Take the A train
One of my favorites. Duke and his orchestra, from Reveille with Beverly, a 1943 movie.
This week’s articles of note
“Heartland headache,” National Journal, by Ronald Brownstein
“The myth of charter schools,” The New York Review of Books, by Diane Ravitch [review of the film Waiting for “Superman”]
“Liberal paternalism gets public and private the wrong way around,” Reuters, by Frank Furedi
“Conflict or cooperation? Three visions revisited,” Foreign ...
Buffalo: New York’s Midwest city
This video about Buffalo, produced by tourist and preservation groups, is quite impressive and reminded me of a few broader issues.
First, we often forget that New York State encompasses what we ...
A protest vote not a Republican revolution
The real lesson of the US midterm elections was that voters have little faith in either party to solve America’s problems.
Read my spiked article in full here.
Trendy vs. real innovation
In the Financial Times on the weekend, Gillian Tett wrote about her attendance at a meeting called “Reboot America!”, organized by Daily Beast editor Tina Brown. The event was full of big names, among them economist Joseph Stiglitz, venture capitalist Vinod Khosla and regulator Sheila Bair. Tett reports that a major theme was ...
This week’s articles of note
“‘Stranger Danger’ and the decline of Halloween,” Wall Street Journal, by Lenore Skenazy
“Nudge the vote,” The New York Times Magazine, by Sasha Issenberg
“Obama and the mid-terms: how did it come to this?” The Economist
“Lunch with the FT: Bill Gates”, Financial Times, by Gideon Rachman
“Overdrive: who really ...
Democrats’ comfortable self-delusions
In today’s New York Times, David Brooks argues that the Democrats are self-worhsipping and self-deluding, and “have done a maginificent job in maintaining their own self-esteem”.
Brooks is right on point, and it’s worth quoting him at length:
For example, Democrats and their media enablers have paid lavish attention to ...
Juan Williams and illiberal liberalism
National Public Radio’s firing of its reporter and pundit Juan Williams is disturbing for advocates of free expression and debate.
NPR is, of course, free to hire and fire whoever they want; Williams did not have a job for life. And, in my opinion, he’s not a particularly insightful commentator. But the circumstances ...
Water on the moon – yes!
In November of last year, NASA announced an amazing discovery – water on the moon. Last week, six scientists announced in Science magazine that in fact there is much more water than originally thought – about twice the concentrations that are found in the Sahara.
The Wall Street Journal outlines the important implications:
The large quantity boosts the ...
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.
