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As the Chinese coronavirus shuts down our economy and locks in our homes, we are discovering stock boys matter and Hollywood celebrities do not. Out there in the shit, out there in the danger, out there touching countless surfaces that could be infected, out there working punishing hours for low wages are the people we too often overlook and take for granted — even though they are the ones who keep our world turning. Away from their families, risking illness, America’s farm workers, truck drivers, grocery store workers, sanitation workers, and delivery people, are holding together the slender thread that...

In a wide-spanning discussion with Professor Jordan Peterson of the University of Toronto, Camille Paglia argued that Women’s and Gender Studies departments should be defunded. “The English Department had taken a century to develop,” Paglia began. “All of a sudden, to create a department with a politicized agenda from the start taught by people without any training in that field? What should be the parameters of the field? What should be the requirements of the field? How about biology? If you are going to be discussing gender, that should be a number one requirement.” Paglia argued that active programs in...

The current presidential campaign is blowing up lots of political myths. For years, the conventional lament was that the "wrong" Bush had run for president in 2000. George W. Bush was supposedly tongue-tied. He was said to be polarizing. He was derided as too much the twangy, conservative Texas Christian. If only his younger, softer-spoken brother, then–Florida governor Jeb Bush, had run instead! So the myth went. Jeb was said to be far more bipartisan and judicious. Jeb, not W., was deemed by many to be the more likable and more competent descendent of their father, former president George H....

....They may want the attention, keeping their profile up for future book sales or speaking fees. Remember, every place they go (almost), local cameras are there and will talk about candidate X on the local news, not to mention the constant national television presence. They may be a message candidate, anxious to use the limelight to promote a specific issue or doctrine (think anti-war presidential candidate Rep. Dennis Kucinich in 2004 and 2008). You know the saying "hope springs eternal"? Yes it does. Improbable does not mean impossible. Hundreds of "what ifs" swirl through a campaign on life support. "What...

Political reporters make for lousy gravediggers. Find a primary, pick a day, and I can point you to a story pronouncing the campaign “over” or “almost over” or over, pending the judgment of a proverbial Fat Lady. Let’s make it easy and start last month. On Jan. 10, as Romney was winning New Hampshire, NPR quoted a Republican strategist who counted the margins and pronounced the race “over.” On Jan. 18, the Los AngelesTimes informed us that South Carolina’s primary “could essentially end” the Santorum and Gingrich campaigns. Two days later, NBC News told us that a Romney win in...

It's a trend that would seem to defy conventional wisdom: As public school spending has declined in California in recent years, student achievement test scores have gone up. Statewide, school districts spent 6 percent less from 2008 to 2010, but the percentage of second- to seventh-grade students scoring proficient on the state's standardized English test rose from 48 percent to 55 percent. In the Sacramento region, the same held true. School districts in the four-county region cut annual spending by about $120 million, or 4.4 percent, from 2008 to 2010, hampered by the lousy economy and state funding cuts. That...

The great American engine of democracy is beginning to build up a head of steam, and it remains the finest device created by man to organize collective human action. Two months ago, the conventional wisdom held that Washington would do nothing of consequence to start dealing with our fiscal crisis. Certainly that was the political base line for President Obama’s Feb. 14 budget proposal for 2012, which, while roundly condemned as a call to inaction, was seen as politically “shrewd.” Then, about a month ago, the Republican-led House of Representatives passed $61 billion in budget cuts for the remainder of...

The reaction to the substance of Arizona's immigration law has been predictably divided. Conservatives claim the law is necessary to clamp down upon a porous border, while liberals claim the law legalizes racial profiling. The reaction to the politics of the law, by contrast, has been much more unified among commentators. Most Democrats and many Republicans have suggested the law will be at least somewhat damaging to the Arizona Republican Party. California is frequently held up as the template for what could go wrong for the Republicans. The story goes that before 1996, the California Republican Party performed well, holding...

Soothsaying Washington RHETORICAL pop quiz: ¶Who was more dead, Hillary Rodham Clinton a week ago or John McCain six months ago? ¶Whose nomination was more inevitable, Mrs. Clinton’s six months ago or Barack Obama’s two weeks ago? Both questions are of course moot — if not ridiculous in retrospect (as fleeting as Rudy’s front-runner status or the media swoon over Fred Thompson). Yet they inspire a proclamation that might actually be true: The accuracy rate of “conventional wisdom” in this presidential election has plummeted to new lows. The economist John Kenneth Galbraith coined the term “conventional wisdom” in “The Affluent...

