Defending the Right Stuff

by Peter Lawler

This is pretty much recycled from this channel. But the relevance is greater now than when it was written. . . . . Continue Reading »

16 Jun 2011 0

Why Renting Your House is Better Than Buying

by Joe Carter

Earlier this week I was talking to an elderly gentleman, a successful healthcare lawyer and college professor, who told me that the worst advice his grandfather ever gave him was “Own your own home.” The fact that my friend had recently sold his house at a 25 percent loss may have soured . . . . Continue Reading »

16 Jun 2011 0

Socially Unacceptable Grief

by David Mills

An academic friend writes an interesting response to my Particular Loves, in this Life and the Next : I think about these things too, and you’ve put all of it very well indeed. There is another column that could be written about the peculiarly private grief involved in losing a beloved pet, a . . . . Continue Reading »

16 Jun 2011 0

Chimp Research Should Remain Federally Funded in USA

by Wesley J. Smith

I believe that an animal welfare analysis of chimp research would preclude all but the most serious experiments.  But limited experimentation should be permitted to continue in the cause of preventing and alleviating serious human suffering.Nature has a piece out describing the stakes in the . . . . Continue Reading »

16 Jun 2011 0

From Mormon Missionary to MBA

by Joe Carter

Bloomberg Businessweek notes that many of the men who trained to be Mormon missionaries have gone on to become among the most distinguished persons in American business and civic life: For one to three months (depending on the language challenge ahead), their days begin at 6:30 a.m. and end at . . . . Continue Reading »

16 Jun 2011 0

So You Think You Don’t Like Dance?

by Joe Carter

[Note: In honor of the eighth season of one of my favorite middlebrow reality TV shows, I thought I’d dust off this post from July 2009.} No one thought it would succeed. Even the executive producer doubted that an “American Idol-style competition for dancers” would work on television. Dance . . . . Continue Reading »

16 Jun 2011 0

Peter Singer Believes His Views Are “Objective Truth”

by Wesley J. Smith

Peter Singer reviews a new book called On What Matters in his syndicated column.  Philosopher Derek Parfit apparently argues that there is such a thing as objective truth, and indeed, that we need to find “what really matters” if life is to have any ultimate meaning.  Singer . . . . Continue Reading »

15 Jun 2011 0

The Publishing Event of the Summer

by Carl Scott

TWO collections of Wilson Carey McWilliams essays!  Patrick Deneen introduces them  here .  One is more America-oriented, the other more general.  Wendell Berry is the muse, model, and poet of Porcherism, but McWilliams is its real political philosopher.  Or deserves . . . . Continue Reading »

15 Jun 2011 0

Will European Court Declare That Right to “Family Life” Includes the Right to Mercy Kill?

by Wesley J. Smith

I have been noticing that the so-called right to family life has become the justification for a multitudes of problems in Europe—such as not jailing felons as a human right matter due to impact on family and not deporting foreign terrorists living in the UK—issues that are beyond our . . . . Continue Reading »

15 Jun 2011 0

Manual Labor, Academe, and Baseball

by Kevin Staley-Joyce

Joe Carter’s column this week draws on the autobiographical to illustrate an important point of comparison between workers in the world of labor and their counterparts in the world of ideas: Both idealize the other’s lot; but, as Carter argues, the two life courses are different in . . . . Continue Reading »

15 Jun 2011 0