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May 17, 2012

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Monsieur Lazhar
(Reviewed May 3, 2012)
A moving and beautiful portrait of the natural bond between teacher and pupils that is also a stealth critique of today’s educational orthodoxy Full Review

Comic-Con Episode IV: A Fan's Hope
(Reviewed April 25, 2012)
The former satirist Morgan Spurlock makes the mistake of taking on a subject to which he is more sympathetic than he is to McDonald’s, the Bush administration or product placement Full Review

Bully
(Reviewed April 20, 2012)
An affecting exploration into a social problem which can only be made worse by being regarded as a social problem Full Review

Boy
(Reviewed April 12, 2012)
A delightful movie, funny and poignant at the same time, which manages to be almost as tough-minded as its 11-year-old hero Full Review

Teach English with a Degree in Elementary Education.

Diary
ENTRY from May 16, 2012

Former Governor L. Douglas Wilder of Virginia writes in Politico of the possible impact on this year’s election of the so-called "Bradley effect" — which he says, rather proudly, some have called the "Wilder effect," since a similar thing happened to him when he ran for governor in 1989. Then, as when Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley had run for governor of California seven years previously, the pre-election opinion polls showed him with a substantial lead over his Republican opponent. But where Mr Bradley had lost to George Deukmejian, Mr Wilder just scraped home by under half a percentage point over Marshall Coleman — because, says Governor Wilder, "voters won’t admit that they will not vote for a minority candidate."

Before the election of President Obama in 2008, there were some worries that the Bradley effect — or the Wilder effect — would rob him of the victory promised by psephologists. Afterwards, the phenomenon was widely thought to be extinct. Now that polls are indicating a close race this autumn, the theory is being taken out and dusted down once again. What else but racism could explain why anyone would vote against the President? Governor Wilder calls our attention to a front-page New York Times story by Sabrina Tavernise datelined Steubenville, Ohio and headlined: "4 Years Later, Race Is Still Issue for Some Voters." In the article, people are quoted as saying ugly and vaguely menacing things like these:

¶"Certain precincts in this county are not going to vote for Obama. . . I don’t want to say it, but we all know why." Full Entry

My new book Media Madness, is now published and available for order from Encounter Books. Less a polemic than an attempt to understand the origins of the mass media’s folie de grandeur, the book is a warning even to those who are deserting the big networks, newsweeklies and large-circulation dailies not to carry with them into the more attractive world of niche media the undisciplined habits of thought that the old media culture has given rise to. To order this book, click here.

Also available, now in paperback, is Honor, A History, which was first published in 2006. A study of Western cultural artifacts, from the epics of Homer to the movies and TV shows of today, it is focused on explaining why Western ideas of honor developed so differently from those elsewhere — and especially from the savage honor cultures of the Islamic world. The book then goes on to trace the collapse and ultimate rejection of the old Western honor culture from World War I until the present day and to suggest the conditions that would have to prevail for its revival.