AFF's Doublethink

Along with 43 other states, Michigan offers a government incentive program for movie producers. The Great Lakes State has one of the nation’s most generous programs – subsidizing up to 32 percent of expenditures for film, television, music video, video game and other media projects done in the state. Essentially, this means that select qualified [...]

Today, “I do” seems to be one of the only surefire lines delivered at a wedding. The rest of the ceremony has become complicated as more and more marriages unite persons of different religious backgrounds: it’s not uncommon to witness a priest and rabbi at the same ceremony, readings from Gandhi and Genesis, or an [...]

Writing at Slate earlier this week, Julia Shaw noted that “these days, young, married couples are an anomaly.” I think she’s right. I also think that trying to convince women to marry in their young twenties by itemizing the perks of marriage is somewhat of a pointless endeavor. That said, when I get married later [...]

In December 1992, Wayne Lo, an 18-year-old student at Simon’s Rock College in Massachusetts, opened fire on students and faculty on the school’s campus. He smuggled a Chinese-made SKS semiautomatic assault rifle on campus in a guitar case and had the ammunition sent to his dorm room, and he used them to kill two people [...]

People don’t usually want to suffer, but we tend to honor those who do, especially when they suffer through conviction of some enduring principle. Think of Mother Theresa, Lu Xiabo, or the soldiers who fight America’s wars, however remote. Especially fixating are people who suffer through no or little fault of their own. Victor Hugo [...]

Lance Armstrong’s confession is sure to spark another frenzied hunt for the hundreds of still-unknown doctors, trainers, and athletes who have engaged in the doping business over the last decade. Fans of elite endurance sports, however, ought to abandon media-fueled hysteria and consider the revolutionary power these stigmatized techniques could hold for athletes and mankind. [...]

Guns: who needs ‘em? Should citizenry be permitted to own military-style assault weapons? Should they have guns at all? These are the questions furiously circulating around the public policy world in the wake of several recent shootings, the most notorious of which involved a preschool in Sandy Hook, Connecticut. But there’s a much more important [...]

Roasted leg of lamb tastes like Easter, turkey and dressing tastes like Thanksgiving, and as I discovered for the first time this month, mince meat pie tastes like Christmas. This is a pie not just rich in flavor, but in Christian tradition, Americana and history. When six friends joined us for brunch – featuring mince [...]

You know government has grown too big when it bans growing a garden in your own yard.  Such is the case in Orlando, but one family is fighting to restore common sense and constitutional boundaries on what the government says you cannot do with your land. Jennifer and Jason Helvenston are the Bonnie and Clyde [...]

Editor’s Note: The following piece is the final installment of a two-week series recalling ten of the best contributions to Doublethink. This item originally ran on March 16, 2009.  Many thanks to the three former Doublethink editors — Cheryl Miller of the American Enterprise Institute, James Poulos of The Huffington Post, and Reason Magazine’s Peter [...]

Editor’s Note: The following piece is the ninth installment of a two-week series recalling ten of the best contributions to Doublethink. Many thanks to the three former Doublethink editors — Cheryl Miller of the American Enterprise Institute, James Poulos of The Huffington Post, and Reason Magazine’s Peter Suderman — who assisted in compiling this list. [...]

Editor’s Note: The following piece, one of several written by Mollie Ziegler Hemingway for her regular Doublethink sex column, considered why men consume pornography and how it affects relationships. This piece is the seventh installment of a two-week series recalling ten of the best contributions to Doublethink. This item originally ran on February 26, 2006. [...]

Editor’s Note: Matthew Continetti explained in the following profile that noted religious skeptic Carl Sagan had his own unique religious vision.  Continetti’s piece is the sixth installment of a two-week series recalling ten of the best contributions to Doublethink. This item originally ran on July 8, 2007. Many thanks to the three former Doublethink editors [...]

Editor’s Note: The following piece, Kelly Jane Torrance’s interview with novelist Mark Helprin, is the fifth installment of a two-week series recalling ten of the best contributions to Doublethink. (This publication retains the editorial introduction provided when the interview was first published in 2006). Many thanks to the three former Doublethink editors — Cheryl Miller [...]

