Column

Did you take the SATs to try to get into college? Your kids may not have to. More than 1,300 schools have become "test optional," meaning students need not submit SAT scores. Some, like the entire University of California system, now won't even look at scores. There are seemingly legitimate reasons to oppose the tests. Richer kids often get tutoring that gives them an advantage. Critics claim…

At his news conference last Thursday, President Biden said of Georgia's new voting law, "It makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle." Jim Crow was not a person, but unlike most former presidents, he has a museum: The Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia. The name came from a song written by Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice. From the museum webpage: "Rice, a struggling 'actor' (he did short solo skits…

When I heard Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas say last Sunday on "Meet the Press" that the southern border "is closed," it immediately brought to mind claims by Iraq's former information minister -- dubbed "Baghdad Bob" and "Comical Ali" (aka Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf) -- about Saddam Hussein's superior military forces. During the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, al-Sahaf said with…

Before dawn, dozens of union activists invaded a strawberry farm, shouting through bullhorns. This frightened workers and infuriated the farm's owner, Mike Fahner, who thought that in America, owning property means you have a right to control access to that property -- your home is your castle, and all that. Not in California, where politicians allow union organizers to raid farms. "If I didn'…

San Francisco's Lowell High School is one of the top public high schools in California. Beginning with its 2021 freshman class, Lowell plans to switch from a merit-based admission system to that of a lottery. How good is Lowell? It ranked 68th nationwide by U.S. News last year.

Washington -- I was right. I have been right for over 50 years. Through those at times lonely years, I have been patronized by affluent magazines and newspapers for setting up The American Spectator as an organ of opinion that eschewed making a profit. I would cover our expenses in other ways. I did not ignore making a profit, but I had studied the plight of intellectual reviews and…

Oscar nominees were announced this week. The AP highlighted the record number of nominations of “actors of color ” and “a record year for women.” Today, such declarations are important in this “woke” media world. Future Oscars will have actual quotas for minority groups. Actor David Oyelowo praised the new standards, saying, “Anyone and everyone who is on that list of marginalized groups that…

This week, President Biden's military declared its first war ... on Fox News host Tucker Carlson. Carlson had committed the great sin of pointing out the oddity of the fact that the Biden White House had been promoting brand-new uniforms for pregnant soldiers, rather than America's military efficiency in the face of a rising Chinese military threat.

When a politician promises to “tell the truth,” as President Biden did in his nationally televised address  last Thursday, you can add that statement to familiar ones lacking the ring of sincerity. They include: “The gun isn't loaded;” “the microphone is off;” “if you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” and “I did not have sex with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.”

How would reparations be funded? Conservative writer Michael Medved estimates that only 5% of whites in America "bear any authentic sort of generational guilt for the exploitation of slave labor." Why should anyone but Democrats pay? Scholar Dinesh D'Souza notes that all but a "handful" of slave owners were Democrats. The Ku Klux Klan, at its height of power and popularity, was known by the…

Washington -- Years ago, I had a great coach in high school who was given to Solomonic apothegms. One of his favorites was, "Forget your grandparents." By that, he meant forget the arguments that issued from your grandparents' grudges with other grandparents. The high school he coached at was highly diverse, sufficiently diverse to have frequent warfare among the differing ethnic groups. My…

The vaccine rollout crawls forward. Most of us will spend weeks, or months, waiting. Great Britain did better. As of today, one-third of the English are already vaccinated, twice as many as in America. Why? A big reason is that our government decided to rigidly follow its regimen for the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines: two doses, about a month apart. But why insist on two doses? The Moderna and…

This week, Dr. Seuss Enterprises announced it would stop the sale and distribution of six classic volumes from the great children's author. Those volumes, said the company, violate its commitment to "messages of hope, inspiration, inclusion, and friendship." The books include portrayals of people "in ways that are hurtful and wrong."

I recently had to cancel a long-planned trip to South America, either because the countries I wanted to enter are closed or required up to a two-week quarantine in a hotel. It doesn't matter that I have been vaccinated and have repeatedly tested negative for COVID-19. Several countries in Europe I would like to visit are also closed. Ireland imposes a 2,000 Euro fine for anyone leaving the…