Embryonic stem cells are back in the news , as the Senate debates the use of federal funding for destructive research. There’s something about the drive to force this issue that corresponds far too closely to political seasons: We seem compelled to have this debate again whenever elections . . . . Continue Reading »
It surely means something that we live in an age containing the greatest ukulele player ever born, but I’m not sure just what it means. His name is Jake Shimabukuro , a twenty-nine-year-old from Hawaii, and he can make a four-string ukulele do everything but sit up and beg¯and the . . . . Continue Reading »
He had a name like a James Bond villain¯ Money , Dr. Money ¯and he lived his life as though he were one of those villains, as well: With the mad conviction that he had come like Prometheus to deliver fire, with the crazed confidence that his genius raised him above the quotidian norms of . . . . Continue Reading »
While not an Anglican, I was quite interested in a piece of news that comes from The Christian Challenge , an online magazine that calls itself "The Only Worldwide Voice of Traditional Anglicanism." It reports that former U.S. senator John Danforth (also an Episcopal priest) gave a talk . . . . Continue Reading »
Philip Rieff has died at age 83, in Philadelphia. We never met, but he would write from time to time, usually a brief note on something or the other that appeared in First Things . I forget what it was that I had written some years ago, but he responded, if memory serves, "I almost wish I . . . . Continue Reading »
"We liberals, er, I mean progressives, are patriots, too." That is the gist of E.J. Dionne’s touchingly defensive Fourth of July column in the Washington Post . He deeply resents the fact that it is widely assumed that patriotism is the default position of conservatives, while it is . . . . Continue Reading »
More people should know about University Faculty for Life. The proceedings of the fifteenth annual conference is now out, and it is packed with some of the sharpest thinking about the theory, practice, and prospects of the pro-life cause. There are articles on abortion and international law, on why . . . . Continue Reading »
The Los Angeles Times this week published its latest poll on 2008 presidential candidates , and the results looked bad for Mitt Romney: "Thirty-seven percent of those questioned said they would not vote for a Mormon presidential candidate." Except, perhaps, that the connection between . . . . Continue Reading »
"Under God"¯Mystic Chords The phrase "this nation, under God" has rung in the American ear and haunted the American imagination for now 230 years, ever since July 2, 1776. It was ringing in the ear of Abraham Lincoln fourscore and seven years after 1776, on the bloody field . . . . Continue Reading »
For some authors, it’s always personal¯history and the human condition combining to be about, mostly, them. James Carroll, for instance. Perhaps it’s a kind of paranoia: In Constantine’s Sword , Carroll seemed to think that the whole history of Christianity was a conspiracy . . . . Continue Reading »
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