At his weekly Angelus address, Pope Francis delivered some wonderful words on conscience today , using his predecessor’s radical decision to resign the papacy as an example, along with that of Mary: So we also [like Jesus] must learn to listen more to our conscience. Be careful, however: this . . . . Continue Reading »
1. If your bitterest ideological opponents in the other coalition are saying that you have to follow their advice and support their policy preferences in order to avoid your doom, then you know you are getting bad advice. So don’t do what they want. Figure out what works for you. 2. Imagine if a . . . . Continue Reading »
As a former tour-guide at Mormon historic sites, I have encountered more than one fundamentalist Mormon family in which the strutting husband seems to regard his flock of servile wives like glorified property. We’re not wrong to want to discourage this. Moreover, those remote compounds in . . . . Continue Reading »
reports/speculates: As college costs keep rising and student-loan debt causes national consternation, more Americans are asking whether young people should bother with college. Here, at least, is one point in favor of higher education: Americans who fail to complete at least some post-secondary . . . . Continue Reading »
I bumped into this piece, ” Polygamists Celebrate Supreme Courts Marriage Rulings ” and thought, well, of course they do. Anything goes now. Who is to judge? Marriage means what we want it to mean. What we could discuss, since the morality argument is . . . . Continue Reading »
Well, I’m sticking with my position that I wouldn’t leave town to see it. But I didn’t have to leave my house. It’s already “on demand.” I was rooting for it to be better than it was. It was insufferably overbearing, and the good and evil lead characters . . . . Continue Reading »
Watching television late last night, I learned to my surprise that Anthony Weiner had pulled into a slight lead in the polls in the race for the Democratic nomination for mayor of New York City. One might have thought that after his episodes of serial sexting, followed by a week of outright denials . . . . Continue Reading »
My time to offer a substantive post was used up by reading all the excellent threads that have popped up in the recent days. Thanks to Carl for finding some good stuff in COPPERHEAD. That shows we can be fair and try to be balanced. Because he can’t help but tell the truth that it’s not . . . . Continue Reading »
Why, one may wonder, did the Windsor minority justices not see that certiorari was granted in one of the other marriage cases they were asked to hear? Sevcik v. Sandoval in particular brings the basic issue more clearly into view than did Windsor , but cert . was . . . . Continue Reading »
Excellent analysis by Steve Negus of Morsis Year over at The Arabist. I briefly met Negus when teaching at Skidmore. Behind his calm objective tone, however, the real possibility of a horrendous civil conflict and/or coup stares out at you. And if you look at the other recent posts there, an . . . . Continue Reading »