Joseph Bottum

In yesterday’s Washington Post , Michael Benson suggests sending the space station to orbit the moon—or even beyond. It’s easier than it looks, he argues, for, technically, the ISS is already an interplanetary vehicle. Well, maybe. I’d rather we concentrated our space . . . . Continue Reading »

Ezra Levant is the Canadian who, while he was publisher of the Western Standard , printed some of the Danish cartoons that depicted Muhammad—and then got hauled before the Canadian human-rights commissions, accused of crimes of insensitivity. (Levant’s case, along with that of the . . . . Continue Reading »

James Lileks—whose blog, with its calm voice recounting his day , is one of the treasures of the Web—has a column this week on the Star Tribune website about the anniversary of Skylab. Or, rather, the anniversary of the day Skylab fell from the sky, on July 11, 1979. Interestingly, even . . . . Continue Reading »

“We shall not weary, we shall not rest,” Richard John Neuhaus proclaims, “until every human being created in the image and likeness of God is protected in law and cared for in life.” Everyone has read Fr. Neuhaus’ closing address at the annual convention of the National Right to Life . . . . Continue Reading »

I’ve always had a soft spot for Tom Holt, the British writer of comic fantasy novels. If you’ve never read him, give one of his books a try. Expecting Someone Taller , his recasting of the Siegfried saga, is a good place to start. I plucked a copy of his Here Comes the Sun off the shelf . . . . Continue Reading »

“Phoenix Mars Lander Sticks Fork in Martian Dirt” —add a knife and a spoon, and we’re ready to dine on Mars . . . . . Continue Reading »

The Weekly Standard has posted online my obituary for the poet and science-fiction writer Tom Disch : He sent me a note on July 2, just some jokey line about politics: nothing unusual, nothing portentous, nothing worth a call to see how he was feeling. Two days later, according to the news reports, . . . . Continue Reading »

A friend writes to ask if anyone else has noticed the Spring 2008 issue of the Berlin Journal , which features an article by the NYU history professor David Levering Lewis entitled “Islam and the Making of the First Europe.” Not many of us get the Berlin Journal , but Lewis is a major . . . . Continue Reading »

Space! Outer Space! The sooner, the better! Or so I claimed yesterday : “Space is the obvious next horizon for human beings. Want to diminish the biotech revolution to its proper role as a curer of disease? Offer a more exciting goal. Build a rocket ship, and fly it to Mars.” The recent . . . . Continue Reading »

I’ve always thought there’s an easy way to sidetrack the redefining of human nature by biotechnology. All we have to do is revive the space program and promote the colonization of space. All we have to do, in other words, is offer a different temporal purpose and a more exciting goal.An . . . . Continue Reading »