Time has this article about the Democrats putting together their plan to take control of Congress in November, and the Republicans still trying to figure out how to prevent that from happening. If the election were held today, the GOP would lose the House and might lose the Senate. Fortunately for them, the election won't be held today. Unfortunately for them, I don't see how the political atmosphere will change between now and then.

For many years, I have argued that the poor performance of young, black men taken as a group in nearly all social indicators (high school graduation rates, college degrees earned, income, incarceration rates, murder rates, etc.) is more about the prevailing culture than anything else. In the New York Times today, I read with interest this op-ed piece by Orlando Patterson, who is a professor of Sociology at Harvard, which takes to task his colleagues in the social sciences for their unwillingness to tackle the social angle of this problem, preferring instead to rely on the old economic arguments.

So what are some of the cultural factors that explain the sorry state of young black men? They aren't always obvious. Sociological investigation has found, in fact, that one popular explanation — that black children who do well are derided by fellow blacks for "acting white" — turns out to be largely false, except for those attending a minority of mixed-race schools.

An anecdote helps explain why: Several years ago, one of my students went back to her high school to find out why it was that almost all the black girls graduated and went to college whereas nearly all the black boys either failed to graduate or did not go on to college. Distressingly, she found that all the black boys knew the consequences of not graduating and going on to college ("We're not stupid!" they told her indignantly).

SO why were they flunking out? Their candid answer was that what sociologists call the "cool-pose culture" of young black men was simply too gratifying to give up. For these young men, it was almost like a drug, hanging out on the street after school, shopping and dressing sharply, sexual conquests, party drugs, hip-hop music and culture, the fact that almost all the superstar athletes and a great many of the nation's best entertainers were black.

Not only was living this subculture immensely fulfilling, the boys said, it also brought them a great deal of respect from white youths. This also explains the otherwise puzzling finding by social psychologists that young black men and women tend to have the highest levels of self-esteem of all ethnic groups, and that their self-image is independent of how badly they were doing in school.

I call this the Dionysian trap for young black men. The important thing to note about the subculture that ensnares them is that it is not disconnected from the mainstream culture. To the contrary, it has powerful support from some of America's largest corporations. Hip-hop, professional basketball and homeboy fashions are as American as cherry pie. Young white Americans are very much into these things, but selectively; they know when it is time to turn off Fifty Cent and get out the SAT prep book.

For young black men, however, that culture is all there is — or so they think. Sadly, their complete engagement in this part of the American cultural mainstream, which they created and which feeds their pride and self-respect, is a major factor in their disconnection from the socioeconomic mainstream.

Read the whole thing.

Finally, Mark Steyn always manages to get to the heart of the matter. He has argued (and I have agreed, along with many others) that the Rahman case in Afghanistan exposes the fault line between our conception of civilization and that of the Islamists. It also exposes the suicidal effects of the almost religious adherence to multiculturalism. For most rational people, it is clearly not acceptable to grant moral equivalency to a culture that would execute someone because of his religious convictions. Steyn takes our leaders to task for their unwillingness to call a spade a spade and take the necessary measures to combat the enemies of civilization. He longs for a time of greater moral clarity.

In a more culturally confident age, the British in India were faced with the practice of "suttee" -- the tradition of burning widows on the funeral pyres of their husbands. General Sir Charles Napier was impeccably multicultural:

''You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: When men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows.You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

India today is better off without suttee. If we shrink from the logic of that, then in Afghanistan and many places far closer to home the implications are, as the Prince of Wales would say, "ghastly."

Amen, brother.