Woe Betide the Lefty?

From First Thoughts

As a fellow left-handed person, I cannot subscribe to Russell Saltzman’s lament in his “On the Square” essay today. I don’t really know anything about the comparative life expectancy (or accident-proneness) of lefties and righties. But I do know that whenever I am in a . . . . Continue Reading »

Joseph Bottum, Weary and Wearisome

From First Thoughts

Joseph Bottum, once the editor of this magazine, has unburdened himself of a change of mind on the subject of same-sex marriage, in Commonweal (and thereby earned himself also a grateful, and perfectly timed,  pilgrimage by a New York Times writer to his home in South Dakota). Others who . . . . Continue Reading »

Getting Charles Chaput Badly Wrong

From First Thoughts

Charles J. Reid, Jr., who teaches law at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, recently posted something at a blog (tellingly called www.religiousleftlaw.com ), which the National Catholic Reporter picked up and ran as an op-ed, in print and online , under the title “Archbishop . . . . Continue Reading »

Is Reza Aslan Off the Hook?

From First Thoughts

It looks like I really stirred things up yesterday with my post ” Reza Aslan Misrepresents His Scholarly Credentials ,” especially after Drudge linked to it in the afternoon. Some folks in the comments and on Twitter thought I had destroyed Aslan’s credibility in toto —which . . . . Continue Reading »

Hey Ladies, Try Some Self-Commodification!

From First Thoughts

A couple of weeks ago, I boarded a New Jersey Transit train near my home to go to Newark airport. From my seat near the rear of the car, I saw a poster with a photograph of five pretty young women of various ethnic and racial backgrounds, all smiling and laughing. Above the photo the poster read, . . . . Continue Reading »

Mitch Daniels Can Count

From First Thoughts

On college campuses, where I have spent most of my life, it is not that hard to gin up faculty outrage when administrators are credibly accused of assaults on “academic integrity.” Mitch Daniels, former governor of Indiana and now president of Purdue University, has been so . . . . Continue Reading »