Critical Mass - Features

Dinner, with Commentary

Fri, 18 May 2007 20:16:13 +0000

On Wednesday May 16, 2007 I was honored to attend the third annual Norman Podhoretz Lecture, hosted by the great New York-based neo-conservative magazine, Commentary. My record of attendance at the Commentary Podhoretz Dinners has been perfect so far, and in writing this piece I am deftly positioning myself as the unofficial Commentary Dinner Chronicler, who sees all and writes about everything he thinks he understands.

Abortion Politics Rekindled -- The 2008 Candidates Weigh In

Thu, 19 Apr 2007 17:25:05 +0000

The Supreme Court’s recent decision in the matter of Gonzales v. Carhart, which upholds the federal ban on partial-birth abortion, is undoubtedly a victory for pro-lifers and unborn Americans. More than three decades after the Court invented the right to abortion in Roe v. Wade, its newest members have begun the process of restoring the difficult question of abortion to the American people and their elected representatives. Granted, this recent ruling only shows modest deference to the voting public, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Lamont Loses at Yale

Fri, 26 Jan 2007 06:12:41 +0000

On Wendesday night, defeated ex-candidate for the US Senate in Connecticut Ned Lamont came to the Yale Political Union to give an opening speech in favor of the resolution that “Congress should force the President to withdraw from Iraq.”

The remarkable thing about the debate was that Lamont lost: after his speech and the five student speeches that followed, the YPU voted 26 to 44 with nine abstentions against the resolution: a defeat so resounding that even I was surprised.

Yale's Political Union

Mon, 15 Jan 2007 01:37:51 +0000

Now that I have returned to weekly posting, it seems appropriate that I return as well to my former custom of reporting on each week’s Tory Party debate. This is the week before the kickoff of Yale’s Spring term, and so I’ll use it to give you an overview of the Yale Political Union.

The Yale Curriculum

Mon, 08 Jan 2007 15:44:23 +0000

In 1995 Yale had to take the unprecedented and exceptionally embarrassing step of returning a $20 million donation. Lee Bass, who graduated in 1979, had made the gift in 1991 with the stipulation that the money be used to create a Western Civilization program. The “Western Civilization” part was the problem.

Death of the Yale Man

Mon, 01 Jan 2007 16:15:13 +0000

When Yale’s Tory Party debated “The Yale Man is Dead, and the Yale Woman Killed Him” last year, the resolution failed by a large margin. Some believed the Yale Man was still alive (I was one of them) but a larger group voted no because they agreed that the Yale Man was dead but not that the ‘Yale Woman’ was responsible.

I had asserted in that debate that so long as one man at Yale applauded chivalry, the Yale Man lived. Since then I have changed my mind, because a tiny minority of Yale men who are gentlemen cannot outweigh the large majority who are not.

And so I must report that the Yale Man is dead of assisted suicide -- assisted by the Yale feminist, a special kind of woman-hating pseudo-man.

The Progressivism of Facebook

Maynard Hutchins — Tue, 05 Sep 2006 23:34:38 +0000

Being the good college students that we are, and likely either procrastinating during the first weeks of classes or waiting for school start, many of you, like me, probably noticed some interesting things over Facebook this morning. They have instituted a new 'layout' including 'feeds' which constantly update with what all your friends are up: who they’ve friended, whose wall they’ve posted on, what groups they’ve joined, what parts of their profile they’ve edited, etc. And you, like almost every other user of the site, probably found this to be extremely creepy. The first word to came to my mind was "stalker." And the new tools are perfectly suited for such hobbies. Sure, stalking was always possible via facebook; but it used to require effort and you could still rest assured that the proper privacy settings would hide even the existence of your account from anyone who was not your friend. Now, though, stalking isn't only made easier, it is practically encouraged!

The Dying Right to Self Defense

Sun, 27 Aug 2006 02:41:38 +0000

Britain is apparently dissatisfied with the results of their confiscating every privately owned handgun in the UK (in the first year after the ban, London’s gun crime rate tripled). Unable to understand why this policy has had so bizarre an effect, the British Government has finally found a solution: take away knives too.

Critical Mass In The Second Year

Mon, 07 Aug 2006 12:39:40 +0000

Dear Readers,

We’ve come to the end of a brief vacation from blogging, and we’re now back online with new changes to our layout, designed to convey the most information in the simplest manner.

We will be conducting a unique experiment – running three blogs simultaneously, side by side. Check this features section every few days for new magazine-style articles by the editors.

Read the Back Talk section for the type of piece you were reading before – posts sent in by a growing body of students at universities from across the country (we run from Yale to U. Alaska). The one difference is that now you can write for us too – if you’ve got an idea that touches on the college conservative, by all means send it to us.

Our third section, The Quad, will provide trenchant, rapid-fire updates throughout the day. It will be written by the editors, and a select group of Quad Bloggers – check our Writers’ page to see who’s become a Quad Blogger and to read their bios.

Hope you’ll stick with us as we get ready to enter our second academic year. We ask you to help us give college conservatives the chance to talk to each other – and to the world.

Sincerely,

The Editors

Knifed by the Judiciary

Fri, 14 Jul 2006 17:24:26 +0000

I was looking around on the internet yesterday, shopping for a new knife. I usually carry a folder on my person – chalk it up to a general interest in pointed objects. After settling on a knife I wanted to buy, I switched over to perusing the Connecticut knife laws. My question: would this 3.5” blade be illegal? The answer: maybe.