Joseph Bottum is the former editor of First Things.

RSS Feed

Pro-Life Libertarians?

The blog Surfeited with Dainties smartly picks up the various commentators who have recently been expressing libertarian dismay with the libertarian Ron Paul’s opposition to abortion. The blog’s author, Michael Brendan Dougherty, points, for instance, to this extraordinary passage from . . . . Continue Reading »

22 Dec 2007

To Everything There Is a Season

Christmas is a festive time—but lest we grow too festive, the Archbishop of Canterbury has taken the opportunity to remind us that many of the elements in the traditional Nativity story are mythical. Indeed, “Dr Williams concluded that Jesus was probably not born in December at all. He . . . . Continue Reading »

20 Dec 2007

Technology and Its Discontents

Fortune magazine has issued its annual list of the year’s top goofs from big technology companies. Google manages to make multiple appearances on the list, but my prediction for the frontrunner, Diebold’s several disasters with voting machines, came in only second. The winner was the . . . . Continue Reading »

20 Dec 2007

Why Talk About the Princeton Story?

We’ve been following, here on the First Things website , the case of the Princeton student who admitted on Monday that he had faked attacks on himself last Friday. I find it a fascinating, albeit sad, story, but a pair of our friends—both members of First Things ’ board and both, . . . . Continue Reading »

18 Dec 2007

After the First Death, There Is No Other

Over at the Cato Institute’s website , Aubrey de Grey, Diana Schaub, Ronald Bailey, and Daniel Callahan are having an interesting discussion under the title “Do We Need Death? The Consequences of Radical Life Extension.” Diana—a professor of political science at Loyola . . . . Continue Reading »

18 Dec 2007

RE: Huckenfreude

Hmmm, Ryan. Huckabee is one of those names that seem to invite creativity. (Although, as a general rule, people named Bottum don’t get to make fun of other people’s last names; someday I’ll try to tell you what third grade was like.) Still, there are some naturals for the man: . . . . Continue Reading »

14 Dec 2007

Protestant vs. Catholic

The Oklahoma law professor Michael Scaperlanda has a post over at Mirror of Justice that mentions analogical uses of Protestant and Catholic in naming various schools of interpretation of the Constitution. I remember some similar discussion swirling around after the attacks of September 11, when . . . . Continue Reading »

14 Dec 2007

All-American Food

Simple is hard. It’s not easy boiling down a long essay into a quick sentence or two that captures what it is about the essay that caught your eye. Our friends at Arts & Letters Daily however, have always had a talent for it, which is what makes their site one of the great treasures of the . . . . Continue Reading »

14 Dec 2007

Science and Politics

In the New York Times , John Tierney files a brief report about the possibility of new drugs and genetic modifications to turn off or on homosexual tendencies. For some years now, the medical associations (particularly the American Psychological Association) have firmly condemned psychiatric and . . . . Continue Reading »

13 Dec 2007

Advent Sestina

Back in the December 2005 issue , we published a poem from the science-fiction writer Kevin Andrew Murphy. As I wrote at the time, the difference between good and bad may be larger in the sestina than in nearly any other form of structured verse: When sestinas are good, they are very, very good; . . . . Continue Reading »

12 Dec 2007