Roundup: Clothes, Coffee, and Comedians

How to dress (a guide for nitwit young people), Christian narcissism, how Starbucks wants to shake up the economy, and more.

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“How to Dress: A Guide for Nitwit Young People”

(Donald Mills on The Problem With Young People Today Is…)
Self-explanatory. Funny, and true.

“The White Collar Style and Fashion Guide of Neal Caffrey”

(The Urban Gentleman)
And the opposite subject…a look at the fashion of one of the most classy dressers in modern television: White Collar’s Neal Caffrey.

“Book Review: Beyond the Finite

(Andrew Stark in The Wall Street Journal)
Haven’t read this book yet, but the review makes me want to. Think scientists writing follow-up essays supporting Edmund Burke’s “The Sublime and the Beautiful.”

“Self-Deprecating Narcissism Among Christian Leaders”

(Jack Watts in The Huffington Post)
This article on attendees at the National Religious Broadcasters convention raises a larger point about unwitting hypocrisy in the execution of the Christian virtues, and whether we really know what things like “meekness” and “humility” are supposed to look like. After all, in your typical church, it is all too common to find that irritating self-deprecation passes for humility, painless giving passes for generosity, spineless passivity passes for meekness, and passive-aggressiveness passes for grace.

“Get a Job! Working is (Usually) More Admirable than Protesting”

(Heather MacDonald in City Journal)
Relevant to my post on “Saving the World, Professionalized,” MacDonald gives her take on the Occupy Wall Street protesters, and wonders why people eating free Dunkin’ Donuts and invading local establishments to use the facilities are more heroic than their peers who aren’t cutting class or skipping work to be there.

“The New Singleness”

(Maggie Gallagher in The Public Discourse)
Critiquing Kate Bolick’s ode to the end of marriage in the Atlantic, Gallagher looks at how every generation of sexual rebels celebrates its liberation from moral and social norms—and suggests Bolick is a generation late.

“A Comedian Rises”

(Jay Nordlinger on NRO)
Nordlinger talks to Felonious Munk, a strange thing in modern America: a comedian who understands (and plays on) the English language, knows his history, and reads both right- and left-wing papers.

“On the Public Commodification of Privacy”

(Stefany Anne Goldberg in The Smart Set)
The 19th-century social network. To enjoy the crowd, Baudelaire told us, one must have masks. His love of observing was at war with his fear of being seen…but his poetry was a reminder. The passion for roaming means a love of masquerades and a hatred of home. Baudelaire, too, wanted to protect his privacy. But he feared he had lost the very thing he wanted to protect.

“Is the Alcohol Message All Wrong?”

(Kate Fox on the BBC)
Many people think heavy drinking causes promiscuity, violence and anti-social behaviour. That’s not necessarily true, argues Fox. Drink doesn’t make us amorous and uninhibited. Culture does.

“We Can All Become Job Creators”

(Joe Nocera in The New York Times)
Howard Schultz of Starbucks has a new idea: instead of asking if you want to donate money to some charity when you buy coffee, he’s going to ask you if you want to lend money to small businesses. An interesting effort by a big company to leverage its power to help the economy—relying on private investment.

“Talking about Ten Percent: How Europeans and Americans Give Differently”

(Stephanie South in the El Pomar Foundation blog)
South looks at why Americans give so much more to charity than Europeans—the history behind the trends, and the differing attitudes toward the role of government.

“The John Jay Institute: Cultivating Leadership Through Dialogue”

(Charles Howard in The Huffington Post)
A liberal UPenn chaplain visits with a very strange bunch of conservatives, whom he calls Confessing Church X-Men.  (Full disclosure: I went through this program, so I found this fascinating.)

“Traditional Opera and its Enemies”

(Heather MacDonald in City Journal)
Liberal politics in a seemingly unlikely place–the stage of Don Giovanni. Critics don’t like the Met’s new production of Mozart’s masterpiece, because the director didn’t bother twisting its social and political message beyond recognition. Apparently “originalism” in opera bores the critics, even when (according to MacDonald) the production is masterful.

That’s all for now–see you in a couple weeks!

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