Jay Nordlinger - Impromptus

Jay Nordlinger weighs in on the Marsh Arabs, as well as the Alito hearings and Harry Belafonte, among other things, over at NRO today. Worth reading. Here's one gem:

A quick shift to the Alito hearings? There are a million things to discuss, but I'd like to focus on one. Sen. Richard Durbin, the Democratic giant from Illinois, said that Judge Alito was a man with "a mind that, sadly, is closed in some instances." Really? This is shocking, given that Alito is 55 years old. Anyone who hasn't closed his mind on certain matters by that time has weird problems.

I'm reminded of something I heard Bill Buckley say, many years ago: The purpose of an open mind is to close it, on particular subjects. If you never do — you've simply abdicated the responsibility to think.