As a follow-up to my post on Bruce Bartlett’s book about Bush and conservatism, Bartlett’s column on Townhall.com is worth a read.

Ok, the comments were filling up, so I thought I’d make a new post rather than ask/respond in the comment section of the original post.  I’ve heard that the big thing in D.C. is that those who wear seersucker suits do so with black shoes and belts….I’m not too sure I like the look.  Like I said earlier, I’ve worn my in the past with brown bucks or either brown Sperry’s, sans socks.

As for Jesse, who’s getting married and sporting tan seersucker suits, I would think brown loafers would be fine, absent socks.  Thoughts?

The Supremes reverse my old circuit with impunity in Scheidler v. National Organization for Women, Inc., No. 04-1244.

I’m going to be working six weeks this summer in D.C. and thought I’d seek out info from the SA community for advice on living, where to stay, etc. (I’ll be working on the Hill). Feel free to shoot me an email by clicking on the link beside my name.

Ok, the nice weather already has me looking forward to the day I can sport my seersucker suit. I do have a question as I’ve never stepped up to wear the white bucks with the suit, but am thinking about doing so for this coming season. Therefore, my query is 1) what color belt and 2) what about socks, i.e., color? Please advise. (Also, I think we need an “Attire” category).

I don’t recall this article being posted on this page, but if so, then forgive me. Slate has a piece from last week asking whether law clerks are staffers. I think making a deal over the fact Justice Alito hired a former Ashcroft staffer who’s 37 years old (I think) is ridiculous…but, who am I to say what matters. A taste: (more…)

Christianity Today has this report.

The Calgary Sun has the details.

I’m swamped at work today and tomorrow, so, absent a huge story, this will be my last post until Easter, as I will continue my tradition of giving up TV and the internet for lent.  I will “see” you all again, after Easter, with a house much cleaner, a body much fitter, and hopefully, and most importantly, a soul more sound. 

Few academics have done more to articulate and defend the traditional understanding of a liberal arts education and the role of the university in society than Alan Kors, a professor of history at the U. of Pennsylvania and a co-foundeer and chairman of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.  Click here to listen to his lecture on the subject indicated above, courtesy of the Foundation for Economic Education.

John Fund reports:

Never has an article made me blink with astonishment as much as when I read in yesterday’s New York Times magazine that Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi, former ambassador-at-large for the Taliban, is now studying at Yale on a U.S. student visa. This is taking the obsession that U.S. universities have with promoting diversity a bit too far.

I got nuthin’.

“Southron Pundit” by…me!  Yep, I shelled out the cash to get my own domain and hosting.  I’ll still be blogging as usual and taking care of tech things here at SA like I’ve been; I just wanted my own blog to opine on tech, personal, and other things that probably don’t quite fit here.  Plus, I just wanted by own site to use if I get into doing programming work on the side and where I could show code that I develop for fun.

Oh, if only the Catholic Church would believe what the culture believes, then all would be right with the world! 

Please pray for Charlotte and her brave and loving parents.

(LvMM) 

Most of you have probably heard this story over the past few days, but I’m not quite sure you’ve had the privilege of seeing the video footage of autistic teen, Jason McElwain draining three-pointers like he was T-Mac instead of J-Mac.

Here’s a portion of the story:

McElwain, who’s autistic, was added to the roster by coach Jim Johnson so he could be given a jersey and get to sit on the bench in the team’s last game of the year.

Johnson hoped the situation would even enable him to get McElwain onto the floor a little playing time.

He got the chance, with Greece Athena up by double-digits with four minutes go to.

And, in his first action of the year, McElwain missed his first two shots, but then sank six three-pointers and another shot (video), for a total of 20 points in three minutes.

Me: I just finished watching it for the 3rd time and darn it, if I don’t keep getting dirt in my eyes…!

BTW, there are couple of different videos on the page that I linked to - make sure to check them both out.

My sweet wife picked up Rod Dreher’s ”Crunchy Cons” for me at Barnes & Noble today, and I must say that, from what I’ve read thus far, this is a brilliant and extremely important book. I plan on doing an extensive chapter-by chapter review of the book over the next week or two, so stayed tuned. 

The creator of one of the greatest comic characters in the history of television died yesterday in Beverly Hills, age 81.  No reaction yet on the websites of The Andy Griffith Show Rerun Watchers Club or TV Land, although both will likely have something soon.  The Official Don Knotts Website is here.

Quite a few of the quotes on the IMDB page for the Griffith Show involve Deputy Fife.

