The Fifth Column

It’s official. New York City has become a quagmire. It’s been almost six hours since the transit strike began and no resolution has been rea...

Mark Twain liked to say that history doesn’t repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes. If that is true, what do we do with a generation that p...

Years ago, Max Weber asserted the Protestant work ethic made America and England great. While that may be true, it is much easier to demonst...

As many of you know, to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, Pope Benedict XVI recently annou...

‘Tis the season for complaining. Specifically, ‘tis the season for Christians to chatter and moan about America’s secular culture. “Happy Ho...

Hillary’s campaign for President is dead. It wasn’t Vince Foster that killed it. It wasn’t the Travelgate scandal. It wasn’t her radically p...

Pre-literate societies marked territory by beating children. Every few years, the elders of the community would take a group of children on ...

What a difference a couple of weeks makes! Obama: American Girl Boycott Threats ‘Silly’ Date: Tuesday, October 25, 2005 By: Emily Fredri...

The recent Muslim torching of French property is widely seen as the beginning of the end of Europe. But a closer inspection of the evidence ...

We lost. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has quashed the lawsuit by parents who sued the school district that exposed their children to s...

Stealth Candidates Regular readers of the Fifth Column might have noted that I stayed very quiet on the Harriet Miers nomination. There'...

Oh, here's another winner. Recently, Loretto "Catholic" school in Sacramento was forced to fire a drama teacher who had been ...

Here's a wonderful URL to kick off the fact that my latest book is shipping: http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/religion/story/13752388p...

“Self-published? Ah, I see. Well, we don’t work with that class of material, if you get my meaning.” So said the book review critic, and the...

Many people seem to have an odd idea that homeschoolers cage their children in the house. The following is a vignette passed on to me by my ...

Within the next two weeks, my newest book, Designed to Fail: Catholic Education in America should begin to ship to bookstores across the co...

As at least thirty-four former New Orleans inhabitants would tell you if they could, hospitals are deadly places. According to both the New ...

Adolescence is a virtue, at least when it comes to the economy. This point is not a new one, but it leads to an interesting way of looking a...

Bill Bennett has committed the horrendous crime of agreeing with professors from Stanford university and the University of Chicago. After a...

As I've noted over the last few weeks, the MSM histrionics over the Superdome and Convention Center situations seemed unwarranted by the...