By

A recent front-page news summary in the Financial Times was headlined “Economists back abortion rights.” As an economist I had thought this topic was out of bounds for the profession, so I read the article with interest. When I subsequently examined the relevant evidence, it... Read More →

On Friday, September 24, I watched the U.S. House of Representatives debate—and pass—the so-called Women’s Health Protection Act (WHPA). Put forward by pro-abortion Democrats in the House as a means of enshrining Roe v. Wade in federal law, the legislation should be renamed the... Read More →

Recently I got off a bus from New England at the Port Authority in New York City. According to the employee at the information desk there are now only two ways to get to the upper level to access the street and subway, a very long flight of stairs or an elevator. A sign is posted... Read More →

Sometimes it seems as if the institutions of our seasick culture have embraced the same way of thinking, that is, that every problem is a public-relations problem crying out for a public-relations solution. This obsession with creating appearances instead of addressing realities... Read More →

The last time I saw the Twin Towers, they stood with amazing grace. Shimmering with the flaming colors of sunrise, the often gaudy-seeming weights at the lower end of the city’s skyline exuded a double-barreled beauty against a clear, brightening sky. Having grown up a few blocks... Read More →

[The following is adapted from a column that originally appeared on the (Italian) website The New Daily Compass (newdailycompass.com) and is reprinted with permission.] Since the beginning of the year, most of the reproductive rights focus has been on the restoration of United... Read More →

As I went through the paperwork, I was aware of a familiar hollow feeling in my chest. It was the one I had when my older son was diagnosed with autism. This past March, while the world was still in COVID-crisis mode, my husband and I were in a crisis of our own. We had applied... Read More →

At the risk of being labeled a heretic, I must confess that to my mind there’s something not quite right with G. K. Chesterton. I assume that many in this audience would strike the virtual match to my imagined pyre, and I would not blame them. Who am I to criticize one of the... Read More →

I have been reading The Mystery of the Charity of Joan of Arc, a play that French poet Charles Peguy wrote more than a century ago. For the French especially, Joan of Arc’s life and death are an inspiring patriotic touchstone to return to in times of national crisis or... Read More →

When I was in graduate school, using the word “agency” was a favorite signal of one’s in-group status. In the cutthroat world of graduate history seminars, “agency” is a way to criticize “tropes” about people in the past. A commonly called-out “trope” is that “subalterns,” or... Read More →