Unca Darrell

APRIL 27 / Donald Kagan and declinism

UNIVERSITIES, [Donald Kagan] proposed, are failing students and hurting American democracy. Curricula are "individualized, unfocused and scattered." On campus, he said, "I find a kind of cultural void, an ignorance . . .

APRIL 24 / Welcome to (disdain for) America

OUR OLD PAL Nick Anderson, like all progressives, is a gun-control absolutist. His latest contribution appears today. The point he makes is predictable and, in its essence, wrong. But it is done with good craft, effectively, and within the rules of the cartooning game, fairly and squarely. 

His headline, though, is a sad bit of work. It opens a window to the sarcastic-to-the-point-of-hateful progressive attitude toward our sweet land. "Welcome . . .

APRIL 22 / Kristol on civiliation and barbarism

THE TWENTIETH century didn't lack for barbarians. Indeed, modern barbarism proved more dangerous than . . .

APRIL 16 / Why did the Boston bomber use pressure cookers?

HERE'S MY guess:

APRIL 15 / They didn't use the word "ratchet," but . . .

. . . that's what they were talking about, way back then.

The fact was that in this country, we had gone very much further toward socialism than most democratic countries in Europe -- in the extent of the public sector, with the nationalized industries, and the amount of control, and to some extent the attitudes. We had to turn back. In other words, the center is always the midway between two points, and the whole of the political debate had gone to the left. . .

BUMPED / APRIL 5 / Unca D is going on sabbatical for . . .

. . . a family project. I may post occasionally over the next couple of months, but you're excused from checking back until early or mid-June. Meanwhile, a couple of parting shots:

APRIL 9 / Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?

HOUSTON CHRONICLE cartoonist Nick Anderson today celebrates the death of Margaret Thatcher with an image of her as a particularly ugly harridan, berating God at a desk in heaven. "What kind of socialist dystopia are you running here, kind sir?"

God, miserable, head in hands, hides under the desk: "I think I've died and gone to hell."

The message is . . . 

APRIL 3 / We're No. 14! We're No. 14!

TEXAS PRIDES itself on being a freedom-loving state, and at 14th in rank its citizens have something to be proud of. However, its policies are sometimes not as consistent with individual liberty as . . .

APRIL 2 / Complexity . . .

. . . smothers us, confuses us, and robs us. So opines a nice essay on the "crisis of complexity" in Saturday's Wall Street Journal's "Review."  

In 1980, the typical credit card contract was about 400 words long. Today, many are . . .  

APRIL 1 / The power of scouting

TO SUPPORT the time-honored, character-building, civilization-enhancing, manly values of scouting, send a check to Boy Scouts of America, Sam Houston Area Council, 2225 North Loop West, Houston, Texas 77008.