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Health Fascism: Smokers Need Not Apply

Health and wellness are becoming the pretext for punishing the unpopular and discriminating against majority-disfavored personal activities. To Wit: A Massachusetts hospital is making job applicants take nicotine tests and refusing to hire if the victim applicant, shows signs of smoking the dreaded . . . . Continue Reading »

Lovely, Glorious, Beautiful Christmas

Here’s my attempt to mainstream Christmas for people more sophisticated than you or me. I know it’s too some extent of repackaging of my Christmas sermons of the past, but I’m still introducing myself over there. You can scroll down and see MAD MEN and some other stuff you already . . . . Continue Reading »

Top Ten Secular Christmas Songs

And now for some staff selections in a more secular vein: All I Want for Christmas is You - Mariah Carey Blue Christmas - Elvis Presley Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas - Judy Garland Christmas (Baby Please Come Home) - Darlene Love I’ll be Home for Christmas - Frank Sinatra Who Took . . . . Continue Reading »

Christ Welcomes You to His Feast

It’s His party, but you can come if you want to, even if, like a football poseur at a Super Bowl party, you forget the cause of the fun.Christmas is not for Christians, it is for the Lord Christ, and Jesus is merry. He loves all people, so if you are not a Christian: “Welcome to the . . . . Continue Reading »

The CDF Explains

Readers of George Weigel’s The Pope, the Church, and the Condom , published in “On the Square” last Friday, will be interested to know that the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has issued a clarification of Benedict’s now infamous remark in L ight of the World . . . . . Continue Reading »

The Year in Books

In our second On the Square essay today—and just in time for last minute Christmas shoppers—Christopher Benson offers his take on some of the most Notable Books of 2010 ’Tis the season when major transatlantic publications, such as the New York Times , Washington Post , Atlantic , . . . . Continue Reading »

On (Christian) Publishing

In once heard Anne Lamott say that the day your first book is released is a real heartbreaker of an experience: your hair still won’t lie correctly, your skin hasn’t improved, and the world just seems to continue on as it always has.  When you go to the store, no one stops you for . . . . Continue Reading »

Liberalism and Irritable Mental Gestures

I’ve been rereading Lionel Trilling lately. I’ve long been a fan of his unique ability to write a meandering essay that nonetheless feels as though it has a singular focus. In any event, a recent editorial by Matt Franck in the Washington Post made me think of Trilling. Franck surveys . . . . Continue Reading »

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