Free Republic

Tacked to my wall is a lithograph of the famous Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington. For many years, it graced my mother's one-room schoolhouse in Lime Rock, N.Y. Antiquarian relic or enduringly relevant image? The same question may be asked of the "little red schoolhouse" itself, whose reality and legend are the subject of "Small Wonder." Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor at New York University, sets out to tell "how -- and why -- the little red schoolhouse became an American icon." Mr. Zimmerman proves a thoughtful and entertaining teacher. First, the chromatic debunking: One-room schools were often white and...

Peace-Loving Conservatives by Jeffrey Tucker 8/16/08 Ain't My America: The Long, Noble History of Antiwar Conservatism and Middle-American Anti-Imperialism By Bill Kauffman, Metropolitan Books, $25, 304 pages In my hometown, the peace rallies are always sponsored by the Unitarians. Actually, it is they who are the participants too. This is not a highly heterogeneous group. In fact, you know them already: highly educated, ideologically driven according to conventional left-wing moorings, attracted to fashionable causes like global warming and the mortal threat posed by plastic grocery bags, and hyper-tolerant of all points of view except those with which they disagree.