Martha Stewart, the Polish girl from Nutley, New Jersey, is no different from many of America’s female celebrities in embracing a heady mix of Eastern spirituality and New World materialism. To Martha, a woman on the path to eternal enlightenment must practice yoga, worship healthy food and commune with her karmic bliss while painting her crown mouldings and furthering her career. [...]

  Ella Montgomery objects to what she calls sweeping anti-Americanism by a British commenter in the ongoing discussion on interracial marriage. Ella argues that America’s color-blindness combined with Judeo-Christian values make it resilient and able to inspire the loyalty and devotion of its citizens. She says Karen’s forecast of pending American collapse is alarmist and insulting. See discussion in Marriage and Race. If [...]

  Kristor, at View from the Right, explains with characteristic style why the West cannot be saved by a pragmatic Darwinism, also known as the Human Biodiversity (HBD) movement: The HBD’ers, bless their straightforward earnest hearts, miss the fact that under a Darwinist view of life, it is not a problem that the West, or humanity, should [...]

  Prayer dilates the airways of the soul. To pray is to breathe. Adoration, blessing, petition, and thanksgiving – all are the inhalations and exhalations of the spirit. We become blue in the lips, congested and asthmatic. Without these respirations, a tubercular lassitude takes hold.   Prayer is air. The windows are thrown open. We are released from a smothering [...]

  Jack Burhenne writes: I recently discovered your website, and I think you might appreciate the article below by Henry Makow. [Laura writes: I am familiar with Makow and agree with much of what he says. See discussion below about the difficulty in comparing the West with Muslim traditions.] I think the Muslim fear of American [...]

  Our 16-year-old son, who is homeschooled, is taking an online course called Big Books, Big Papers . He is currently reading one of the most famous big books, Tolstoy’s War and Peace. I was looking over his shoulder this morning and found this brief description which he had written of one of Tolstoy’s immortal characters: It is [...]

  Elsi writes: I just read your essay of several weeks ago about the Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Montreal.  Lakewood, New Jersey has another large Haredi settlement, and I have so much wished I could live with that kind of community, neighborliness, support, and abundance of generations.  Ethnicity and religion make for those bonds.  Ethnic Catholics used [...]