Freedom Is Not Enough: The Moynihan Report and America’s Struggle Over Black Family Life from LBJ to Obama James T. Patterson Basic Books, 2010; 264 pages, $33.95 Among the characteristics of what Angelo M. Codevilla calls America’s Ruling Class is widespread skepticism, expressed by Republicans as well as Democrats, of the ability of public policy […]
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The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America is Tearing Us Apart Bill Bishop Houghton Mifflin, 2008; 384 pages, $25.00 Red Families v. Blue Families: Legal Polarization and the Creation of Culture Naomi Cahn and June Carbone Oxford University Press, 2010; 288 pages, $29.95 When Mexican poet Octavio Paz went to Spain in 1937 […]
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Condom Nation: The U.S. Government’s Sex Education Campaign from World War I to the Internet Alexandra M. Lord The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009; 224 pages, $40.00 I’m someone who managed to reach adulthood without so much as thirty seconds’ worth of sex education. My parents were far too lace-curtain to broach the subject voluntarily; […]
Read MoreThe Promise of Family-Centric Tax Reform The weeks leading up to Tax Day, April 15, have always triggered a lot of groaning about the complexity and burden of the U.S. income tax, but in recent years the criticism has taken a new tack: that increasing numbers of Americans pay no income tax. The lament is […]
Read MoreHow the Pursuit of ‘Diversity’ Places the Military at Risk Americans who admire the United States military usually think of it as a conservative, traditional institution that maintains high standards, discipline, and core values unlike those of any institution in the civilian world. They might even think that the American military is a family-friendly institution. […]
Read MoreWhy ObamaCare Delivers the Wrong Family Medicine “When it comes to the cost of health care,” President Obama declared in 2009, “this much is clear: the status quo is unsustainable for families, businesses and government. America spends nearly 50 percent more per person on health care than any other country.” Americans indeed heard a great […]
Read MoreIf the study above, based upon the National Survey of Family Growth, does not deliver enough punches, a meta-analysis published the same month by psychologists at the State University of New York (Stony Brook) carries an even greater blow to the notion that shacking up before marriage is a good idea. Pulling together twenty-six studies […]
Read MoreIn greater numbers than ever, young American couples continue to fall for the bait-and-switch of premarital cohabitation. Summarizing data from the National Survey of Family Growth, a government report released in February indicates that the percentage of women ages 35 to 39 who had ever cohabited doubled in fifteen years: from 30 percent in 1987 […]
Read MoreWhile lamenting alleged sexism in the workplace for decades, the media have remained strangely quiet about the gender-specific impact of the recession that began in 2008. According a cover story in The Atlantic by Don Peck, the job losses of the past two years has turned into what others call a “he-cession,” which the deputy managing editor […]
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You’re Teaching My Child What? A Physician Exposes the Lies of Sex Education and How They Harm Your Child Miriam Grossman, M.D. Regnery, 2009; 246 pages, $24.95 It used to be that with spring’s herald, a young man’s fancy turned to love. Now, he can celebrate April as STD Awareness Month. Clicking on the Centers […]
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