The Death of Modesty

I was shocked and amazed to read Charlotte Allen’s long cover story for the February 15 edition of the Weekly Standard , entitled “The New Dating Game.” It is an exploration of the sexual mores of contemporary American society, either as they actually exist or as they are being . . . . Continue Reading »

Re: Ruth Wisse and German Philosophy

Expanding on Jody’s thought , there are four issues that are raised by Prof. Wisse’s comments: Prof. Wisse surely has a case that Yiddish deserves academic study, but whether the most important expressions of Jewish writers appeared in Yiddish rather than German, or for that matter Hebrew, is . . . . Continue Reading »

Ruth Wisse and German Philosophy

One loves the work of Ruth Wisse and honors her for her long labors in trying to maintain scholarly seriousness in an American academy that, during her lifetime, seemed in many ways to have turned against itself. In a new essay on the decline of the language, however, she makes the case for the . . . . Continue Reading »

Book Review - The Making of an Atheist

For the record, one of the reasons I’m a fanboy of apologetics is that I am a former atheist and former Roman Catholic – and, of course, I like a good argument. I like it when ideas clash and people have to engage in something other than a passive way to get to the resolution – . . . . Continue Reading »

A Poem for Ash Wednesday

Since it’s the first day of Lent I thought it would be appropriate to highlight this stirring poem by Marjorie Maddox from the February 1996 issue of First Things . Ash Wednesda y Marjorie Maddox Fingernails scrubbed clean as latrines in the army, this symbol of a man dirties his thumb with . . . . Continue Reading »