2011’s best articles
Here are my top 10 articles for the year (in alphabetical order by the author’s last name):
“Politics’ fatal therapeutic turn,” Dissent, by Zelda Bronstein
“Condemned to joy: the Western cult of happiness is a mirthless enterprise,” City Journal, by Pascal Bruckner
“Health now: a provocation,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, ...
Blaming all the president’s men
Journalist Ron Suskind’s scintillating account of chaos and dissent in Obama’s White House would be better if he had shaken off his teenage habit of blaming everything on Wall Street.
Read my review of Confidence Men, in ...
Does Moneyball explain baseball?
The movie Moneyball, starring Brad Pitt, is now in cinemas. I read and thoroughly enjoyed Michael Lewis’s book, but haven’t had a chance to see the movie yet. But friends have asked what I think about the Moneyball premise – that is, ...
This week’s articles of note
“The path to 270: demographics versus economics in 2012 presidential election,” Center for American Progress, by Ruy Teixeira and John Halpin (pdf)
“How the Euro crisis could destroy the US economy,” The Atlantic, by Jim Tankersley
“Secret Fed loans helped banks net $13B,” Bloomberg Markets Magazine, by Bob Ivry, ...
Frustration with democracy in the US
In an essay for spiked, Frank Furedi argues that the oligarchs of the European Union have turned decisively against democracy, in favor of elevating technocrats to positions of power in order to impose punitive austerity measures that do not have the backing of the electorate. Reading Furedi’s article, I was struck ...
McDonald’s out-smarts San Francisco’s toy banners
Tomorrow San Francisco’s “Healthy Food Incentive Ordinance” – which prohibits restaurants from providing free toys with meals unless the food meets its guidelines – comes into effect. The city government ...
Rise in parents opting-out of vaccinations for kids
An analysis by the Associated Press finds that the number of parents that are opting out of vaccination shots for their kids has increased in more than half the U.S. states over the past five years. Eight states – mainly in the West and Midwest – now have levels ...
This week’s articles of note
“Pre-occupied: the origins and future of Occupy Wall Street,” The New Yorker, by Mattathias Schwartz
“Pepper-spraying taxpayers: ‘diversity’ boondoggles are the real scandal,” National Review Online, by Heather MacDonald
“How I stopped worrying and learned to love the OWS protests,” Rolling Stone, by Matt Taibbi
“‘The new Tammany Hall,'” ...
Occupy at Wal-Mart calls shoppers “cum-sumer whores”
Here is a video with Occupy types on Black Friday handing out leaflets to Wal-Mart shoppers, urging them not to be “cum-sumer whores”. This is the level of wit and analytical thinking we’ve come to expect from the Occupiers, who have set themselves up as directly opposed to the masses ...
ABOUT SEAN COLLINS
I write about American current affairs for Spiked, the online magazine. I am a native New Yorker, and I divide my time between New York City and upstate New York.
In addition to articles for Spiked, The Australian and other publications, I contributed an essay, "BDS: Demonizing Israel, Destroying Free Speech," for the book Unsafe Space: The Crisis of Free Speech on Campus (2016). I also wrote a chapter on New York City's economy for the book London After Recession: A Fictitious Capital? (2012).
My writings have been cited in American Conservative, Arts & Letters Daily, the Financial Times, Fox News, the Huffington Post, the New York Daily News, the New York Post, the New York Times, Real Clear Politics, and the Times of London, among other media.
For more about The American Situation site, go here.