Editor’s Note: The following piece, Baylen Linnekin’s report on attempts to ban foie gras, is the fourth installment of a two-week series recalling ten of the best contributions to Doublethink. This item originally ran on July 8, 2007. Many thanks to the three former Doublethink editors — Cheryl Miller of the American Enterprise Institute, James [...]

Editor’s Note: The following piece, Michael Brendan Dougherty’s discussion of artists in society, is the third installment of a two-week series recalling ten of the best contributions to Doublethink. This item originally ran on May 6, 2008. Many thanks to the three former Doublethink editors — Cheryl Miller of the American Enterprise Institute, James Poulos [...]

A decades-old Minnesota law would have prohibited residents from utilizing online higher education resources like California-based Coursera under the guise of “consumer protection” had it not been for the public backlash last week. Minnesota Statutes 136A.61 to 136A.71 require postsecondary institutions to file with the state and pay a number of costly fees to protect [...]

Every parent should be able to have a say in his or her child’s future.  That is why the Institute for Justice has teamed up with the State of Indiana and two parents to defend the new Choice Scholarship Program from legal challenges by teachers’ unions.  This case will be argued in November before the [...]

James Joseph argues in “Ayn Rand’s Paradox” that Rand’s “defense of individual freedom provides a self-defeating apologia for the American welfare state.” Mr. Joseph’s essay takes the communitarian view that, without the bulwark of “natural community” (including “shared duties” or “natural duties and obligations” or “claims from direct community”), the individual becomes increasingly reliant on [...]

With late-night talk show host (and greatest White House Correspondents Dinner emcee since Don Imus) Jimmy Kimmel finally bumping Nightline and moving up half an hour to ABC’s 11:35 pm timeslot opposite Jay Leno and David Letterman, the showbiz media is collectively asking the same question: will Kimmel succeed in the timeslot where Conan O’Brien [...]

Called “arguably the greatest American in the 20th century,” during his 95 years, Norman Borlaug probably saved more lives than any other person. He is one of just six people to win the Nobel Peace Prize, the Congressional Gold Medal and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And yet Borlaug, who died three years ago today, is scarcely [...]

With Paul Ryan’s ascent to the Republican ticket, Ayn Rand returned to contemporary political conversation. Her artistic abilities aside – she has all the weaknesses of Wordsworth’s Romantics with none of their attendant strengths –Rand’s supporters tout her Objectivist individualism as an answer to the claims of Leviathan. But, paradoxically, her defense of individual freedom [...]

Poetry, says Plato, has no good place in a well-ordered society. The power it exercises over people can be dangerous, he believes, and the crowd it attracts is often undesirable. It could corrupt the young. Modern Americans may sympathize with this position if they fail to examine their assumptions about poetry. They may dismiss poetry [...]

Since fame & fortune knocked upon our door  I spend all my evenings all alone  Success has made a failure of our home – Elvis Costello, from his country album “Almost Blue” Earlier this month I was amused, but not exactly surprised, to find out that a handful of A-list country singers would be counterprogramming [...]

The Kim Il-Sung International Friendship Exhibition has a gift store. Walk up to a huge, windowless concrete complex in the middle of the woods. Put dingy surgical covers on your shoes. Leave all personal belongings at a security station. Walk through a single, structurally questionable metal detector manned by no fewer than six military personnel. [...]

Wolf: The Lives of Jack London James L. Haley, Basic Books, $17.99.   Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote facing a wall. He found his window to the cold meadows and deep forests of Massachusetts too distracting. Edith Wharton wrote in bed. I always picture her draped in white sheets, bed covers, and thin, lacy shawls—far removed from [...]

Starting a business in the middle of a recession.

Female sexuality may be seen as a distraction for politicians, but it’s also a powerful tool when used correctly. And as Palin’s campaign demonstrated, women are getting much more adept at using it to their advantage.

