In the December issue of First Things, Hadley Arkes reflected on the prospects of a Giuliani presidency. His article came under attack from David Frum in National Review. Readers may be interested in reading Arkes’ response here.

It seems that the Archbishop of York, Dr. John Sentamu, is a right cut-up.

If he were a member of TEC, Bishop Jefferts Schori would no doubt announce that the clerical collar was church property and promptly take him to court—but not before declaring the archbishop’s rabbat officially vacant . . .

In his post J. Bottum has drawn attention to what can only be called a poor-sign of the times. Or is that a sign of poor times?

Oh, my. The blogger Nancykay Shapiro posts photos of the meat counter last week at Balducci’s, an upscale grocery on 8th Avenue and 14th Street here in New York:

Ah, yes, that famous kosher spiral-cut ham.

A few weeks ago we all heard the announcement of a major scientific breakthrough that allowed scientists to create the equivalent of human embryonic stem cells (called induced pluripotent stem cells) but without using or destroying embryos. Joseph Bottum wrote about the implications here, and I covered the story for the Weekly Standard.

In the aftermath of this news, we’ve been hearing surprising things from the scientists. They now acknowledge that there really are moral concerns in embryo-destructive research, and that they’ve been concerned about this all along.

So, just after the news broke, Dr. James Thomson–the scientist who first isolated human embryonic stem cells–told the New York Times: “If human embryonic stem cell research does not make you at least a little bit uncomfortable, you have not thought about it enough.”

Now, in another New York Times story, we hear Dr. Shinya Yamanaka–the scientist behind the latest breakthrough–tell readers what motivated him to discover the new technique:

“When I saw the embryo, I suddenly realized there was such a small difference between it and my daughters,” said Dr. Yamanaka, 45, a father of two and now a professor at the Institute for Integrated Cell-Material Sciences at Kyoto University. “I thought, we can’t keep destroying embryos for our research. There must be another way.”

Someone should let the New York Times editorial page editors know. They recently opined:

Any claim that Mr. Bush’s moral stance drove scientists to this discovery must be greeted with particular skepticism. The primary discoverer of the new techniques is a Japanese scientist who was not subject to the president’s restrictions.

Omaha, my adopted hometown, was in the news last week. A nineteen-year-old went into a mall and shot a dozen people, killing eight, and then himself. A few days later I had dinner with an Israeli friend. “Suicide bombers I understand,” he told me. “They kill innocent people, but out of a twisted sense of higher purpose.” The mall killer? “It was evil to no purpose,” he spat out in the usual, emphatic Israeli style. And then he said with a look of disgust on his face, “Every year I would piss on his grave.” It took him awhile to fully recover his composure. A pungent alternative to all the sensitive talk of tragic circumstances.

So Martin Scorsese discovers three pages from a never-made Hitchcock film, entitled The Key to Reserva, and vows to make it as Hitchcock would have made it “back then,” only “now.”

Funny, and more entertaining than 82 percent of what’s released into theaters . . .

Although the premier Hitchcock send-up belongs to Mel Brooks’ Psycho take-off in High Anxiety . . .

And what is the deal with No Country for Old Men cleaning up with Best Picture awards? All the power of the book has been drained in the Coens’ adaptation, leaving little more than their typically mannered visual quirks. I realized I was watching a work of film school mediocrity at just about the point when Josh Brolin crosses the border. Touch of Evil immediately came to mind—now imagine Cormac McCarthy interpreted by Welles and you will realize the difference between what the Coens bring to the table–a self-conscious “style”—vs. what a Welles would have contributed—a vision.

I will admit to admiring Tommy Lee Jones’ performance–actually his drawl. His voice–especially his narration–had to have been what McCarthy heard in his head when he was composing his original.

Why is it a commonplace to speak in terms of the religious right and secular left? Surely there has been a secular right: Ayn Rand, Friedrich Hayek, supply-siders, libertarians, and so forth. And there has been a Christian Left: Walter Rauschenbusch, Dorothy Day, and of course the Democratic Party’s favorite pastor, Jim Wallis. But the impression persists: right and religion go together — secular and left overlap. It’s an accurate impression. Oldline progressives like Rauschenbusch worried about economics and class. Today’s progressives are focused on culture and personal liberation. Religous Christians, Jews, and Muslims can disagree about which economic policies best serve the common good. But it’s hard to see how the basic cultural agenda of the Left — the freedom to define the meaning of one’s life — is consistent with any sort of view about obedience to God. Which is why the Left tends not just to be secular, but bitterly and aggressively secular: it is forbidden to forbid.

While archiving First Things’ past issues the other day, I came across these lines. Had Edna St. Vincent Millay lived to see the twenty-first century, the information-deluge would have taken on a whole new dimension!

Upon this age, that never speaks its mind,
This furtive age, this age endowed with power
To wake the moon with footsteps, fit an oar
Into the rowlocks of the wind, and find
What swims before his prow, what swirls behind –
Upon this gifted age, in its dark hour,
Rains from the sky a meteoric shower
Of facts . . . they lie unquestioned, uncombined.
Wisdom enough to leech us of our ill
Is daily spun; but there exists no loom
To weave it into fabric; undefiled
Proceeds pure Science, and has her say; but still
Upon this world from the collective womb
Is spewed all day the red triumphant child

–Edna St. Vincent Millay

Welcome to our new blog, not to be confused with our “On the Square” daily article, which can still be found on the home page.

This blog will be a group endeavor, with First Things staffers, writers, and friends commenting and contributing on a regular basis, supplying multiple daily posts on topics ranging from religion in the public square to the arts, science, philosophy, culture, politics, various doings in the blogosphere, and, most important, why Orson Welles couldn’t get a decent movie made in the United States after 1960.

So log on to firstthings.com/blog early and often.