If Barack Obama loses the presidential election, some say , the youth will never get over it. They will lose faith in politics. This prediction is meant to be grim, but I think it among the better reasons to hope Barack Obama loses. Not to trade in tired truisms, but I must repeat what seems to me . . . . Continue Reading »
If you haven’t heard already, the 3.8 billion dollar particle collider in Geneva, Switzerland was revved up for the first time this morning, and two beams of protons were successfully sent around the seventeen-mile-long underground ring: The world’s largest particle collider passed its . . . . Continue Reading »
While I’m recommending philosophers , I should make a particularly enthusiastic plug for Aurel Kolnai . Kolnai was a Hungarian-Jewish Wunderkind who converted to Catholicism under the influence of G.K. Chesterton. He then proceeded to hop erratically around the western world, publishing . . . . Continue Reading »
The concept of science as religion is apparently growing. In Berkeley, a new “temple to the religion of science” is soon to open. From the New Scientist story:“Praise be to Darwin! We are gathered here today to give thanks to those scientists who have given us something to sustain . . . . Continue Reading »
An assisted suicide bill sponsored by Greens in Victoria, Australia was defeated handily in the Provincial Parliament. Good. I bring this up because the scope of who would qualify for mercy killing under the proposal was quite broad. From the story: The Medical Treatment (Physician-Assisted Dying) . . . . Continue Reading »
Apropos of the charges against Scientology in France , James Taranto noticed the curious headline of the AP story on the topic: “French Court to Try Church of Scientology.” Adds Tatanto , “If It Doesn’t Work, They’ll Go Back to Laïcité.” . . . . Continue Reading »
The Democratic ticket has been trying hard lately to frame abortion as an issue best left to theologians, not politicians. Senator Obama, when asked by George Stephanopoulos to clarify his view of the beginning of human life, explained that he doesn’t “presume to be able to answer these . . . . Continue Reading »
Nathaniel , I too enjoyed Camilia Paglia’s Salon article today—definitely more insightful than Juan Cole’s’ silly piece yesterday comparing Palin to Muslim fundamentalists. Here’s one of my favorite parts: Conservative though she may be, I felt that Palin represented an . . . . Continue Reading »
There s an old saying: “The devil made me do it.” The modern iteration of this I-can’t help-myself-excuse is: “My genes made me do it.” This idea was boosted in a report recently that men with a certain gene variant were twice as likely to commit adultery as men without . . . . Continue Reading »
At Salon, Camille Paglia writes that Sarah Palin shows a kind of frontier feminism heretofore ignored in the national scene. Paglia gives an example of this that she saw in her own childhood: Here’s one episode. My father and his visiting brother, a dapper barber by trade, were standing . . . . Continue Reading »
Subscribe
Latest Issue
Support First Things
