The Guardian notes some of the numbers on the Obamas’ tax return this year: assets of $7.7 million, income of $5.5 million (largely from royalties), and charitable donations of…$329,000? Seriously? That’s it? More disheartening evidence that Arthur Brooks is right.
One of my students, Jasmine Wilson, is a program assistant for our “Honors Floor” here at Calvin College–a “living-learning” community in one of the dorms. I’ve known Jasmine since before she arrived at Calvin: we corresponded when she was a student at a classical high school in Oregon and was already reading my work and…
As expected, Brian Leiter is apoplectic that the New York Times would select a “hack” like Simon Critchley to coordinate it’s new philosophy blog, “The Stone.” Of course if the Times had any sense, the implication goes, they would have chosen…well, Brian Leiter. I’m a bit torn here: on the one hand, I’m sympathetic to…
A couple of years ago a publisher invited me to enter the fray of the “new atheism” debates. I was tempted for a very brief moment, largely because I would have enjoyed reading Hitchens against himself–reading Hitchens the earlier literary critic & independent political commentator against the later Hitchens as secular fundamentalist whose critiques of…
It was the surreal Orwellian episodes of the Bush II administration that finally prompted me to launch Fors Clavigera. But over the years, I have also been (I hope) an equal-opportunity offender, also criticizing the left, including early criticisms of (then Senator) Barack Obama. But from 2006-2008, it was pretty hard to not seem like…
My friend, Mark, blessed me with a wonderful coffee table book that celebrates one of my passions (and guilty pleasures): cognac. Cognac: A Liquid History is a lush, glossy work by a collector and connoisseur, recounting the history of the spirit and providing an overview of 30 houses, along with vintage notes. But it made…