I Dare Say

“While in Mecca, he had remained married to only one wife, Khadija, who died after twenty-five years of marriage. During his first year in Medina, Muhammad signed a marriage contract with the daughter of one of his most loyal followers, Abu Bakr. This would not seem unusual except that the girl was only six years …

Sign of Spiritual Election

“Until then I had assumed, along with most of my generation unacquainted with real hardship, that a scruffy appearance was a sign of spiritual election, representing a rejection of the superficiality and materialism of bourgeois life. Ever since then, however, I have not been able to witness the voluntary adoption of torn, worn-out, and tattered …

Another Surprise From Ron Paul

Ron Paul certainly has some Internet buzz going, but whenever he does surprisingly well in some straw poll or other, the talking heads of received political wisdom attribute it to dedicated spammers in the Paul campaign. But whatever you say about the capacity of spam, it does not raise money. In politics, you have to …

NSA in The New York Times Magazine

We got a nice note from Molly Worthen, who wrote an article on NSA for The New York Times Magazine. That article is available here. In her note she comments, fairly enough, that the article is critical in places, but that she is hopeful that the article does indicate her interest in and admiration for …

Contempt for the Poor

“But there is little doubt that an oppositional attitude toward traditional social rules is what wins the modern intellectual his spurs, in the eyes of other intellectuals. And the prestige that intellectuals confer upon antinomianism soon communicates itself to nonintellectuals. What is good for the bohemian sooner or later becomes good for the unskilled worker, …