So I clicked on their ad on Nat’l Review online and started to poke around, but don’t have time now for much. So, in the meantime, anyone heard of the Gatestone Institute?  They seem to be mostly about the dangers of Islamization in Europe; not sure if they’re exaggerating or if it’s a serious threat.  Any thoughts? Read more

. . . and the urban planning difference. Update: OK, when I posted this, I was planning on adding commentary after a day or two, then got sidetracked. (Sorry, short attention span = inconsistent at follow-through.) Anyway, here it is again, for any new readers, and this weekend I’ll write about this. Further update: Here’s the answer:  it’s on the outskirts of Nuremburg, that is, the medium-sized city (home of one of the more famous Christmas Markets) north of Munich... Read more

The fate of German women in the face of Soviet soldiers in the closing months of World War II and afterward is a pretty appalling one, as the Soviets took their revenge on pretty young girls and old women alike, and is pretty generally ignored, with a feeling that the Germans, as a people/ethnic group, don’t get to complain because of what they, as a people, did to others.  (Likewise, the fate of Germans who lived in what became the re-bordered... Read more

So one of the perks of working at home is that I can take a long lunch and run an errand. Today it was Aldi, where they’ve got a “now hiring” sign with the starting wage posted: $13 an hour. So, in other words, they pay significantly higher than minimum wage for what is, in terms of the skills required, a minimum wage job. Now, I don’t think they do this because they’re a German-based company; I think that they... Read more

I finally got new tires on the car yesterday, something that was on the to-do list to take care of before winter, or, specifically before travelling at Thanksgiving. I hate car expenses, not so much for the cost of it, as for the feeling that I’m being taken advantage of by the guy trying to upsell or get me to buy a service I don’t need. (Like the time I had the mechanic tell me I needed a new alternator,... Read more

Look, every conservative blogger out there is full of schadenfreude at the fact that the Obamacare exchange is so, well, malfunctional. And there are lots of reasons for the malfunction — various bloggers with knowledge of the field have offered explanations, but the one that I find most striking is that the coding is unnecessarily complicated by the fact that the system is designed to collect all of one’s personal and financial information prior to allowing the user to even... Read more

So here’s the issue: with respect to college drinking, how strong a motivator would, “don’t drink; you might end up being raped/having sex and regretting it” be? Women, apparently, are worried about someone putting a date-rape drug in their drink because they would pretty clearly lose control of their actions. (Though I’m not sure how often this happens, or if it’s as rare as the poisoned Halloween candy everyone fears.) But is “getting so drunk you have sex with a... Read more

(The bottom line:  is there a moral double-standard at work in telling women not to drink?) Really, this is fascinating.  Emily Yoffe wrote a piece in Slate on women’s drinking at college, and you can just watch the number of comments grow in front of your eyes.  3000 since I started typing this. The article itself is remarkable only in that it’s sad that it’s necessary for someone to write this.  Yes, according to the law, if a woman is... Read more

So a friend posted this — an old NYT “Opinionator” piece about the Path Not Taken, and the ambivalence about alternate life paths, and the way this turns into judgment of those who have, in fact, taken the other life path.  The author is a single 42-year-old, perfectly happy not to be married or a father, and seems quite satisfied with his choice, glad not to be tied down with children and a mortgage.  As he puts it, I can... Read more

So I’ve been reading about the topic of unwed motherhood, and here’s my working theory:  it’s all about the men. I still have some more reading — a lot more reading, really, in lieu of research experience in the way a sociologist might have — but this is what I’m thinking:  one of the core issues in the city, and elsewhere, is family breakdown.  The percentage of children born to unmarried parents is climbing (the rate itself, that is, children... Read more