Denis Dutton reviewed Paul Theroux’s ‘The Happy Isles Of Oceania: Paddling The Pacific‘

Dutton:

‘In Vanuatu, Theroux finds villages where Christianity had been abandoned in the late 1930s in favour of the John Frum cult. John Frum, if that was his actual name, seems to have been an American pilot whose appearance was taken as a sign calling for a return to the old animist traditions — no more tithing, Ten Commandments, or prudish, meddling missionaries. And he promised “cargo”: useful, valuable goods from another world. Some villages fly the American flag as an act of continuing faith, and people even told Theroux the Gulf War was an event perhaps heralding Frum’s next appearance.‘

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Gerald Russello on Kenneth Minogue’s: ‘The Servile Mind: How Democracy Erodes the Moral Life.‘

Russello:

‘Unfortunately, for many American politicians, federalism is a dead letter, broken up on the obsession with equality and rights. Though Minogue does not discuss federalism in depth, The Servile Mind is a crucial book for the task of understanding and reconstructing the proper bases for a free society.‘

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Speaking of rationalism vs. honor:

Sam Harris and Tamler Sommers had a discussion.

Old Hickory killed a man in a duel. Behold his exploits.