I hated Jack Kerouac’s On The Road when I read it in my early teens. I expected a carefree romp that would glamorize and endorse antinomian adventures such as I hoped to have. Instead I found a disorienting and melancholy book–all hangover and no high.

In “The End of the Road” (October 2008) our features editor, R.R. Reno, suggests that it is precisely this note of melancholy that reveals the greatness of the book. I’d tell you more about his intriguing line of thought, but I’d rather you read for yourself.

In addition to my article on Secretary Paulson’s plan to bailout the credit markets, ROFTERS looking for further guidance on these issues may want to watch the video from a panel several of my colleagues and I at the Villanova Law School did on the crisis earlier this week. The speakers included (in order of appearance) Dean Mark Sargent, Prof. Richard A. Booth, Professor Jennifer O’Hare, me, and Prof. John Murphy.

I’m a twenty-two year old with a job and a few considered opinions, but it is arguably unwise to let me vote. To grant the suffrage to the demographic that enriched Britney Spears is to court disaster.

Kalaupapa doesn’t fall on the standard Hawaiian tourist circuit. It’s not known for its pristine beaches, however fine they may be, nor for its tropical cuisine or music or ambiance. It is, however, a place of history and pilgrimage, particularly now that Fr. Damien’s canonization is expected later this year.

Only a hundred people still call Kalaupapa home, but, between 1866 and 1969, this Hawaiian peninsula was home to over 8,000 exiled lepers, who, torn from their families, fought for a meager existence on the wild terrain. Fr. Damien wasn’t the first caregiver to come to the island, but unlike his predecessors who didn’t dare do more than leave medicine on a fencepost, he looked on the lepers as a family–his family. Yesterday’s Washington Times describes the heroic man, still loved as a father by the two dozen elderly lepers remaining on the island:

Damien, born in Belgium as Joseph de Veuster, stood out because he stayed and put no barriers between himself and the patients. He built homes, constructed a water system, and imported cattle. He had no medical training, but he did have a medical book and a bag, and he made rounds washing and bandaging patient’s sores. . . .

He shared his pipe with patients and ate from the same bowl. Even before he contracted Hansen’s disease, Damien began his sermons saying, “We lepers.”

Damien was diagnosed with leprosy 12 years after he arrived at Kalaupapa and died four years later, at age 49.

If you haven’t seen them already, check out our two Daily Articles on the FT homepage today: Fr. Neuhaus’ continued reflection on the First Amendment and freedom of religion, and Prof. Robert T. Miller’s “Conservative Case for the Paulson Plan.”

This month we’ve heard Amanda Shaw and Ryan T. Anderson expound on the benefits of Catholic education. Never one to shy away from a good conversation, Pope Benedict XVI offered his two cents on the topic yesterday during an address to representatives of Italian Catholic educational centers:

“The Catholic school is an expression of the right of all citizens to freedom of education, and the corresponding duty of solidarity in the building of civil society,” said the Pope, quoting a document of the Italian episcopate.

“To be chosen and appreciated, it is necessary that the Catholic school be recognized for its pedagogical purpose; it is necessary to have a full awareness not only of its ecclesial identity and cultural endeavor, but also of its civil significance,” he explained. This “must not be considered as the defense of a particular interest, but as a precious contribution to the building of the common good of the whole society.”

In this connection, the Pontiff called for equality between state and Catholic schools, “which will give parents the freedom to choose the school they desire.”