VDH’s excellent current NRO essay speaks of how too many Western intellectuals are blind to the realities of the world around them. I don’t know if you’d call the author David Macaulay an intellectual, but he’s certainly blind, and has said a very foolish thing. Macaulay, who has drawn and written some very good books for children about architecture, has a new book out about the architecture of the mosque. Fine, great — but then, in this New York Times interview, he says the following:

“You can always find the fringe element, the guys making a bomb behind the mosque,” he said. “You can find the same fringe element behind a right-wing church in Texas. But if you stick to the architecture, what it says about human desire and capability is universal, the desire to extend yourself beyond this life.”

Ah yes, all those Baptist madrassas in the piney woods down here are turning out suicide bombers by the bushel. I tell you, we live in constant fear down here in Dallas that an Assemblies of God zealot from the outskirts of Midland is going to blow Neiman Marcus sky-high. What guilty-liberal rot from Macaulay. He should be ashamed of himself.