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First Links - 08.30.11

Reversing the Retreat from Marriage Love and Fidelity Network , Cassy Hough The Quiet Death of Interfaith Activity? Patheos , Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein American Muslims feeling right at home, new poll finds National Post The Last Temptation of Science The New Atlantis , Algis Valiunas Marriage . . . . Continue Reading »

The Benefits of Being Ugly

Did you know ugly folks make less money than the beautiful people? One study has revealed that “an American worker who was among the bottom one-seventh in looks, as assessed by randomly chosen observers, earned 10 to 15 percent less per year than a similar worker whose looks were assessed in the top one-third — a lifetime difference, in a typical case, of about $230,000.” Daniel S. Hamermesh, a professor of economics at the University of Texas, Austin, proposes that to compensate these folks we should have affirmative action for ugly people
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Mercy Killing to Prevent Child Abuse

Society is oozing “compassion” as a reason to kill these days.  Self starvation is being promoted in the NYT. Assisted suicide is treated by many commentators and advocates as a necessity. And now a mother who killed her healty 8-year-old says she was justified in killing him to . . . . Continue Reading »

The New Film Version of Brighton Rock

While I have read (and enjoyed) a number of Graham Greene’s spy stories (what he called entertainments), I have never read any of his religious novels, including Brighton Rock. Therefore, I do not know how faithful the new adaptation of the film is to the novel. I also have not seen the 1947 . . . . Continue Reading »

Miller & Medaille on the Economy

A very interesting exchange between Robert Miller, a contributor to “First Thoughts” and to the magazine, and the Distributist writer John Medaille, published by the online magazine Dappled Things : On Truth and Trade: Economics and the Catholic Vision of the Good Life . Miller defends . . . . Continue Reading »

On the Square Today

In this latest On the Square column, David Mills deciphers a Republican fundraising letter : The letter, with “Senator Orrin Hatch” written in large capital letters centered across the top, told me that on behalf of the National Republican Senatorial Committee the senator was sending me . . . . Continue Reading »

Why the Arabic World Turned Away from Science

The “golden age” of Arabic science extended from the eighth through the thirteenth centuries a.d. . Since then the intellectual decline has been staggering. Hillel Ofek traces the answer back to foundational differences between Islam and Christianity : There are roughly 1.6 billion . . . . Continue Reading »

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