The Post-Partisan Emporium

  ‘Expresso Vaccines’ and Lessons from the American Chestnut Tree Why a vaccine designed in two days faced less regulatory scrutiny than a venerable nut tree that sustained life for centuries Dr. Mathew Maavak A tree that once fed multitudes now faces a decade of federal red tape before a single seed can touch wild soil, while a brand-new genetic vaccine, cooked up in 48 hours and injected into billions, sailed through approval in under a year. One restores a vanished forest, the other rewrote human cells on a planetary scale. Both are genetic modifications, yet one is treated as a potential ecological threat while the other is hailed as a modern miracle. Welcome to the “expresso lane” of modern biotechnology, where speed, risk, and scrutiny depend entirely on whose veins are on the line. Reign of the Chestnut King In the ancient forests of Appalachia, the American Chestnut (Castanea dentata) once towered as the unmatched monarch. Stretching from the southern ridges to southern Can...

 Know your masters... Media Attack Jesus and Mary—While the Hanukkah Myth is Protected from Scrutiny A Double Standard Put on Trial Michael Hoffman Adam Gopnik, writing in the March 31, 2025 issue of the highbrow  New Yorker  magazine in an article titled “We’re Still Not Done with Jesus,” re-enacts a dreary ritual which has been performed repeatedly by the  New York Times  and other “prestigious” publications, television networks and Hollywood movies. He begins by portraying anti-Christian academic Elaine Pagels as a moderate critic of Christian orthodoxy, after which he favorably surveys the latest tomes of anti-Christian polemic, thereby propagating the movement. Mr. Gopnik excludes the dissenting views of traditional Christian scholars who could have offered a cogent defense of the Faith contra Pagels’ latest book,  Miracles and Wonder . But why bother with fairness or balance? The  New Yorker  is a publication which indulges its predilection ...