The American Spectator

WANDERLUST
Re: Roger Scruton’s The Importance of Culture:

I am of Greek and American heritage: my father was a graduate student in the 1950s studying in Greece for a year when he met my mother. He too wandered the countryside and went to remote villages in search of ancient sites. I have grown up hearing both my mother’s and father’s stories of life in Greece in the first half of the 20th century.

Roger Scruton’s description is right on the money! I have had the same thoughts: a loss of identity of one culture to the next throughout Europe because of this single-currency idea, and the impossibility of allowing Greece (in many respects a country with a third-world economic system) into a first-world EU economic system.

I love Greece and have both visited and lived there. I come from a large family—many relatives still live in Greece. They are feeling the pain of these economic times and I fear that things will only get worse for them in the near future. I hope these difficulties will not last long, if only for their sake.
— Ariadne T. Henry

RUDY
Re: Patrick Howley’s I Want My Rudy Beads:
I agree with your assessment of a Giuliani run in 2012. I liked him 2008 until his campaign imploded.

One suggestion this time around.…Suggest to the future candidate that he keep his wife out of the campaign and his cell phone turned off.

Come on now, taking calls from the wife in the middle of a speech? If this was an actual true occurrence how can any voter think otherwise than the man is henpecked.

I like Rudy, I will vote for Rudy, I will contribute what little funds I can afford to Rudy, I will even work for his election, but make certain his wife is under control.
— Tom Kittle
Texas

Patrick Howley replies: Like you, Mr. Kittle, Rudy was my favorite candidate in 2008, and his failed campaign strategy only prevented the voters from being able to access him. But I don’t see why we must chide the lovely Mrs. Giuliani. If anything, Rudy’s devotion to his wife only makes him more appealing to female voters. And imagine the consequences he’d face at home if he ignored his beautiful wife’s phone calls. Losing an election is one thing, but coming home to a scorned Judith Giuliani, I imagine, is quite another. I think I’d rather face off with Putin.

INSIDER TEAM
Re: Green Lantern’s Obama Can’t Trade Places:

I’m sure a thousand people will point this out, but Aykroyd and Murphy get rich at the end of Trading Places through insider trading. That’s just another insight into the Hollywood version of economics, where nobody gets rich except by cheating and all prosperity depends on exploitation.
— Ed Kickham