Charlie Sheen succeeded at turning his own debasement into a national pseudo-event by calling the very definition of losing “winning.” And that’s what 2011 was all about: pretending to be winning while really losing.

Excerpts from a Bradley Lecture by Reason magazine's Charles Paul Freund.

In theMiddle East,commercialism that does not transmit a regime's utopian dreams but addresses the personal dreams of the audience might serve to propell liberal values forward.

In art, beauty has to be won, but the work becomes harder as the sheer noise of desecration--amplified now by the Internet--drowns out the quiet voices murmuring in the heart of things.