A Christian Reading

Salvation is From the Jews

2006-01-19T14:26:00.000-05:00

John Wilson and RJ Neuhaus may have a more nuanced view of Jewish-Christian relations than most, but is it really filtering down to the pews? more>>

Deficits, Deficits

2006-01-16T06:10:00.000-05:00

In a worst-case scenario, foreigners who finance the U.S. budget and trade deficits would sour on U.S. investments and unload their holdings. The prices of U.S. stocks and bonds could plunge. Interest rates, including those for mortgages, could soar. A financial crisis could confront the country. more>>

The Noxious Boasting of Parents about their Children

2006-01-05T13:05:00.000-05:00

My child did this... My child did that... My child is the handsomest... My child is the smartest -- I hardly know how to cope sometimes, she's so smart!... Oh, please. more>>

Academic Celebrity vs. Enduring Works

2006-01-04T14:06:00.000-05:00

The academy is one of the few places in our turbulent culture where we are supposed to be about the business of creating and sustaining things of long-term value, and nurturing a knowledgeable and respectful relationship to the human past. But not if your main thing is being a fashionable academic superstar who's out to redefine the boundaries of your field. more>>

The Morality of Economic Growth

2006-01-03T15:26:00.000-05:00

Economic growth is bad - destroying the environment and straining our resources! No, it's good - in fact perfect - let Adam Smith's invisible hand reign! Well, yes and no. "Understanding limitations of the market leads to an understanding of the necessary role of government in promoting growth and making sure that it is the right kind." more>>

Who Are These People???

2006-01-03T13:28:00.000-05:00

About 22% of U.S. adults believe Mr. Hussein helped plan 9/11, the poll shows, and 26% believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction when the U.S. invaded. Another 24% believe several of the 9/11 hijackers were Iraqis. more>>

Mix 'n Match Faith

2005-12-30T14:36:00.000-05:00

Christians are regularly attending different churches in the course of a week or a month, picking and choosing among programs and services, to satisfy social and spiritual needs. They are comfortable participating in multiple churches. The practice is particularly pronounced among young people. More>>

Whither Psychotherapy?

2005-12-28T15:33:00.000-05:00

Boy, the zeit is really geisting now! Or is it? more>>

Cavalierly foisting unsolicited reading material on a book lover is like buying underwear for someone you hardly know...

2005-12-28T14:23:00.000-05:00

"Several years ago, I calculated how many books I could read if I lived to my actuarially expected age. The answer was 2,138. In theory, those 2,138 books would include everything from "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" to "Le Colonel Chabert," with titles by authors as celebrated as Marcel Proust and as obscure as Marcel Aymé. In principle, there would be enough time to read 500 masterpieces, 500 minor classics, 500 overlooked works of genius, 500 oddities and 138 examples of high-class trash. Nowhere in this utopian future would there be time for Hi-Ho, Steverino!" more>>

Secret Court Judge Quites in Protest

2005-12-27T10:07:00.000-05:00

A federal judge has resigned from the court that oversees government surveillance in intelligence cases in protest of President Bush's secret authorization of a domestic spying program.

Also, Scott McClellan was asked to explain why Bush last year said, "Any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so."

more>>

The Enormity of Climate Change

2005-12-27T09:45:00.000-05:00

Bill McKibben says it's almost impossible to communicate. It puts you in an elegaic mood. "It's as if we were stripping the spectrum of a color, or eradicating one note from every octave. There are almost no words for such a change.." more>>

Francis Fukuyama on Consciousness

2005-12-27T09:34:00.000-05:00

Philosophers think they've got it figured out. Hold your horses, says Fukuyama. more>>

If you can buy a Jaguar, you can buy a sexy 24 year old woman...

