The Divine Conspiracy Blog

Power Line on What ever happened to the “Duke 88″?

The “Duke 88″ consisted of 88 Duke professors who signed an ad which implicitly assumed that Duke lacrosse players raped a black stripper, an allegation that proved to be entirely fraudulent. The ad praised protesters who had put lacrosse players’ photos on “wanted” posters, associated “what happened to this young woman” with “racism and sexism,” and suggested that the lacrosse players were getting privileged treatment because of their race.

Read more here.

Steven Greenhut, author of the new book Plunder! How Public Employee Unions Are Raiding Treasuries, Controlling Our Lives And Bankrupting The Nation, has a column on the plundering of California.

The New Yorker profiles Grace Kelly.

A review of Roger Scruton’s I Drink Therefore I Am: A Philosopher’s Guide to Wine.

Slate‘s most popular articles of 2009.

New Research: Why Never Spanking Might Be Worse for Kids Than Spanking Them.

A couple weeks ago I heard a news report that social network site Facebook now surfaces as a key factor in about 20% of divorce cases. This Psychology Today article explains how to effectively deal with the return of “lost loves.”

Religion Dispatches on Religion at Decade’s End.

This time around, there’s no escaping the fact that our collective feet are now planted firmly in the twenty-first century. And it is worth reflecting on what this dawning perspective (of seeing ourselves as twenty-first century people) implies for the way we think about, and talk about, religion today… as a not-so-new century readies the celebrations for its ten-year-old birthday.

More.

Atlantic on The Science of Success.

Most of us have genes that make us as hardy as dandelions: able to take root and survive almost anywhere. A few of us, however, are more like the orchid: fragile and fickle, but capable of blooming spectacularly if given greenhouse care. So holds a provocative new theory of genetics, which asserts that the very genes that give us the most trouble as a species, causing behaviors that are self-destructive and antisocial, also underlie humankind’s phenomenal adaptability and evolutionary success. With a bad environment and poor parenting, orchid children can end up depressed, drug-addicted, or in jail—but with the right environment and good parenting, they can grow up to be society’s most creative, successful, and happy people.

Read the rest here.

The New Yorker profiles Whole Foods’ C.E.O. John Mackey.