Now, What If…? Now, what if our ideals destroy our sense of reality and lead us down the wrong path? What if Bush is really a great president? By Mogens Rukow What if Bush…? What if Islam…? Think, what if the intelligentsia…? What if multicultural…? Think, what if Arafat…? What if my a.. was…? What if you could go on forever? Now, what if there existed the equivalent of contrafactual history writing? What if there were the equivalent of hypothesizing what the world would be like out if history hadn’t turned out the way it did? What if Hitler had...

Mount Shasta Glaciers Defy Global Warming, Grow  John Iander Reporting (CBS13) MOUNT SHASTA The debate over global warming has taken a pretty odd twist in Northern California. Up on Mount Shasta, the glaciers are not behaving like you'd expect. Big mountains often produce their own weather patterns. Mount Shasta, at 14,162 feet seems to have a mind of its own these days. Shasta has seven glaciers. The biggest is the one on the middle, Whitney Glacier. What has surprised scientists about the glacier is that if the theories about global warming are true, the glacier ought to be shrinking,...

Well, the ISG -- the Illustrious Seniors' Group -- has released its 79-point plan. How unprecedented is it? Well, it seems Iraq is to come under something called the "Iraq International Support Group." If only Neville Chamberlain had thought to propose a "support group" for Czechoslovakia, he might still be in office. Or guest-hosting for Oprah. But, alas, such flashes of originality are few and far between in what's otherwise a testament to conventional wisdom. How conventional is the ISG's conventional wisdom? Try page 49: "RECOMMENDATION 5: The Support Group should consist of Iraq and all the states bordering Iraq,...

If President Bush wants to make a "diversity" pick for a Supreme Court nomination, must he swim shallow or deep in the pool of conservative minority and female possibilities? Conventional wisdom last week suggested that Bush, after tapping Judge John Roberts, a white male, for the position of chief justice, was unlikely to name another white male for the remaining high court vacancy, the seat currently held by Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, the first female justice. Of course, conventional wisdom immediately after O'Connor announced her impending retirement held that Bush would maintain or increase diversity on the high court in...

I don't know why I care about his show, except it's unusual and I happen to be up at that ungodly hour, switching my remote back and forth between Imus' and C-Span's Washington Journal. Imus in the morning is for those who are into the news/political media. He's realized there are a few of us who pay attention to the shout shows, as if they were sports events, and that can be entertaining especially when there are great political controversies or debates developing. His cronies are ridiculously demuring, at times. I sense a lot of the impromtue humor is partly...

Fact or Fiction? Is gasoline more expensive than ever? Do you think urban sprawl is ruining America? You might not think so after watching John Stossel's "Myths, Lies and Nasty Behavior." [...] Coming Up on 2020 Coming Up on 20/20 * Tonight on "20/20" at 10 p.m.

"At this point, I believe, it's safe to say that unless something happens to change the dynamics and circumstances of this race, Bush will lose." - Charlie Cook on July 25 "Neither side is likely to win big, but the odds of a Bush blowout win seem lower than those of a Kerry blowout, barring some dramatic event such as a major terrorist attack." - Charlie Cook on July 27 "President Bush must have a change in the dynamics and the fundamentals of this race if he is to win a second term." - Charlie Cook on August 10 "It...

<p>BATON ROUGE - Not since 1971 have we had such a long list of gubernatorial candidates.</p> <p>That was the year there were 17 candidates on the Democratic Party primary ballot and two on the Republican primary ballot. Conducted in the same polls at the same time, one had to be a Republican to vote in the Republican primary and vice versa.</p>

Liberal Social Fictions By Robert Locke FrontPageMagazine.com | July 24, 2002 There are a number of liberal social fictions that we all agree to believe in, or pretend to, because ... well, because everyone else does, and because the smooth functioning of liberal society requires it. Let’s pop a few.One of the worst sins in the PC calendar is "treating someone like a sex object." But it seems to me that this is entirely appropriate, given that human beings are sex objects. I mean, we are neither disembodied souls nor neuter, which is what it would actually mean for us...