Joseph Bottum

An interesting note by Stephen Schwartz in the new issue of F IRST T HINGS takes up the troubles of Albania. The religious believers of Albania may have suffered more than those of any other nation in eastern Europe over the fifty years of Communist rule after World War II. The Stalinists were . . . . Continue Reading »

The Mad Scientists’ Club Purple House, 217 pages, $17.95 The New Adventures of the Mad Scientists’ Club Purple House, 210 pages, $17.95 The Big Kerplop! Purple House, 238 pages, $17.95 The Big Chunk of Ice Purple House, 288 pages, $18.95 By Bertrand R. Brinley There’s a kind of negative sound . . . . Continue Reading »

So, protestors have filled the streets of France , once again. Cars burned, buildings occupied, politicians scuttling for cover. Another day on the Champs Elysées. This time it was students complaining about a law that would have established a two-year trial period in which employers could . . . . Continue Reading »

Down in Waco, Texas, there is a Baptist school called Baylor University. It was never a major player in American academics, and with the strained situation in which American colleges found themselves at the end of the baby boom, Baylor had problems figuring out what it should do. Certainly, the . . . . Continue Reading »

The curious thing is the lack of memory. It seems a fairly obvious fact that the influence of religion on politics and policy¯and the general tone of American life¯is at one of the low points in the nation’s history. There isn’t a religious leader left who has the kind of . . . . Continue Reading »

In spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love. And why not? We’ve finally come around winter’s corner here in New York. The last bits of snow, hiding in the shadowed folds of the buildings, have finally melted. The girls are no longer wrapped up in parkas like . . . . Continue Reading »

On February 28, a congresswoman from Connecticut named Rosa L. DeLauro released a " Statement of Principles ." Signed by 55 members of Congress¯all of them Catholic Democrats, and together making up a majority of the Catholic Democrats in the House¯the statement urged . . . . . . . Continue Reading »

Euthanasia has been making a comeback in recent months, bubbling up again and again in little snippets in the news. There is a natural tide in certain issues that has them wash up to this high-water mark or that, before sliding back down, and the public agitation for physician-assisted suicide made . . . . Continue Reading »

The trouble is abortion, once again. After John Kerry’s defeat in 2004, you could hardly shake a stick without whacking some Democratic figure or another who was insisting that their party needed to”or was about to”get back into the religion business. The success of Jim . . . . Continue Reading »

So, a friend and I get talking yesterday. He’s a lefty, kind of. Actually, he insists he’s a middle, maybe even slightly right-shaded social democrat sort of person, and in any sensible country (like, say, Luxembourg or Denmark) he would be recognized as the moderate conservative . . . . Continue Reading »