2005-12-27T09:27:00.000-05:00

Right? Wrong... more>>

The Tsunami Aftermath

2005-12-27T09:16:00.000-05:00

In pictures, one year later. more>>

Dover ID opinion

2005-12-21T20:14:00.000-05:00

Judge John E. Jones III's opinion in the Dover school district case. more>>

Domestic Spying Without Checks

2005-12-21T19:59:00.000-05:00

Suppose the president's legal position on the spying question were correct and that he actually had the unilateral powers his lawyers say he has. Then it would be especially important for him to exercise this authority publicly and tell us when he was creating a new spying operation. Under this scenario, the only power Americans would have left against presidential abuse is precisely the power to mobilize and insist that Congress rein the president in. By keeping his decisions a secret, the president insulates himself from the last check and balance against excess. This should have no place in a constitutional democracy. more>>

Creative Types Get Priced Out

2005-12-20T18:31:00.000-05:00

Journalists who write stories about people getting priced out of Manhattan are getting priced out of Manhattan. Pity... more>>

Christmas Music, Christmas Music, Christmas Music

2005-12-19T13:22:00.000-05:00

Isn't it just the same old stuff year after year? How does a new Christmas album ever break ahead of the pack? more>>

Of Towns and Times

2005-12-19T09:46:00.000-05:00

In the face of rape, pillage, fire and massacre -- terrorism of the worst sort -- where is the real story? Where is your focus for hope and security? Maybe not where you expect. Or in the time you have in mind... more>>

It Can't Happen Here

2005-12-19T09:29:00.000-05:00

Could you convince Americans to renounce bedrock principles? If so, who is the greatest danger? The liberal media? Crypto-fascist right-wing Presidents? Secular intellectuals? more>>

Social Transformation, Dissent, and Evil

2005-12-17T14:26:00.000-05:00

"Not satisfied merely to crush a lively if troubled democracy, they used their police state and the mass media to dissolve traditional allegiances. Replacing most forms of organized social life with new, party-themed activities, they left citizens with no place to share heretical thoughts. The result was a nightmare version of a normal modern society, with popular entertainment manipulating public enthusiasms and hatreds, and the government intruding into intimate matters of the mind and body while demanding an end to the coddling of the weak." more>>

Changing Sexual Preference Based on Fear

2005-12-16T16:02:00.000-05:00

You are the way you are, right? Well, maybe, mabe not... more>>

Oh! Here's a book Sam will like...

2005-12-16T16:00:00.000-05:00

Sam likes books. How about this one? Any pretty book will do. But what will Sam do with it? more>>

Literacy Falls Among College Grads

2005-12-16T15:57:00.000-05:00

When the test was last administered, in 1992, 40 percent of the nation's college graduates scored at the proficient level, meaning that they were able to read lengthy, complex English texts and draw complicated inferences. But on the 2003 test, only 31 percent of the graduates demonstrated those high-level skills. more>>

Darth Vader is a Result of the Presbyterian Church

2005-12-16T15:21:00.000-05:00

A boot-legged Star Wars DVD with funny translations. The Jedi Council was rendered back into the English as "the Presbyterian Church." Makes a difference... more>>

Lewis, Myth, and Meaning

2005-12-16T10:08:00.000-05:00

"Our age cannot adequately answer the critique of modernist science and religion because so few of us know how it feels to live in a universe that is alive with its Father's presence. Lewis steeped himself in that more vibrant, old-European world that stretches from the ancient Greeks to Samuel Johnson..." more>>

Megachurches and Christmas Day

2005-12-15T11:40:00.000-05:00

Shouldn't we all just stay home, open presents, and worship God in our own way? Won't a Christmas Eve service do just as well? Hey, you nitpickers! NYTimes>> NPR>> HoustonChron>> WashTimes>>

Monkey See, Monkey Do?

