Speakeasy Plutarch
Dan Okrent's new book suggests that Prohibition should be regarded an America's greatest venture into social engineering. Making alcohol hard to get was the one thing that it didn't do.
continue readingSam Schulman
Sam Schulman, Senior Advisor/Editorial Outreach to the George W. Bush Institute, Dallas, was publisher/co-founder of The American and Wigwag, partner in a direct markeing agency , and taught English literature at Boston University, M.I.T., and Yale. He writes for Commentary, The Spectator (London), the Wall Street Journal, and the Weekly Standard, and lives near Charlottesville, Virginia.
Articles by Sam Schulman
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Good Writers. Bad Men. Does It Matter?
V. S. Naipaul (pictured) and Charles Dickens were great writers. Both were responsible for enormous cruelties in their personal lives. Sam Schulman wrestles with the question of a writer's character.
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True Grit
A hobo wearing a beaten-up farmer’s hat lounges uneasily on a dusty Old West main street outside the saloon. He’s out of place. Two hard-faced cowboys ride up to the saloon.
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True Grit
A hobo wearing a beaten-up farmer’s hat lounges uneasily on a dusty Old West main street outside the saloon. He’s out of place. Two hard-faced cowboys ride up to the saloon. As the first of them walks past him toward the swinging doors, the hobo mutters a question in a Mexican accent (no wonder he looks out of place). “Are you Dan Ritchy?” When the cowboy turns to answer yes, his coat falls open. He’s wearing a sharp-looking suit and a gaudily tooled gun belt. He’s a gunfighter. Has he ever been in Del Rio, the Mexican asks. A long time ago, says the gunfighter, exasperated because these challenges from nobodies are tedious. “Five years ago,” the Mexican corrects him; that was when the gunslinger killed his friends. Ritchy is more amused than sorry or frightened: “You waited a long time!” “It took me five years to learn to use a gun,” says the Mexican. Sighing, the gunfighter tells his sidekick to count to three so he can get this killing over with — a busman’s holiday. But the Mexican easily outdraws Ritchy and kills him. In the intervening five years, Anthony Quinn (for it is he), must have spent thousands of hours practicing alone. Malcolm Gladwell would have been proud.
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The Art of Tithing
We’ve all heard the old saying that it is better to give than to receive. Oddly, it doesn’t always feel better, but I expect you can remember the pleasant awareness of your own goodness in giving to a charity or church, especially if you gave slightly more than you could comfortably afford. It’s a feeling some churches do everything they can to cultivate, especially in America, where everyone is free to give or not give as they please. Tithing, giving a tenth of your income, is the gold standard of generosity, an ideal to aspire to, and, for a dedicated minority, a living reality.
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The Waiting Game: The struggle to find organ donors is more difficult with a less-than-generous public policy
On December 23, 1954, Richard Herrick got the most remarkable Christmas present from his identical twin brother: a kidney. Doctors at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston performed the first successful kidney transplant on the twenty-four-year-old Coast Guard veteran. Today, a painting by Joel Babb commemorating the operating-room scene hangs in the Countway Library at Harvard Medical School.
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Modest Extremes: Why an Observant Jew Understands Sexuality Better Than Hugh Hefner
Seven years ago I noticed that many young women were becoming disenchanted with casual sex. Meanwhile, waiting for The One was seen as a bit pathological or for those with “hangups.” Single at the time, I decided to pen a defense of sexual modesty. I knew that my arguments – for instance, that preserving the erotic depends on a sense of mystery – might be challenged, but having just graduated college, I was naive enough to imagine that dissenters would marshal arguments. Nothing prepared me for the onslaught of tongue-lashings I would receive from my elders. Fellow writers likened me to an SS officer, accused me of wanting to drag women into burkas – and these were the more polite reactions. My favorite attack came from the Nation, which solemnly foretold I would “certainly be embarrassed” and regret my stance “in a few years.” I should be ashamed of myself. To some baby boomers, I would learn, modesty is much worse than adultery.
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