Thomas Sowell has published a large volume of writing. His dozen books, as well as numerous articles and essays, cover a wide range of topics, from classic economic theory to judicial activism, from civil rights to choosing the right college. Please contact your local newspaper editor if you want to read the THOMAS SOWELL column in your hometown paper.
Whatever one may think about Barack Obama as a candidate or as a potential President, his candidacy has brought something new to the American political scene. His stunning victory in the Iowa caucuses, in a state where more than 90 percent of the population is white,...
Both political parties seem determined that the federal government should create a “stimulus package” of things designed to cushion a downturn in the economy. That alone should be enough to make us remember that “the devil is always in the...
It was front-page news on the January 14th issue of the San Francisco Chronicle that blacks by the tens of thousands have left the San Francisco Bay area since the 1990 census. Since my book Applied Economics analyzed this situation a few years ago, it was nice to see...
This 40th anniversary of the turbulent year 1968 is already starting to spawn nostalgic accounts of that year. We can look for more during this year in articles, books, and TV specials, featuring aging 1960s radicals seeking to relive their youth.
It was not that long ago that the big political question was how Rudolph Giuliani would do against Hillary Clinton in the November election. The Iowa caucus votes have made that question sound like ancient history, if not science fiction. The results of the Iowa...
Among the interesting people encountered by my wife and me, during some recent vacation travel, were a small group of adolescent boys from a Navajo reservation. They were being led on a bicycle tour by a couple of white men, one of whom was apparently their teacher on...
Shoeless Joe Jackson was the only man to bat .382 in his last season in the major leagues. After that he was banned for life for his role in the “black sox scandal,” the deliberate throwing of the 1919 World Series. It was to Jackson that a youngster was...
People for whom indignation is a way of life — and there seem to be an increasing number of such people — repeatedly have outbursts of outrage whenever the police fire a lot of shots at some criminal. People who have never fired a gun in their lives, and...
Random thoughts on the passing scene: Since electricity is generated mostly by burning coal, has anyone calculated how much pollution is created by electric cars, even though none of that pollution comes out of their tailpipes? You may scoff at the Tooth Fairy if you...
Stanford, Yale, and Princeton are all in the process of considering whether to increase the number of students they admit. Meanwhile, Professor Richard Vedder of Ohio University and director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity in Washington, says...
People who are in the top one percent in income receive far more than one percent of the attention in the media. Even aside from miscellaneous celebrity bimbos, the top one percent attract all sorts of hand-wringing and finger-pointing. A recent column by Anna...
When most of us look at income statistics, we are not just being numbers junkies. We want to find out something about actual flesh-and-blood human beings — specifically what their standard of living is like. But you cannot always just take statistics at face...
Anyone who follows the media has probably heard many times that the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting poorer, and incomes of the population in general are stagnating. Moreover, those who say such things can produce many statistics, including data from the...
The recently launched crusade to have every child tested for autism before the age of two has as its reason an opportunity for “early intervention” to treat the condition. Dr. Scott Myers, a pediatrician, has been quoted by Reuters news service as saying...
Autism is a devastating condition, both for those who have it and for their parents. At this point, its causes are unknown and if there is any cure for it, that is unknown as well. There are many ways of coping with tragedies. One of the less promising, and often...
Among the many mindless mantras of our time, “making a difference” and “giving back” irritate me like chalk screeching across a blackboard. I would be scared to death to “make a difference” in the way pilots fly airliners or brain...
It is remarkable how many political “solutions” today are dealing with problems created by previous political “solutions.” Three examples that come to mind immediately are the housing market crisis, the wildfires in southern California, and the...
Twice within the past few years, I have been pulled over by the police for driving at night without my headlights on. My car is supposed to turn on the headlights automatically when the light outside is below a certain level, but sometimes I accidentally brush against...
High school seniors who want to go to a selective college in the fall of 2008 should already be making arrangements to take the tests they will need before they apply ahead of the deadlines for such schools, which are usually in January or February. One of the...
Oakland, California, continues to suffer the high crime rate, and especially the high murder rate, which has long afflicted that city. Judging by a recent speech by its current mayor, long-time leftist Ron Dellums, it can look forward to a future all too much like its...
With all the problems facing this country, both in Iraq and at home, why is Congress spending time trying to pass a resolution condemning the massacre of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago? Make no mistake about it, that massacre of hundreds of...
All that many people know about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas are the accusations against him by Anita Hill during his confirmation hearings in 1991. However, such subsequent events as the “rape” accusations against Duke University students last...
It would be hard to think of anyone whose portrayal in the media differs more radically from the reality than that of Justice Clarence Thomas. His recent appearances on “60 Minutes,” the Rush Limbaugh program, and other media outlets provide the general...
One of the longest-running controversies in history has been that between those who believe intelligence to be inherited and those who see it as determined by environment. If time has not resolved that question, it has at least led to sharper definitions of the...
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