John Murdock

I am no stranger to incendiary language. Organizations on the left and the right alike use loaded language: words designed, not to foster thoughtful discourse, but simply to whip the like-minded into a lather. Still, this was one of the more incendiary paragraphs that I had read in a while: In . . . . Continue Reading »

In A Charlie Brown Christmas, Charlie Brown’s quest to escape a melancholy brought on by the materialism and artificiality climaxes with Linus’ powerful recitation of St. Luke’s nativity. Remembered now as a classic, the success of the special was by no means assured … Continue Reading »

“Do you have something by Muir to read?” asked a friend as I made last-minute preparations to embark for Yosemite National Park. The thought had previously crossed my mind, but his encouragement spurred me to action. Like Muir in 1869, I was off for My First Summer in the Sierra. I am so glad… Continue Reading »

The Independence Day fireworks over the National Mall are impressive to behold. Yet, watching from a hillside between Arlington National Cemetery and the Iwo Jima Marine War Memorial”both of which speak eloquently to the past sacrifices made for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness”I could not shake my friend Os Guinness’s observations about “sunset societies.” … Continue Reading »

A crowd of about 35,000 had gathered near the Washington Monument during a cold blustery Presidents Day weekend in the midst of an unusually mild winter to prod the Obama administration to take actions against climate change. The largest climate action rally in American history had been scheduled for noon on a Sunday, not exactly a time chosen with regular church-goers in mind”though, undoubtedly, for some present the environmental cause would be the closest thing to a religion in their lives… . Continue Reading »

Abraham Lincoln, born on this day in 1809, is enjoying a banner year. Before January had passed, President Obama would place his own hand over the same Bible used by the sixteenth president and invoke Lincoln’s legacy to hundreds of thousands on the National Mall. In the wake of the inauguration, Lincoln’s name rolled just as effortlessly off the lips of pro-lifers gathered on the same ground to commemorate the fortieth sad anniversary of Roe v. Wade… . Continue Reading »

I am unable to forget the “March for Women’s Lives” held on a beautiful D.C. Sunday in April 2004. Its Orwellian event title referring to aborting mothers not unborn females: As the Indigo Girls sang and Whoopi Goldberg held up her coat-hanger, one of the largest banners in the crowd of thousands read “Pro-Life is to Christianity as al-Qaeda is to Islam.” … Continue Reading »

A polemic documentary film centered on a demonized but doggedly courageous climate change crusader and his statistics-laden slide show—Sound familiar? While Cool It and its globetrotting subject, Bjorn Lomborg, author of the identically titled book upon which the film is based, offer the flattery of imitation, it quickly becomes clear this is not An Inconvenient Truth. Instead, the film positions itself as the rational middle-way between global warming denialism and Al Gore-styled catastrophism. In this it largely succeeds. Whether the middle way is the right way is another question… . . Continue Reading »