Peter Wood is the President of the National Association of Scholars. He is author of 1620: A Critical Response to the 1619 Project and A Bee in the Mouth: Anger in America Now.
I have on the desk two yo-yos. One is from the brand Duncan – the ‘Imperial’ model. The other is from the brand Yomega – the ‘Fireball’. Which is better? The Imperial is the top-of-the-line Duncan model, a classic, that gave warrant to company’s 1960s slogan: ‘If it isn’t a Duncan, it isn’t a yo-yo’. The Imperial is the
The smug world of public radio in the United States received a smart slap in the face last week. It was delivered by Uri Berliner, a long-time NPR reporter, who went public with his inside story of how NPR cooks the news. NPR responded by suspending him and then securing his resignation. As this unfolded,
In the end, Barack Obama, Penny Pritzker, 700-some members of the faculty, the mighty voice of the Harvard Crimson and the entire nomenclature of the Diversity, Equality and Inclusion movement could not save her from herself. Claudine Gay resigned as president of Harvard University after a month of relentless criticism. In principle, her feckless performance on
Claudine Gay is the self-declared ‘transformational’ president of Harvard university. She campaigned for the job by promising to retire the old Harvard of privilege and patrimony and to bring into being a new Harvard founded on principles of anti-racism and social justice. How is she doing? At the moment, she is a bit distracted by allegations
Professor Ibram X. Kendi has run into a spot of trouble. His fantastically funded Center for Antiracist Research – more than $43 million (£35 million) in the first two years alone – at Boston University is in financial meltdown. What happen to the $10 million (£8 million) from Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey? Where are the donations from
Professor James H. Sweet is a temperate man. He seeks to avoid extremes. But he also seeks to be bold in his temperance. You can do that by emphatically stating an opinion that seems above reproach. But Professor Sweet miscalculated. His emphatic bromide blew up, and he was left offering emphatic apologies. For those who
What is America? The answer to that simple question can get you into a lot of trouble. Or it can propel you to the Oval Office. You can try to run away from the question with adverbs. ‘Well, historically, America was the name a European mapmaker slapped on the unexplored continents across the Atlantic.’ Maybe
If I wanted to persuade my fellow Americans to eat more cheese, I would begin by launching a campaign to ban cheese. This might start with the argument cheese clogs arteries or lowers IQ. I’d find some doctors willing to testify that cheese inhibits testosterone, and some other doctors to insist it fouls up estrogen.
31 min listen
Freddy Gray talks to the author and President of the National Association of Scholars Peter Wood about the prevalence of anger in modern America.
New York The western world seems not just unhappy, but intoxicated with anger. It is the kind of anger that feeds on itself. Offence is not just taken but relished, and multiplied as in a hall of mirrors. I have a name for this kind of anger. A few years ago, in a book about