2005-12-14T13:12:00.000-05:00

"I drove into New Haven on a recent morning with a burning question on my mind. How did my daughter do against the chimpanzees?" more>>

Having It Both Ways on Evolution

2005-12-13T14:17:00.000-05:00

Does Darwin shred God? If so, can it be taught? Do we have to talk about God at all if we talk about evolution? more>>

Harvard Girls and Harvard Parents

2005-12-13T14:13:00.000-05:00

The truth is, it's hard to expect your kids to be superdiligent at school and slave away at extra studying if you aren't working tirelessly yourself and then squeezing in tutoring time with them at home... more>>

Narnia - Action Fights vs. Dialogue and Character?

2005-12-13T13:57:00.000-05:00

How much do you give up when you transfer a book to film? And are the choices because you want to convey the same story in a different medium, or a slightly different story? more>>

Religious Coalitions

2005-12-13T13:35:00.000-05:00

Wing-nut fundamentalists support GWB, and bleeding heart mainline Christians Kerry, right? well... maybe>>

A degree in what? What good is that?

2005-12-12T11:19:00.000-05:00

What's an education worth, anyway? Does it create enough wealth to justify 10% of GDP? Or does it do something else? more>>

Words words words

2005-12-07T14:37:00.000-05:00

Johnson set out to fix and codify the English language. But the task merely of recording and describing the English of his time proved almost beyond him... more>>

Christian Vegetarians

2005-12-06T14:52:00.000-05:00

Christian vegetarians can be as selective about their arguments as they are about their diets... more>>

Borrowing Christmas

2005-12-02T13:47:00.000-05:00

Americans are going to borrow $120 billion for Christmas this year. Dona nobis... more>>

How to End the World on a Budget

2005-12-02T12:12:00.000-05:00

But did Kirk Cameron think a 5 o'clock shadow would make him look like an action hero? more>>

Syriana

2005-11-27T20:27:00.000-05:00

Syriana (Warner Bros.), written and directed by Stephen Gaghan, is a grim, twisty international conspiracy picture that challenges the audience on every level, political and aesthetic. Slate>> NYTimes>>

Is Modern Achitecture to Blame for the French Riots?

2005-11-27T20:25:00.000-05:00

Bad high rises? more>>

Biking Everywhere

2005-11-24T15:29:00.000-05:00

Has its advantages. But then there's The Silence, the awkward, get-this-over-with tension that often accompanies transactions where one party is clad head-to-toe in stretch synthetics that might not smell so great. more>>

Screaming

2005-11-23T09:03:00.000-05:00

Like most contemporary cultural icons, The Scream is known primarily through copies and parodies. The image has appeared on T-shirts, mousepads, coffee mugs, key-chains, and is a popular tattoo. But peel back a few layers of familiarity, and... more>>

So that's why Nancy Reagan consulted them....

2005-11-23T09:01:00.000-05:00

Those who don't know astrology have often dismissed it on the grounds that experience refutes its determinism. But professional astrologers, as Bobrick explains, were not determinists, any more than they were -- in their own terms -- superstitious. They set out the varied probabilities, as the stars shaped them, so that their clients could make intelligent choices. They also analyzed the characters of their clients, frankly and in detail. more>>

The Pantheon

2005-11-23T08:22:00.000-05:00

"The Pantheon, so great within and without, has overwhelmed me with admiration," Goethe wrote in his "Italian Journey." Not an unusual reaction... more>>

Abraham Lincoln and Thanksgiving

2005-11-22T13:23:00.000-05:00

Our national Thanksgiving Day is a good time to remember the president who had more to do with the institution of Thanksgiving and the actual practice of thanking God than any other, and to recall his last public speech. more>>

The Free Market: Perfect and Glorious, Flawed and Deletorius, or Somewhere Middle-orius?

2005-11-21T14:47:00.000-05:00

Is the market a "totalitarian regime," a "diabolical force" that conflates good with profits and evil with losses and, in the process, steals our souls? more>>

American culture is hyper-confessional. What's up with Catholics?

