Consider the following statements: Neil Armstrong never landed on the moon but was bouncing around in a TV studio on July 20, 1969, with Walter Cronkite in a nearby booth to report on the alleged event. The baby baptized as William Shakespeare on April 26, 1564 in Stratford-on-Avon grew up . . . . Continue Reading »
Sometimes the translation of a tragedy can itself be tragic. A fatal flaw undermines an otherwise promising work, whisking away the greatness it might attain. Such is the case for Anne Carson’s An Oresteia .The an is there because this is not a translation of Aeschylus’ famous trilogy. . . . . Continue Reading »
In his celebrated Christian allegory The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe , C.S. Lewis represents evil’s hold on the world with the image of an enduring winter—Narnia under the power of the White Witch, who makes it “always winter and never Christmas.” According to prophecies, the coming of . . . . Continue Reading »
Journalist William Saletan thinks he has come up with a novel, “common ground” idea for ending the culture war over abortion: Pro-choicers¯and especially the Pro-Choicer-in-Chief¯must begin to really preach contraception. “Conservatives,” on the other hand, “must . . . . Continue Reading »
Within the next month or so, Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) will introduce a bill in the Senate that does two things: (1) Closes off a loophole in the existing law that permitted “transplant tourism”¯desperate Americans seeking transplants overseas in often substandard medical . . . . Continue Reading »
If you have not heard yet, President Barack Obama has accepted an invitation from the University of Notre Dame¯not only to address its graduates at its May 17 commencement exercises but also to have bestowed upon him at this event an honorary doctorate of laws.The University of Notre Dame is a . . . . Continue Reading »
May 14 is Israel’s Independence Day (celebrated according to the Jewish rather than the Gregorian calendar), recalling the declaration of the State of Israel in 1948. For Palestinian Arabs the following day, May 15, is a day of mourning, “Disaster ( Naqba ) Day.” It has gone . . . . Continue Reading »
A nice treat came in the mail a couple of days ago: David Hart’s new book, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies (Yale Press). I’m a complete sucker for the great avalanches of Hart’s long, elegant Ciceronian sentences. And his take-no-prisoners . . . . Continue Reading »
There were feminists prior to the early twentieth century, that is, before women’s suffrage. This may come as a surprise, and indeed, very little is known about these earlier feminists beyond the work of a few scholars. Nevertheless, there were women philosophers throughout Europe who were busy . . . . Continue Reading »
William Schneider, the CNN political commentator, once declared, “The press . . . doesn’t get religion”, and nowhere is he proven more right than in the present press fracas over the nine-year-old Brazilian girl and her abortion.The facts of the case are both heartbreaking and . . . . Continue Reading »
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