*All Things Shining, by Hubert Dreyfus and Sean Dorrance Kelly The subtitle to this book is Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age, which pretty well describes the book. The authors use some of the greatest works of the West to reveal how we have lost our engagement with and responsiveness […]
Archives for September 2011
An Immigration Litmus Test in Alabama
The Alabama immigration law that was to have become effective this week may be the ultimate test of whether or not we can truly enforce our border security, our sovereignty, and the rule of law. It’s a tough law, probably much more rigorous than the Arizona law that produced so much angst, and to read […]
Religious Liberty Watch
The staff of the Manhattan Declaration, a non-partisan statement of conscience in defense of human life, traditional marriage, and religious freedom, to which I am a signatory, does a good job of tracking trends in religious liberty in America and lately they report a rash of transgressions—teachers being removed from classrooms for expressing opposition to […]
A Generation Lost?
Thanks to my friend Blaine Gibbs for sending the following excerpt from an opinion piece on the recent London riots by Brendan O’Neill, reportedly of the leftist persuasion, in The Australian: What we have on the streets of London and elsewhere are welfare state mobs. The youth who are shattering their own communities represent a […]
It’s Bush’s Fault
All critique of the delays, the means, the mission itself, and the American role in the effort aside, to be rid of a murderous tyrant like Moammar Gadhafi of Libya is a blessing for the world and a major victory for American interests. What follows there is another discussion, but whatever the prognosis it shouldn’t […]
The Devil is Not in the Details
As we wait with the usual overhyped media anticipation and no great expectations for President Obama’s latest pronouncement on how his government will address the crisis in economic growth, here is what not to look for: Don’t look for anything resembling a detailed “plan” with prescriptive steps, don’t look for new commissions and “bipartisan” legislative […]
Timely Papal Advice (Published August 2011)
Incidentally, consistent with Tom Sowell’s ideas on the constrained vs. the unconstrained visions outlined in his book, here is an appropriate quote from recent remarks by Pope Benedict: “The cry for the large scale has the whiff of morality; in contrast, limiting oneself to what is possible seems to be renouncing the passions of morality […]
A Very Instructive Conversion (Published August 2011)
I never thought much about the celebrated playwright David Mamet until the news broke that the long time reliable patron of the left had “converted” to conservatism. The interesting facts to me were the source of the ideas that influenced his conversion, and sure enough there were some of my heroes. Mamet says that he […]
A Waning Power (Published August 2011)
Reasonable people can and do disagree about the purposes of American power in the world. Some are close calls, for example, should we be in Libya today or is it our business what form of government prevails in Egypt? But some of the calls should be rather obvious if the premise is still valid that […]