Imagine receiving a letter telling you that while your insurance company won’t pay for experimental drugs to combat your cancer, they’d be happy to cover lethal drugs to help you die. You want to try to live a little longer, but you're only offered funding to hasten death. This happened to . . . . Continue Reading »
The Washington Post has excelled even its own exacting standards for an uncritical and intellectually bland approach to contemporary moral nonsense. Continue Reading »
This year, on its hundredth anniversary, the Armenian Genocide of 1915 has received unusually prominent and long overdue attention. New, in-depth treatments have appeared from major presses: Thomas de Waal’s Great Catastrophe (Oxford), Eugene Rogan’s The Fall of the . . . . Continue Reading »
The social media world has been aflutter over the possibility that a flight attendant discriminated against a Muslim woman by denying her an unopened can of soda.But a story about the plight of Christians in India hasn’t caused a firestorm in the media. It is fascinating that a racial . . . . Continue Reading »
Meanwhile, in Switerland
Fr. Gerald E. Murray, The Catholic Thing
Death Denial
Marc Parry, The Chronicle Review
Decline and Schism in Religion
Ross Douthat, The New York Times
Why Evangelicals Are Having Trouble Finding a Unified Voice in Washington
Sarah Pulliam Bailey, The Washington Post
Last week, Gallup released the results of a poll on the moral acceptability of various behaviors. Specifically, this poll asked people about the morality of over 15 specific issues including abortion, gambling, and polygamy. What was most interesting was the sharp increase in the percentage of people who found doctor assisted suicide “morally acceptable.” In 2013, only 45 percent of Americans found doctor assisted suicide “morally acceptable.” Last week’s poll indicated that percentage had risen to 56 percent. Continue Reading »
From a Donatello exhibition to a high school seminar, here are some upcoming events in New York and around the globe. Continue Reading »
I have been reading the Confederacy of Dunces. The story of its publication—rejection by publishers, reluctant discovery by Waker Percy, rapid critical and commercial success—is a familiar one, of course, and one that contains an editorial lesson. Toole submitted his manuscript to Simon and Schuster, where it was read by editor Robert Gottlieb. Gottlieb recognized the book's immense merits but viewed it as a little too pointless. Continue Reading »
If a hoarsely chanted version of the “Hot Pockets” jingle means anything to you, that’s probably a sign that you are a fan of the stand-up comedy of Jim Gaffigan. Clean, Catholic, and hilarious, Gaffigan—who writes his material with his wife Jeannie—has impressed many by his ability to . . . . Continue Reading »
The name they chose for their group was, J. R. R. Tolkien self-effacingly recalls, “a pleasantly ingenious pun . . . suggesting people with vague or half-formed intimations and ideas plus those who dabble in ink.” The description conjures a picture of “donnish dreaminess,” a rag-tag band of tweed-clad writers who met for a pint from time to time. Continue Reading »
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