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Hamming It Up

Oh, my. The blogger Nancykay Shapiro posts photos of the meat counter last week at Balducci’s, an upscale grocery on 8th Avenue and 14th Street here in New York: Ah, yes, that famous kosher spiral-cut ham. . . . . Continue Reading »

Now They Tell Us…

A few weeks ago we all heard the announcement of a major scientific breakthrough that allowed scientists to create the equivalent of human embryonic stem cells (called induced pluripotent stem cells) but without using or destroying embryos. Joseph Bottum wrote about the implications here , and I . . . . Continue Reading »

Mall Horror Story

Omaha, my adopted hometown, was in the news last week. A nineteen-year-old went into a mall and shot a dozen people, killing eight, and then himself. A few days later I had dinner with an Israeli friend. “Suicide bombers I understand,” he told me. “They kill innocent people, but . . . . Continue Reading »

The Secular Left?

Why is it a commonplace to speak in terms of the religious right and secular left? Surely there has been a secular right: Ayn Rand, Friedrich Hayek, supply-siders, libertarians, and so forth. And there has been a Christian Left: Walter Rauschenbusch, Dorothy Day, and of course the Democratic . . . . Continue Reading »

Spindly Minds

While archiving First Things’ past issues the other day, I came across these lines. Had Edna St. Vincent Millay lived to see the twenty-first century, the information-deluge would have taken on a whole new dimension! Upon this age, that never speaks its mind, This furtive age, this age . . . . Continue Reading »

Greetings and Felicitations

Welcome to our new blog, not to be confused with our ” On the Square ” daily article, which can still be found on the home page. This blog will be a group endeavor, with First Things staffers, writers, and friends commenting and contributing on a regular basis, supplying multiple daily . . . . Continue Reading »

Bioethicist Wants to Tax Parenthood

Saving the planet is all the rage these days. Now, an Australian bioethicist wants to charge people a carbon tax for having children. The money would be used to plant trees as an offset to the global warming that the new children would allegedly cause. From the story:Professor Walters, clinical . . . . Continue Reading »

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