If the great history lesson of the 20th century is that socialism does not work then the watershed event in that tragic enlightenment was the one that took place in Moscow 50 years ago this month - the so-called “secret speech” delivered by Nikita Khrushchev to a closed session of the 20th congress of the Soviet Communist party on February 25 1956, in which he mounted a devastating attack on Joseph Stalin, then not quite three years dead.

Thus begins this op-ed in The Guardian from earlier this month, by Martin Kettle.  To read the speech, click here.  For a reminiscence from the BBC reporter who broke the story, click here.  There’s more here and here.

Come to think of it, today would be a good time to pay a visit to Bryan Caplan’s online Museum of Communism.

The Telegraph reports on the relative popularity of Stalin and Khrushchev in Russia today.  I wonder if Caplan would consider this an instance of “rational ignorance”?

The public radio program American Routes is focused on Mardi Gras this week.  It’s on right now (until 4:00) on Alabama Public Radio, which streams live online.  Otherwise, as they say, check your local listings.

The authors of “Donkey Cons,” Lynn Vincent and Robert Stacy McCain (who is the assistant national editor of the Washington Times), have started a blog by the same name. Check it out.

Looking for something else entirely, I stumbled across this interesting collection of photos and short biographies of writers associated with the Fugitive and Agrarian movements, both centered on Vanderbilt U., in the 1920s and 30s. Here’s an amusing line from the bio of Andrew Lytle:

He contributed an essay to the ground-breaking volume I’ll Make My Stand, and was the only member of the Agrarian literary group to actually support himself by farming while he wrote his novels.

You can read the introduction to I’ll Take My Stand by clicking here.

Fans of Hutcheson, Hume, Smith, and the rest of the gang should check out Proportional Belief.

His Boston Globe op-ed is dead-on.  An excerpt:

In the minds of at least some vocal members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, expressing such politically incorrect views is the academic equivalent of provoking Islamic extremists by depicting Prophet Mohammed in a political cartoon. Radical academics do not, of course, burn down buildings, at least not since the 1970s. Instead they introduce motions of no confidence and demand resignations of those who offend their sensibilities (while insisting on complete freedom of speech for those with whom they agree — free speech for me but not for thee!).

While I’m thinking about this, I should point out that the LoC has a large archive of webcasts, here.

Huzzzzzzzzzzzzzaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh !

The NEH press release is here. Looking for that, I ran across this 26 minute video of Wolfe’s talk at the 2005 National Book Festival (Library of Congress).

Yes, there has been much debate on the Muslim world’s reaction to cartoons over the last few weeks.  I’ve seen good posts here on SA and other places.  But, the best by far must belong to Centinel.  Here is my favorite part:

I don’t want to get embroiled in a debate over Islam. Every time some nutjob over there starts talking about destroying Israel or the Great Satan, some “liberal” Muslim in NY gives a nickel quote about how the Koran doesn’t support such jargon. Whatever. All I know is that a majority of the population in these sandblasted camel pits appear to spend their days dragging their knuckles and shouting “Death to _____!”

You can read it here.

Bishop Robert Vasa nails it:

There is some question, for instance, about whether those who openly profess to be “pro-choice� are, in fact, holding to a heretical position. The teaching of the Church in the area of life is clear and unequivocal. Human life must be respected and protected from conception to natural death. Those who maintain that any and all decisions about the disposition of pre-born human beings are exclusively the right of the mother or the parents, at least implicitly, reject the clear and consistent teaching of the Church. The truth is that God charges each of us with the duty to protect and defend innocent human life. This is clearly stated in the Fifth Commandment: Thou shalt not kill. In our society, this attempt to protect innocent human life is done through legal legislative processes and is accomplished, or fails to be accomplished, by those whom we elect. It would not be proper to imply that anyone who votes for an anti-life politician is denying some truth of divine and Catholic faith. Yet, if that candidate receives the vote precisely because he maintains that he has no duty to protect or defend innocent human life in the womb, then a vote cast for him is a type of declaration that the teaching of the Church, indeed the validity of the Fifth Commandment itself, is rejected.

Well said.

Oh, and fwiw,this is the same bishop who was ”among that small cadre of US bishops in agreement with then-Cardinal Ratzinger that pro-abortion politicians must be refused Holy Communion”; and when “challenged that he was putting himself at odds with his fellow bishops,” responded as follows, “I answer to the Holy See, I don’t answer to the USCCB (Conference of Catholic Bishops).â€?

Heh.

(LvEE)

Last week I linked to an item looking at the campaign cash on hand for the candidates in the Alabama Governor’s race.  Via a reader, in line with a comment on last week’s article, comes this report that the possibility of Roy Moore getting out of the GOP primary and going independent remains possible.

Daniel Henninger’s column is a must read for today as he looks at the events in the world of politics over the past couple of weeks, including this week’s Port fracas.