2005-11-21T11:37:00.000-05:00

As recently as 40 years ago, many Catholics would not have thought of accepting the Eucharist until after they'd cleansed their souls. Today the situation is almost exactly the reverse: Entire congregations receive Communion, while the confessionals remain mostly empty. What gives? more>>

Voting patterns change if Roe is overturned?

2005-11-21T11:05:00.000-05:00

Abortion has animated conservative voters and hasn't really hurt the GOP because it is still an abstract discussion in many minds. But imagine if Roe was overturned. more>>

God and the Internet

2005-11-17T00:35:00.000-05:00

64 percent of Internet-using Americans—82 million people—say they use the web for religious purposes. What's up with that? A lot, as it turns out. more>>

Reviewing Madrasas

2005-11-17T00:25:00.000-05:00

The concerns of most madrasa graduates remain traditional: the correct fulfillment of rituals, how to wash correctly before prayers, and the proper length to grow a beard. If that was all of it... more>>

What is a Novel? How Does it Work?

2005-11-14T13:13:00.000-05:00

Unable to write after September 11th, Jane Smiley turned to reading. Reading 100 novels. What good is that? A willingness to enter other people's minds and look at things through their eyes? Scattershot meditations on the novel's relation to morality, history, psychology, and other realms of life? A novelist just trying to convince herself that what she does has some impact in the world? LATimes>> Austin American-Statesman>> Seattle Times>>

In Which The New York Times Discovers that the Bible (unlike other books?) Must Be Interpreted

2005-11-14T09:40:00.000-05:00

Ha! Gotcha! What do you say now, silly people? The world is complicated. more>>

In Which the New York Times Shows Us that Lewis was a Strange Man and The Narnia Books Aren't So Glorious

2005-11-14T09:38:00.000-05:00

The Narnia books are all about "escape"? They're not as well written as the Harry Potter series? more>>

Garrison Keillor Should Just Get A Stiff Drink

2005-11-12T19:13:00.000-05:00

The most obvious problem with "Good Poems for Hard Times" is that it proposes that "the meaning of poetry is to give courage." That is not the meaning of poetry; that is the meaning of Scotch. The meaning of poetry is poetry. more>>

Catholic Theology and Evolution: a Critqiue of Schönborn

2005-11-11T12:55:00.000-05:00

The word “random” is a basic technical term in science. So if the word “random” necessarily entails the idea that some events are “unguided” in the sense of falling “outside of the bounds of divine providence,” we should have to condemn as incompatible with Christian faith a great deal of modern physics, chemistry, geology, and astronomy, as well as biology. more>>

Cawfee, Watta, Boid, and Feah

2005-11-11T12:46:00.000-05:00

"Most of the important changes in American speech are not happening at the level of grammar or language—which used to be the case—but at the level of sound itself.” more>>

Equalite, Fraternite, blah, blah

2005-11-11T10:27:00.000-05:00

The French are very egalitarian, right? No discrimination. No race or class divisions. "We're all just French." Think again. more>>

Kyle Lake, on the Death of Kyle Lake

2005-11-10T14:00:00.000-05:00

No matter who you are or where your theology stands, all people who strive to thoughtfully deal with God and life are forced to live within the tension of God's providence and a chaotic world. more>>

Whither the Deficit?

2005-11-10T13:38:00.000-05:00

Dick Cheney says deficits don't matter. If America were borrowing at half the present rate, it could probably relax. But $782 billion a year—more than six percent of GDP—is outlandish. And dangerous. more>>

If a Democrat with Faith...

2005-11-10T09:44:00.000-05:00

Entering the race for Virginia governor last spring, Lt. Gov. Tim Kaine went on Christian radio to talk about faith in politics. One of his ads spotlighted his work as a Christian missionary in Honduras during a break from law school. Mr. Kaine's campaign underscored the importance of his Roman Catholicism to his life and political views. NYTimes>> Amy Sullivan>>

Perpetual College

2005-11-10T09:41:00.000-05:00

Nearly every college has some screwball who never seems to graduate, lingering year after year as classmates move on. In his 12th year of college, Johnny Lechner has parlayed life as perpetual student into a lucrative personal brand. more>>

Reading Romans through the Centuries

2005-11-10T09:34:00.000-05:00

Not surprisingly, Romans has been used as cannon fodder in many of the theological disputes that have divided Christendom. more>>

How long could you keep your happy act going?

