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Seventy years ago Ayn Rand, thankful for finding refuge in the United States from the totalitarian Soviet Union, wrote a short essay series entitled “Textbook of Americanism.” As we mark the 240th anniversary of this country’s birth, we can … Read Article
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A mere five years after holding my newborn fraternal twin girls in my arms, I’ve just watched them graduate pre-school. When I was young, we marked the transition out of high school, college, and that was it. Has our culture—and I—gone too f… Read Article
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On Memorial Day, Americans honor those who died in their country’s wars. But the key to stopping deaths in wars—and the wars that regimes wage on their own citizens—is victory in the war of ideas.
The casualties of war
The … Read Article
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I don’t know who determined that May 20 should be “Be a Millionaire Day,” though it is a good idea. I do know that most people’s ideologies wreck their chances to earn big bucks.
Be a millionaire: the how-to part
The wa… Read Article
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On the anniversary of Israel's founding on May 14 1948, we can turn to Ayn Rand for insights about why such an economically successful state with an open society is so hated by its neighbors.
East-West conflict and Israel
In 19… Read Article
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On the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, my high school class traveled to the Mall in D.C. to mark the occasion. Me? I skipped the trip. Instead, I stayed home to watch the crippled Apollo 13 spacecraft return to Earth. My classmates and I had di… Read Article
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Space enthusiasts mark April 12th as “Yuri’s Night Out,” a celebration of the first human in space: Yuri Gagarin orbited the Earth in 1961.
But Gagarin’s trip was courtesy of the Soviet government, which was hostile to the individu… Read Article
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Fear of robots has been rising: not just fear of the sci-fi killer kind but also fear that robots will take our jobs.
… Read Article
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The revelries of the December holiday season inevitably are accompanied by sober inquiries about the “true” meaning of Christmas and, too often, somber pronouncements that kill our buzz when a’buzzing we should go.
Before you throw… Read Article
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Growing up in North Dakota, I often heard the story of Hazel Miner’s noble death.
Hazel was a 15-year-old girl who attended school with her two younger siblings in a one-room school in rural North Dakota. One March day in 1920, the… Read Article
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The Christmas catalogs start arriving in September, a trickle that becomes a flood by Thanksgiving. They pile up in colorful drifts until it’s time for my favorite part of Christmas: choosing gifts for the people on my list.
Christm… Read Article
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With only a little imagination, Atlas Shrugged may be read as a tale about ingratitude. Many passages make the point, but the most instructive one occurs in the scene from which Rand's novel takes its name. The participants are Rearden and Fra… Read Article
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November 26, 2002 -- We’re told that Thanksgiving is a time to count our blessings, as the Massachusetts Pilgrims did in 1621 after a harsh year that saw half of the Mayflower’s original passengers perish. Today, we mark Thanksgiving w… Read Article
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December 10, 2001 -- In 1897, Virginia O'Hanlon wrote to The New York Sun: “I am 8 years old. Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus. Papa says, ‘If you see it in the Sun, it's so.’ Please tell me the truth; is the… Read Article
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January 1, 2007 -- [Published in The Washington Times] Janus, the Roman god after which the first month of our year is named, had two faces. One looked at the past year and the other looked ahead at the year to come. On New Year's Day in… Read Article
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December 17, 2004 -- Christmas is a season of beautiful lights, parties, gifts, food, family, friends, songs, and sentiments. Among the latter, "goodwill toward men" is a favorite, and we are urged to keep such sentiments not only d… Read Article
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April 15, 2001 -- On April 22, millions will dutifully engage in the now-familiar rituals and incantations of America’s fastest-growing religion.
In public places, they will gather to listen to sermons…about the sins of h… Read Article
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October 28, 2005 -- Halloween has its origins in superstition, and, sadly, it invokes old and new superstitions still. Halloween, from "All Hallows Eve," was the evening before the Catholic All Saints Day and was supposedly haunted by de… Read Article
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December 25, 2003 -- The holiday season is a time for spiritual reflection, celebration, and frenzied commerce. These activities might seem incompatible. They are not, and that's what makes this such a joyous season.
Christmas commemo… Read Article
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February 7, 2002 -- Call it a tribute to the individuality of human taste. How rarely one person feels a strong attraction to another. The phenomenon is so infrequent that we recall, back to our school days, those that made our heart flutter&… Read Article
