“Jihad Jane” and the politics of fear
Far from “keeping America safe”, the elite’s depiction of the US as fragile and at-risk makes even lonely weirdos seem like a deadly threat.
Read my spiked article in full here.
Curbing short-selling is shooting the messenger
Towards the end of February, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) voted, by a 3-to-2 margin, to restrict the “short-selling” of stocks when they are declining rapidly. This is the result of fear on the part of regulators that the process of deleveraging could get out of control. But it only puts ...
St. Patrick’s Day in New York
Today is St. Patrick’s Day, which means that Manhattan was a sea of green for the parade.
It’s claimed that New York’s parade is the world’s largest for St. Patty’s, with about 150,000 marchers and 2 million ...
Did I mention that JihadJane is from the suburbs?
You’ve probably heard of JihadJane, the internet name of Colleen R. LaRose.
JihadJane is an American woman who is accused of joining with Islamic militants overseas and plotting to kill the Swedish cartoonist who drew Mohammed’s head on the body of a dog. Her arrest by federal prosecutors sent ripple waves across ...
Tiger Woods is a golfer. Let him golf
Tiger Woods has announced that he will return to golf at the Masters in April. This has led a number of commentators to question his decision.
Mike Walker at golf.com says the Masters is “sports at its best” while the Tiger saga is “sports at its worst”, and the Masters is likely to suffer ...
The Pacific starts
(Video: The Pacific trailer)
HBO aired the premiere of its new ten-part series, The Pacific, last night.
It was, as the network says, an “event”. The Pacific ...
Restoring teacher authority
Guest Post by Alex Standish
Good teaching is essential to learning, yet interference by politicians, policymakers and business in schools has undermined the authority of teachers. We need to value the transfer of knowledge for its own sake and give teachers the freedom to educate.
Elizabeth Green’s recent article the New York Times Magazine (“Building ...
The New York taxicab rip-off
New York’s yellow taxicabs are iconic. So iconic, that I put one up on my blog’s masthead.
But news arrived this weekend of a “mind-boggling rip-off” in which cabbies were found price-gouging customers over the past two years – to the ...
Iraq: no self-determination, no democracy
Earlier this week, American commentators from across the political spectrum praised the Iraqi parliamentary elections. Some 60 to 65 percent turned out to vote, in some cases in defiance of bombs. The official results have yet to be announced.
The Iraqi people should be commended for their determination to make the best of a bad ...
Childe Hassam redux
When I saw rows and rows of American flags flying on Fifth Avenue in Manhattan the other day I was reminded of the flag paintings of the American impressionist artist Childe Hassam, made from 1916 ...
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.
