Nathaniel Peters

First it was DC’s voucher program under attack , now it’s New York’s charter schools. An opinion piece in today’s Wall Street Journal gives the details: Charter schools are built on a simple idea. In exchange for less state funding and a mandate on performance, charters are . . . . Continue Reading »

If you’re in New York today, you might want to attend the following public forum: “What Did Pope Benedict Say to America?” Fr. Richard J. Neuhaus (Editor in Chief, First Things) Fr. John Farren, OP (Director of Advancement, Dominican Province of St. Joseph) Angelo Mater (Publisher . . . . Continue Reading »

Opera is known for its ridiculous plots, but La Scala is taking it up a notch. According to the New York Times , they have commissioned the Italian composer Giorgio Battistelli to write an opera of Al Gore’s book An Inconvenient Truth . The Times’ John Tierney has a marvelous satire of . . . . Continue Reading »

Today DC’s school vouchers come up for discussion in the House, and the outlook isn’t good. Despite the fact that these vouchers have saved many of the city’s underprivileged children from attending some of the worst public schools in the nation, Democrats do not seem inclined to . . . . Continue Reading »

We like to hope that this blog might change what you think, but Nicholas Carr has a theory that it might change how you think too. In the cover article of the Atlantic Monthly , of which Arts & Letters Daily reminded me, he asks whether our style of reading has changed our style of thinking, and if . . . . Continue Reading »

Our friend and FT contributor Sally Thomas has a nice meditation on confession on her blog today . A portion: My confessor raised the question of whether I needed to confess them at all, but when I said I thought I needed to, he heard me out. And then he absolved me. In that moment, I experienced a . . . . Continue Reading »

Good point, Steve . That’s the crux of the matter. The rich theology takes some understanding. Do we catechize the laity so that when they hear “ancient bondage” or “ineffable,” they will understand what they mean and have their faith deepened as a result? Or do we . . . . Continue Reading »

Does the word “ineffable” belong in the liturgy? Donald Trautman, the Catholic bishop of Erie, PA, doesn’t think so, the Erie Times-News reports . Ordinary Catholics won’t know the meaning of the word, he said, so it shouldn’t be in the liturgy. The Times-News reporter . . . . Continue Reading »

Today, with the help from my friends at the Shrine of the Holy Whapping , I discovered the French TV show Kamelott . It’s a comedy show set in Arthurian times with colloquial modern language, and its episodes are all under five minutes in length. My favorite so far has been “The Perfect . . . . Continue Reading »

Two more articles appeared on Canada and Free speech. The first comes from the Ottowa Citizen ( reproduced on Real Clear Politics ). The author, David Warren, reviews some of the recent cases before the human rights commissions, then highlights the surprising acceptance among journalists at the . . . . Continue Reading »