The good news from little Scotland is repeated in New Zealand this past weekend where the National Party won an unusually strong voter mandate (48 percent to the Labour Party’s 25 percent). The Internet-Mana Party that received a lot of international attention because it featured such endorsements as Edward Snowden and a figure called Kim Dotcom, got no seats in Parliament at all.
Believe it or not, having a luncheon in my honor Monday was a bit like getting married; it was lots of fun, but a surprisingly tense occasion. Before 170 guests at Seattle’s Harbor Club, Discovery’s President Steve Buri and other colleagues formally announced the new “Chapman Center on Citizen Leadership.” KVI radio host John Carlson emceed. Dr. Steve Hayward, the Ronald Reagan biographer (among other literary accomplishments), spoke on leadership–citing lessons from Churchill and Reagan–and State Rep. Hans Zeiger, who formally directs the center, explained why we need financial help to make the program work.
A crowd gathers:
Our friend and Discovery Institute board member, former U.S. Senator Slade Gorton, had a number of good ideas while in Congress (and since) that deserve fresh attention. Read More ›
Catholics and other Christians often appeal to the Just War doctrine of St. Augustine to decide whether force is justified in combatting armed evil. Many Christians have the de facto position of “Never.” But that usually is a mask for indifference or, worse, appeasement, as it was for many pacifists before World War II. Church congregations routinely are asked to pray for various persecuted and victimized peoples around the world, but somehow there seldom is any mention of Christians. Yet fellow Christians, one would think, should elicit especial concern, since the future of the Church is plainly challenged by persecution, and especially now by the arrant genocide going on in the Middle East. I have been appalled by the reluctance of Christian Read More ›
Author Mark Helprin (a onetime fellow of Discovery Institute) long ago coined the term “criminalization of policy differences” to describe the tactic of finding legal grounds for suing–and therefore helping handicap–political opponents. For some reason, Democrats seem to employ the tactic most often. Today, of course, we are seeing it in in Travis County (Austin)–where, to borrow an old saying about prosecutors’ influence on the grand juries they call–even a ham sandwich could be indicted. Governor Rick Perry is planning to run for president, so what better way to slow him down than to indict him on some bogus charge? Perry is right to be indignant. He’ll win, but the legal process could well drag on for years, especially if the case is heard Read More ›
A new series, The Roosevelts, by the celebrated documentarian, Ken Burns, will air next month (starting September 14), bringing to PBS viewers an early to mid-20th Century world that by now seems exotic. Almost everyone from those times, after all, is gone. But Burns’ evocation of those days may well have some new things to tell us about our own world. Consider Eleanor Roosevelt, who is featured in the series, along with her uncle, Theodore Roosevelt, and her husband (and distant cousin), Franklin. Mrs. Roosevelt is famous for her role as a first lady with a public life that buttressed, but also went beyond her husband’s. Among other unique activities, she personally wrote a daily newspaper column–“My Day”–for nearly three decades, Read More ›
One of the dreariest and most familiar of stories in philanthropy is that of the sound and good person of wealth who leaves his fortune to a foundation, only to have that foundation after his death depart on adventures he probably would have opposed and certainly would not have supported. (Ford, Rockefeller, MacArthur, to name a few.) A choice temptation is to use foundation dollars to campaign for government dollars. Community Foundations have a better reputation and record. State Representative (and Discovery’s director for the Chapman Fellows in Civic Leadership) writes in Philanthropy Daily about the 100th Anniversary of community foundations. There is less mission creep among community foundations than among foundations in general, though the temptations are always there. Regardless, many towns Read More ›
