Nathaniel Peters

Tom Stoppard looks back on the student protests of 1968 and sees that despite its problems, the West wasn’t so bad after all: I was as aware as most people were that not everything in the gardens of the West was lovely and of course we didn’t know - one never knows - the half of it. But . . . . Continue Reading »

A good line from Megan McArdle of The Atlantic Monthly regarding a piece in the New York Times which quotes people happy about the potential decline of New York’s real estate market: This is perhaps why I have so little sympathy for the princes of schadenfreude in this New York Times article . . . . Continue Reading »

This, ladies and gentlemen, could be the Official Papal Skateboard. I wish I could just leave it at that, but you probably want to know exactly how the papacy will, after 2,000 years, finally get its own board. Some time last week, I saw that the Archdiocese of New York was having a contest for . . . . Continue Reading »

With more panache than the four in hand tie and less foppery than the ascot, the bow tie stands as the golden mean of distinction in men’s neckwear. I started wearing bow ties in my freshman year of high school, and over the years I’ve encountered many people who were surprised that . . . . Continue Reading »

Last month Paulos Faraj Rahho, the Chaldean Catholic archbishop of Mosul, was kidnapped while he drove home from an afternoon Mass. He was not in great health at the time, and yesterday his kidnappers called church officials to notify them of his death. Today his body was found buried in the . . . . Continue Reading »

An article in Time this week profiles the new American ambassador to the Vatican, our friend and former board member Mary Ann Glendon. Although her first weeks in office have been spent preparing for the pontiff’s visit to the US in April, she spoke about her vision of feminism and how . . . . Continue Reading »

An article in the Foreign Affairs by the former chief economist of the Venezualan National Assembly shows how the populist socialism of Hugo Chávez has hurt the very poor it was intended to help. A sample: Although opinions differ on whether Chávez’s rule should be . . . . Continue Reading »

Many might wonder how musicians and scholars can take an obscure medieval manuscript and turn it into a living performance. An interview on WNYC with Benjamin Bagby, co-founder of the ensemble Sequentia , provides insight into this process. The interview also contains clips of Sequentia’s . . . . Continue Reading »

Today for students at the Roxbury Latin School, where I spent the last three years of high school, is Exelauno Day. Exelauno is a recurring Greek verb from Xenophon’s Anabasis meaning “to march forth.” And so, every March 4th, or a day close to it, is Exelauno Day. This morning, the . . . . Continue Reading »

The point of teaching is to clarify, to bring the truth to light so that the student might understand it. Unless the truth is not that something is , only something that might be . In this case, the teacher might seek to “complicate,” “contextualize,” . . . . Continue Reading »