saunders is mostly redundant with some of the rest in this list, but is valuable for this quote from Senator Lieberman:

It is time for Democrats who distrust President Bush to acknowledge that he will be commander in chief for three more critical years, and that in matters of war we undermine presidential credibility at our nation's peril.

Iraq

• Charles Krauthammer talks about the subordinations of law to politics in the Saddam Hussein trial. (Is Iraq sure it wants to imitate the West in that way, I wonder?)
• Jack Kelly writes a good piece on the (third) Iraqi election. (Memo to detractors: Is it okay to start believing in the people of Iraq as fully human now, not as something clearly inferior to freedom-loving Americans? Or would that be confessing that President Bush was right, after all?)
• Jeff Jacoby discusses courage and other things among Iraqis. This piece is not for readers with weak stomachs.
• I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks Time's Person of the Year should have been the Iraqi voter. (It wasn't.) Jeff Jacoby does. I almost dyed my finger purple on their election day, but work finally took priority over symbolism.
• This isn't something to read; it's just a post-third-election thought: Is it possible that the Iraqi War is over, and the Democrats lost?

Charity, Welfare, Etc.

• A short piece by Michael Medved on giving.
• Charles Krauthammer ponders do-gooders, tsunamis, and not getting a lot of bang for your charitable buck.  

The Culture

• Suzanne Fields discusses manners. Bad manners didn't originate in the modern world, but perhaps the philosophical defense of them did.
• Jerry Large thinks we should watch what we put in our brains. (He's not the only one.)
• Jonah Goldberg has a useful insight about Hollywood in this piece on how art and talk diverge there on the subject of torture.
• Thomas Sowell discusses books for people who like multi-volume books.

Miscellany

• I enjoyed Tucker Carlson on false conspiracies.
• This Paul Greenberg piece has some excellent quotes in it. My favorite might be a Yiddish proverb. (Note: Jewish publications routinely avoid fully spelling the name of deity, hence "G-d" instead of "God.")
• I enjoyed Kathleen Parker's perspective on bloggers.

That's more than enough for one post, don't you think? Yet I have much more, including some comic relief. Watch for it in a couple of days. If I think about it, I'll come back and point a link to the next list.

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