Subject: Horowitz Replies
Re: “Frame Game: White Whine”
From: David Horowitz
Date: Thu Mar 29 5:05 p.m. PT
I can understand how [William] Saletan is peeved that I—a conservative intellectual—should have gotten so much publicity and so much (liberal) media support for my efforts to unhorse a corrupt, leftwing black political leadership bent on encouraging African-Americans to butt their heads against the rest of the country and wind up frustrated, angry and grist for the next “civil rights” hustle. …
“To rectify the left’s crimes against Horowitz” (Saletan’s formulation) is actually not my agenda. My agenda is to diminish the “crimes” the hard left is allowed to commit against today’s students, including many whose views place them squarely on the social democratic side of things.
[To read this post in full, click here. William Saletan replied to Mr. Horowitz here, and many other readers joined the thread.]
Subject: The Reality of Evil
Re: “Culturebox: Newjack Nation—Living in a Prison State”
From: Dan Simon
Date: Wed Mar 28 11:43 a.m. PT
Punishment, like war, is not always the product of a confused or synthesized misperception of human evil; rather, it is often the product of a clear-eyed recognition of the fact of human evil. And after decades of disastrous flight from that recognition … it is lately no longer tenable to deny the reality that makes punishment a tragic necessity. That is why the prison critics, while decrying the agony that punishment inevitably inflicts on both punishers and punished, cannot, in the end, offer a plausible alternative. For, in truth, there is none.
[Find this post in full here.]
Subject: The Truth About Fatherhood
Re: “Seed: No Nobels, One ‘Failure,’ A Few Regrets”
From: Tom R.
Date: Fri Mar 30 10:13 a.m. PT
This lack of acceptance of the natural implications of fatherhood is what I would denote as the common thread of the Seed sample group. What is particularly important for me is what these men are missing by definition: my feeling that I will have had a decisive influence on my children’s lives which is unlike any other relationship that I can have with another set of persons.
[Find this post here.]
Subject: Radical Rabbi
Re: “Culturebox: Who Is Shmuley Boteach?”
From: Mangar
Date: Mar 28 9:03 p.m. PT
Inclusionist ideas have never been a detriment to a religion. (Besides, we can always clean them up later with revisionism. “Whaddaya mean we incorporated voodoo into Catholicism? It’s always been that way!”) Being in touch with the secular world is a way for a religion to diffuse itself throughout the weekdays of its adherents. … I say more power to Shmuley. Eventually, his ideas stand to run the same route of controversial to conventional that the idea of a heliocentric solar system did.
[Find this post here.]
Fray Notes:
We have a few recommendations for some Frays Revisited: Try a last visit to the Shelf of Shame list of literary omissions here for a hilarious story of revenge and the obligatory Ayn Rand reference. There are two more excellent posts on Alger Hiss here and here. And although the Oscars are done, Wilson the Volleyball gets a very high-grade discussion at the end of this “Culturebox“—scroll down to the Fray Notes.
Dan Simon, famed for being “annoyingly perceptive” (a phrase which might well apply to all the great Fray posters), got his star this week: See the post above. His comments here on this “Readme” were part of the best Fray of the week, which also included A.G. Android’s comment that “the highest form of Web discourse is The Fray.” How pleasingly perceptive of him.
Deep Comment on Life #1: We liked this from David W. Rochlin, who answered another Fray poster on political advertising by saying, “It is charming but naive of you … to suggest that a momentous choice in life, such as a decision to vote for a candidate, be a responsible decision and a result of a rational evaluation of the facts. Clearly, you have never married anyone.”
Deep comment on Life #2: The second-best Fray of the week (much to our surprise) turned out to be on ancient arcade computer games: Check out the article, “Remembrance of Things Blast,” read the Fray Notes, watch out for someone “absorbing laser fire and bouncing through the walls,” relive your arcade years, and then conclude sadly with Matt that “those were the days. … In some ways, growing up really sucks.”
