The far-left Daily Kos says It’s Time to Fight Dirty by David Faris (Melville House, 2018) “should be mandatory reading” for all Democrats. Faris proposes statehood for the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico and the division of California into seven states: Then Democrats will control the Senate. He wants simple majorities to pass all legislation and approve all appointments. He wants to pack the Supreme Court and appeals courts. He wants voting for felons, with no registration or IDs needed for voting. 

In 2012 Manhattan could boast of 31 developments in which a 2,300-square-foot condo would sell for at least $5 million. Seven fat years later, that number has more than tripled. Some are in parts of the city where neighbors a block away are at least relatively poor, so development owners are creating ways for residents not to have to leave their buildings.

Do Californians just want to have fun? Not if they’re members of the state legislature that late last month showed how liberalism, once a defender of free speech, is doubling down on suppression of dissent and viewpoint diversity.

My last column noted the good mood 400 years ago at the July 30, 1619, inaugural meeting of Virginia’s General Assembly. The assembly wanted to maintain peace with the Powhatan tribe and promote “the Conversion of the Indians to Christian Religion.” 

James Horn in his book 1619 shows how settlers and natives fought for several years after the Jamestown founding in 1607, but seven years later the marriage of Powhatan princess Pocahontas and settler John Rolfe improved relations.   

Early Christians emphasized caritas, caring for the poor, as opposed to Rome’s tradition of liberalitas, hosting those of equal or higher rank. Caritas is still part of Christian belief and practice, as our Hope Awards show: Secularists say they can do a better job through government action, but three decades of WORLD stories have shown the falsity of that claim.

It’s gay pride parade time again, so this is a good time to read Christopher Yuan’s Holy Sexuality and the Gospel (Multnomah, 2018). When I interviewed him five years ago (“From gay to joyous,” Feb. 8, 2014), he had recently put into perspective his years of homosexuality, illicit drug use, drug dealing, and coming to Christ in prison. His new book poses good questions about gays and identity: “How did ‘This is how I am’ become ‘This is who I am’?”

I tend to walk on beaches rather than sit on them, but my suggested formula for those who read as the tide rolls in is E=FB², with E standing for entertainment (which is sometimes educational), F for fiction, and B for Bible and baseball.