First of all, our gratitude to Douglas Ollivant for his service. Second, read the whole essay Peter links below. A fine piece—if anything, too brief, because no-one provides good reporting or analysis on Iraq these days. Third, the basic point Ollivant is making about regime-change, and what . . . . Continue Reading »
Harvard Magazine on the latest stage in the American conquest of the Middle Ages : The great literary scholar Ernst Robert Curtius reflected on this absence in his 1948 magnum opus, European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages . What strikes me most is this: The American . . . . Continue Reading »
On one level, I think Paul deserves all of the newsletter-related grief he is getting. The most plausible charitable explanation is that Paul and his associates looked at the most slanderous, incendiary, things liberals said about Republicans winning elections based on appeals to bigotry and . . . . Continue Reading »
Elizabeth Scalia on a moment of revelation : Last spring, I had occasion to stand upon a colonnade at St. Peters Basilica and watch the sun come up over Rome. As it chased the damp and rising mists from the distance, I realized I was enjoying in those hills and columns and trees a prospect . . . . Continue Reading »
You can imagine my surprise this Christmas weekend when I discovered an essay on ancient and medieval spiritual theology in the Sunday Book Review section of the New York Times . In “The Noonday Demons, and Ours,” Brandeis English professor John Plotz reminds us that temptations toward . . . . Continue Reading »
“The real dirty little secret of religiosity in America,” says Mark Silk, a professor of religion and public life, “is that there are so many people for whom spiritual interest, thinking about ultimate questions, is minimal.” As USA Today notes , research is beginning to . . . . Continue Reading »
According to our friend (who for reasons both philosophical and military knows what he’s talking about), Iraq has to be free to stand on its own. Here’s why: At this point, Iraq is exactly where we should expect a country to be when coming out of forced regime change, with the almost . . . . Continue Reading »
Poll: Some worshipers took a holiday on Christmas Washington Post , Michelle Boorstein 2011: The year Mormonism went mainstream National Post , Charles Lewis Cheated Out of Christmas Middlebrow , John Mark Reynolds Exchanging the Natural for the Unnatural Challies.com , Tim Challies Christmas . . . . Continue Reading »
Last month I stirred up a bit of ill will by poking fun at advocates of distributism (see: Who Gets To Be the Czar of Aesthetic Consumption? ). As I said at the time, I like and admire them but get annoyed by their habit of taking their philosophy very, very seriously. What I didn’t explain . . . . Continue Reading »