Category «Classic»

The Teaching of Literacy and the Urge to Vomit

One wearies, or I weary anyway, of the endless news stories reporting that children can barely read or not at all, can’t add, and don’t know anything. Detroit Public Schools: 93% Not Proficient in Reading; 96% Not Proficient in Math” Nationwide, only 33 percent of public-school eighth graders scored proficient or better in reading…. This …

Women in the Military: Why Not

Sigh. I have just read that a young woman named Sage Santangelo has failed the infantry-training course for Marine officers at Quantico, bringing the rate of female failure to 29 out of 29. As an old hand with thirty years covering the military, I can attest that this vu is getting more deja all the …

The Virtues of Discourtesy: New York

Merit of Discourtesy New York As The Court Of Louis XIV FRED REED • OCTOBER 15, 2001  • 1,100 WORDS • LEAVE A COMMENT Tweet It’s going to happen, I tell you. Once too often I’ll go into one of those suck-up restaurants that spread now like dry rot in old tires. It will have the nauseating cutesy-sweetsy menu. You …

A Codpiece for Hillary

The other day I saw a photo of Hillary Clinton going into the Senate. I have a kind heart, so I won’t say that she looked like a teenager’s room, but I did conclude that she must have had a better maintenance contract when she was First Basilisk. You could tell that she needed new …

California Dreaming: The Great Kustom Grassblaster Craze

The Great Custom Lawnmower craze of 1972 caught California unawares. The state is not easily astonished. Still, Mikey Deeter managed it. Mikey lived in Riverside, one of those pseudo-Spanish Levittowns that dangle like beads from the freeways. He was seventeen. He had long blonde hair, a great tan, and the vacant expression one associates with …

The Redskins as They Actually Were: The Detwaddling of Fantasy

As part of wokedom’s fantasy-ridden fascination with indigenes, sports teams, such as the Redskins and Braves, race to change names. (For Washington’s team, the Federal Folders has been suggested.) Outraged conservatives see the changes as nauseating prissiness by historically illiterate ninnies. It is every bit of this. Still, the teams should be renamed. What civilized …