Why, one wonders, does Jon Stewart’s contempt focus on newsmen to the exclusion of the news makers? Why do Paul Begala and Tucker Carlson deserve scorn and humiliation, but not the leaders they follow lockstep on the left and right? Might it be because they offer easier and more tempting targets to Stewart, while taking aim at actual leaders might dry up his guest pool?

Zack Snyder’s adaptation of “Watchmen” is slavishly committed to the details of Alan Moore’s original comic book. From its opening sequence to its final moments, Mr. Snyder loyally renders the story as close to the comic book as humanly possible, meaning the need to move the action along often takes a back seat to speeding [...]

Barack Obama was not the first African-American elected to the presidency. By my count, he was the seventh. It was just that he was the first nonfiction one. While pundits marveled over the fact that Americans could elect a man one generation removed from Africa to their highest office, popular culture was way ahead of the curve.

The clock strikes midnight and our cigars are still lit. “Put those out, they’re illegal now!” shouts a man from across the room. He’s only joking, but his voice is tinged with gallows humor. From now on, complaints could bring in fines of $500 per day and the menacingly vague threat of “further administrative action” for any bar that racks up multiple violations. The nanny state is coming to Oregon.

A few years ago, no one would have predicted a site like www.SaveOurStarbucks.com. Created by entrepreneur Paul Konrardy after the financially troubled coffee chain announced in July that it would be closing 600 American stores, the site gives loyal customers a place to sign petitions urging the corporation to take their beloved shops off the [...]

All is the president of the eponymous David All Group (DAG), “the nation’s first conservative Web 2.0 agency.” All founded the group in 2007—the same year he launched Slatecard.com, a fundraising site for Republicans, and TechRepublican, a blog focusing on the intersection of politics and technology. All is not just looking to bridge the technological divide between Democrats and Republicans—he’s moving one step ahead.

It’s really no big deal to be a spy, adulterer or murderer when you live in Washington, D.C.

Bottle Shock captures the 1976 triumph of the then-young California wine industry, a scrappy mix of old world agrarian traditions and new world love of capitalism and technology.

This advice columnist doesn’t care if she hurts your feelings. Every week in a column syndicated in over 100 papers across America, Amy Alkon delivers hilariously hard-nosed counsel to thousands of clueless souls.

Amal is an unusually kind and gentle movie about the possibilities—and limits—of money and love.

There’s nothing wrong with bringing a musty classic onto the silver screen for a 21st-century update. But Julian Jarrold’s decision to adapt Waugh’s masterpiece as a “forbidden romance” melodrama is nothing short of literary vandalism.

What you can learn from a candidate’s choice of food.

A renegade cop is appealing, except when he’s busting down your door for the wrong reasons.

A visit to New York helps a guy realize how little Washington makes sense.

We’re interested in Paris Hilton because we’re interested in reality. Really.

From that very first fanny pack you spot on the Metro, you know that the annual Tourist Invasion of our Nation’s Capital has begun. As we brace for three months of excruciating, smothering heat and throngs of Girl Scouts on troop pilgrimages to the monuments, it’s nice to remember the benefits of being a local. [...]

If we get Monday off next week, that means we get Friday off this week, right? Yes! … If you work for the government.

Relive your college days. Or, if you didn’t go to college, pretend to “relive” them. I don’t know, just do whatever the guy next to you is doing. Take this ping pong ball.

Is love like jazz, or Wikipedia? And wouldn’tcha know it, there’s a lunch at Cato! Fill your week with events. FILL IT!

The actual harm caused in the Virginia Tech shooting is bad enough, but if we are not aware of our hurdles to judgment we make ourselves more vulnerable to tragic events than we already are.

Los Angeles appreciates the charity of the rich, but let’s forget museums. We could use a better transit system.

After a two week sabbatical, Washington Planner is back in action. March Madness fades away as baseball swings into season, the cherry blossoms put on their annual exhibition, and one can almost taste summer approaching. Given that it’s such a perfect time to be in Washington, make sure you get out and take advantage of [...]