My favorite source of ranty things to blog about, Jack Marshall, has a post up about that great bugaboo of conservative pundits, our lack of cultural literacy, and I want to rant about it, because just the phrase "cultural literacy" makes my skin itch.I blame it on early childhood exposure to the writings of Allan Bloom, who for some reason felt it necessary to write … [Read more...] about Cultural Literacy With Darmok and Jalad
Does Safer Heroin Use Mean More Heroin Use?
Megan McArdle is one of my favorite columnists, and she has a new gig over at the Washington Post, where she recently wrote an article about a fascinating just-released economics working paper that caught my eye. The authors, Jennifer Doleac and Anita Mukherjee, studied how the opioid addict population has responded to the drug naloxone becoming more readily … [Read more...] about Does Safer Heroin Use Mean More Heroin Use?
The Revealed Meaning of Guilt
A few days ago, Gabriel Malor pointed out this story: LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- A judge has dismissed charges against two men who were convicted in the death of a woman as part of a "Satanic ritual" more than 25 years ago. This is an all-too-familiar story. Garr Keith Hardin and Jeffrey Dewayne Clark were convicted of murder in 1995. But after serving 20+ … [Read more...] about The Revealed Meaning of Guilt
A Brief, Partial, and Contingent Defense of the Cops Who Waited
As the media puts together a still-evolving account of what happened during the school shooting in Florida, it now appears that as many as four Broward County Sheriff's deputies were at the scene early on during the shooting, including school resource officer Scott Petersen, yet did not enter the school to confront the shooter, even as he continued shooting students. According … [Read more...] about A Brief, Partial, and Contingent Defense of the Cops Who Waited
America’s Harvest Box: Socialism for Republicans
About a year ago, my friend Jennifer was mocking our current lack of school choice with this analogy to the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP): ...the system we have, wherein people are given food stamps to spend at whatever store they please, is FAR better than a system wherein poor people are only able to get food from ONE specified grocery store in … [Read more...] about America’s Harvest Box: Socialism for Republicans