I’m not sure where I first encountered Thomas Sowell’s writings, but from the start I was hooked. His articles used to appear in National Review, I believe, when I was a regular reader a ways back in time and though I recall not its title, the first book of his that I read was a collection of essays bound in a light blue cover.Essentially Sowell writes with an incisive wit about tough, complex topics in an accesible, straight-talking style. As a black conservative with Harvard roots (earned the hard way) he appeals to me because he’s not afraid to speak his mind, to call it as he sees it. And he doesn’t stay in the corral.
Here are some notes from an article I came across at National Review Online tonight called "Random thoughts on the passing scene." There are many more pearls where these come from. Google Search: Thomas Sowell. If you don’t know his work, he’s worth getting acquainted with.
Government bailouts are like potato chips: You can’t stop with just one.
Anyone who is honest with himself and with others knows that there is not a snow ball’s chance in hell to have an honest dialogue about race.
I wonder what radical feminists make of the fact that it was men who created the rule of “women and children first” when it came to rescuing people from life-threatening emergencies.
Barack Obama’s motto “Change you can believe in” has acquired a new meaning — changing his positions is the only thing you can believe in. His campaign began with a huge change in the image he projects, compared to what he was doing for 20 years before.
After getting DVDs of old Perry Mason TV programs and old Law & Order programs, I found myself watching far more of the Perry Mason series. The difference is that too many Law & Order programs tried to raise my consciousness on social issues, as if that is their role or their competence.
Although most of the mainstream media are still swooning over Barack Obama, a few critics are calling the things he advocates “naive.” But that assumes that he is trying to solve the country’s problems. If he is trying to solve his own problem of getting elected, then he is telling the voters just what they want to hear. That is not naive but shrewd and cynical.
Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
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