Source: Reason
by Selim Koru

“Turkey’s major political traditions of the past two generations — Kemalist secular statism, political Islam, and ethnic nationalism — all subordinate the individual to a collective project in different ways. Rand is countercultural against all three, and yet she articulates something that life in Turkey has quietly become: more individualist, more disenchanted, more on the hustle. That is why her readers pop up in unexpected places, and why they have been multiplying for over half a century. Today, the political scene is more conducive to young readers of Rand than ever before.” (05/26/26)

https://reason.com/2026/05/26/ayn-rand-is-alive-in-ankara/

Source: American Greatness
by Victor Davis Hanson

“Since October 7, we have been lectured nonstop about the supposedly singular sins of Israel. The campuses, the left-wing media, and the new Democratic Socialist officials, both federal and state, following the cue of student activists and professors from the Middle East, have painted Israel and their Jewish supporters as Nazis, fascists, and among the worst murderers in today’s bloody world. This is nonsensical. The medieval-style massacre of 1,200 Jews in their homes on October 7, during a time of peace, should have increased awareness of the existential dangers Israel faced. Instead, it spawned a gathering storm of antisemitism.” (05/26/26)

https://amgreatness.com/2026/05/26/spare-us-the-selective-outrage/

Source: The Dispatch
by Michael A Helfand

“There’s a reason so many conservative justices over the past 40 years have rejected the idea that the establishment clause prohibits only compelled religious exercise. If government is permitted to use its power, prestige, and resources to overwhelm citizens with government-preferred religious messages, it paves the way for the manipulation of religious conscience, especially when dealing with children in classrooms. Protecting the independence of religious conscience is a core constitutional commitment, expressed perhaps most famously by James Madison in his 1785 ‘Memorial and Remonstrance Against Religious Assessments,’ where he insisted that ‘[t]he Religion then of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man.’ The First Amendment is allergic to religious orthodoxies. For this reason, requiring the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms crosses a fundamental constitutional line.” (05/26/26)

https://thedispatch.com/article/ten-commandments-religion-state-public-schools/

Source: Brownstone Institute
by Russ Gonnering

“Medical school always had its own set of peculiar struggles, as, I suppose, does everything. Certainly, Basic Training in the military is an eye-opener. What makes medical school unique is the profound contrast of the reality with the ideal.” (05/26/26)

https://brownstone.org/articles/the-danger-of-an-unexamined-status-quo/

Source: TomDispatch
by Robert Lipsyte

“When Chinese leaders claim that the American empire is in decline, I immediately assume their analysts are decoding dispatches from ESPN, The Athletic, and columnist Shams Charania. After all, it’s in sportswriting, I’ve come to think, that the songs of the canary in the all-American coal mine couldn’t be clearer. If the games we play and watch reflect our past and present lives, then the coverage and commentary about them may help predict our future. American sportswriters have been cheerleaders for empire since the early twentieth century, when Bat Masterson decided that shooting people in Dodge City wasn’t fulfilling enough for a man of his talent and ambition. Yes, that Bat Masterson. He came East and, as a boxing columnist for the New York Morning Telegraph, became a new sheriff in the emerging industry I’ve come to call SportsWorld.” (05/26/26)

https://tomdispatch.com/a-short-history-of-sportswriting-from-bat-masterson-to-shams-charania/