There are a few reasons why ebook sales have been declining over the past four years. They doubled in price, when publishers gained control over pricing, instead of Amazon or Kobo charging their own. You cannot loan an ebook to a friend and cannot resell an ebook, once you have finished it. Lots of people have embraced Overdrive, and are borrowing ebooks from the public library. In 2018 65 different library systems each loaned out more than one million ebooks in the space of a year; one system, Harris County Public Library in Texas, loaned out more than two million ebooks.
— Read on goodereader.com/blog/e-book-news/our-love-affair-with-ebooks-is-over

Dozens of people — including college coaches and Hollywood actresses — indicted.
— Read on www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2019/03/12/dozens-indicted-alleged-massive-case-admissions-fraud

Standardized testing is nothing but conformist tripe. Always has been, always will be.

First, let’s reflect on the nature of conservatism. Its master theoretician remains Russell Kirk, the founder of post-war American conservatism. I am fond of this Kirk quote: “The attitude we call conservatism is sustained by a body of sentiments, rather than by a system of ideological dogmata. It is almost true that a conservative may be defined as a person who thinks himself such. The conservative movement or body of opinion can accommodate a considerable diversity of views on a good many subjects, there being no Test Act or Thirty-Nine Articles of the conservative creed.”

Thus conservatism is really a habit of mind or orientation of sentiment. It is a way of thinking about man, society, and the relationship between the two. It has much more to say about how we treat these topics than what we say about them. It would be wrong to conclude that any position can be conservative so long as it is theorized in the “right” way. But it nonetheless remains true that conservatism is primarily a modifier, an adjective. This is why the phrase “conservative liberal” need not be a contradiction in terms. In fact, many of the greatest thinkers in the conservative tradition—Acton, Tocqueville, even Burke himself—are best classified under this label.
— Read on www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/why-true-conservatism-means-anarchy/

Lewis was, as Dr. Como so correctly notes, always his own man, and his own forceful actions toward colleagues, friends, family, and students—tended to attract or repulse those around him, with little middle ground for neutrals. Those who loved him, loved him dearly. Those who despised, despised him just as dearly. Dr. Como brilliant explains Lewis’s playful and deep love of myth, his extraordinary charity (quite similar to that of Russell Kirk), his normalization of the genre of science fiction, his rather complex and sometimes downright bizarre relations with women, and his vast reading of every possible book. The latter, especially, matters to Lewis’s own writings, as many of his articles and books are really gothic autobiographical reflections of his readings (again, quite similar to that of Russell Kirk).
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/03/james-como-introduction-cs-lewis-bradley-birzer.html

To the myth: man escapes the devil, does good, and gets the girl. God bless you, Jack Kirby.

John Zmirak
So the Democrats couldn’t bring themselves to pass a resolution denouncing anti-Semitism. Until, that is, they’d diluted the resolution by including almost every other kind of prejudice, including the made-up, politicized crime of “Islamophobia.” It had just a few exceptions. White people, males, and Christians are not included among the groups that Congress forbids you to hate.

That exclusion is telling. It tells you that the ideology reigning today has no interest in fairness. Or even in fighting hate. It wants to direct that hate toward acceptable targets. Toward “out-groups” that once were “in-groups,” which are now legitimate scapegoats. This is precisely the worldview which philosopher Rene Girard described as Victimism. He also said that it was the ideology of Antichrist.
— Read on stream.org/why-did-obama-import-a-somali-congressional-district-for-ilhan-omar-to-represent/

A fascinating article.

Warner Bros. has big plans for Batman’s 80th anniversary – Superhero News
— Read on superheronews.com/warner-bros-has-big-plans-for-batmans-80th-anniversary/

Many on the left believe that as a woman of color, a Muslim, and an immigrant, Omar cannot, by definition, be a purveyor of hate and prejudice. One way that identity politics manifests is that those who are considered oppressed receive immunity to do things that those considered more privileged cannot do. Hence many Democrats, particularly members of the Congressional Black Caucus, sought to defend Omar rather than to disavow her.
— Read on www.nationalreview.com/2019/03/democratic-surrender-on-anti-semitism/

How blind does one have to be? Racism is racism is racism.

I have written something close to 1,000,000 words for internet essays over the past eight or so years. Some of these have been historical vignettes; some have been album reviews; and some have been bizarre and personal musings. Students often ask me how I can write so much. By what motivation? To what purpose? Using what tools? Thinking of which topics? As a professor, of course, I spend a considerable amount of my professional time teaching writing. I will freely admit, if I do it well at all, I do it far more by example than by explaining mechanics.
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/03/loving-tools-writing-bradley-birzer.html

At Hyde Brothers Books in Fort Wayne, Indiana, in the fall of 2001, I found a first American edition hardback of Christopher Dawson’s seminal 1942 book, The Judgment of Nations, published by Sheed and Ward. Hyde Brothers, to this very day, remains my all-time favorite used bookstore, and I can state with absolute certainly that the discovery of the Judgement of Nations—especially after conversations with Gleaves Whitney and Winston—changed my entire world and outlook upon it. I spent my Thanksgiving break that fall reading and contemplating every aspect of that book—from its sentence structures to its arguments to its implications for academic writing. I can also state with certainty that Sam Hyde, the owner of that glorious Fort Wayne bookstore, knows his stuff.
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/03/on-loving-bookstores-bradley-birzer.html