2005-11-09T14:26:00.000-05:00

When it comes to depression, there are no heroes. What if you were a person of deep, moral strength and determination? What if, by some heroic effort, you managed to ignore your feelings and carry on with your life for an entire year before you snapped? (And you will snap.) On the day you snap, you are just a guy who snapped. You get no credit for the weeks or months or years that you were being heroic. No one knew that you were holding all that inside. more>>

Oh! Oh! A Trend! I spot it! See? Right Over There!

2005-11-09T14:16:00.000-05:00

The awesome stupidity of the common herd endures and multiplies, in part, because of the bogus trend stories that daily newspapers feed it. more>>

Book-Hunting

2005-11-09T09:29:00.000-05:00

Book collectors are thrill-seekers. It is a vegetarian hunt to be sure, without much exertion or risk, but... multi-part series>>

We Are What We Eat?

2005-11-08T12:53:00.000-05:00

Reading just one chapter of "Terrors of the Table" will put you right off your milkshake and Big Mac. more>>

E. J. Dionne Offers a Theme for Democrats

2005-11-08T08:09:00.000-05:00

Democrats are obsessed with visions, messages, programs and narratives. Try this one on for size: government must protect individualism by helping the less powerful confront economic difficulties and abuses of the system by the powerful. more>>

Books Zooming Through Cyberspace

2005-11-08T08:05:00.000-05:00

A collaborative effort between Google and several of the world’s leading research libraries aims to make many thousands of books available to be searched and read online free of charge. Amazon's in on the act, too. Not everyone's trilled. more>>

Speaking of Indiana Jones

2005-11-08T07:56:00.000-05:00

More than 2 and 1/2 years after looters sacked Iraq's National Museum in Baghdad, Iraqi authorities and police forces throughout the world are still searching for thousands of stolen items, including a handful of the most famous artifacts in history. more>>

Gimme back my artifacts, Indiana Jones!

2005-11-07T14:47:00.000-05:00

Museum directors hope the artwork they display will inspire visitors - but not necessarily to ask, "Did they steal that?" more>>

Eyes on the Prize

2005-11-07T13:45:00.000-05:00

Winning is everything, whatever the agenda. In the economy of prestige, awards are good for publicity, for getting better jobs and for shutting up one's wary relatives. As for the prizes themselves... more>>

The Genius of Calvin and Hobbes

2005-11-07T11:17:00.000-05:00

Calvin's imaginative play is the central element of Watterson's strip, and the reality of his friendship with Hobbes is never resolved. The tiger's true nature is left ambiguous. Calvin, too, is more real than the typical comic-strip character. more>>

Jesus and the Environment

2005-11-07T09:26:00.000-05:00

"Genesis 2:15," Richard Cizik cites for environmental concerns: "The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it." To which James Inhofe says, "You can always find in Scriptures a passage to misquote for almost anything." more>>

John Silber on Science vs. Scientism

2005-11-06T14:59:00.000-05:00

Evolution as divinely guided or random mutation? Both sides are entitled to their credo. But each should recognize that faith, not facts, supports their positions: there is no scientific evidence or proof for either intelligent design or random mutation as a factual explanation of the "arrival of the fittest". more>>

Early Christian Worship Site in Israel

2005-11-06T14:48:00.000-05:00

Israeli state archaeologists have discovered on the grounds of a high-security prison here mosaics, pottery and other remains of a Roman-era Christian building, which they say could be the oldest public place of Christian worship ever uncovered in Israel and perhaps one of the earliest such sites in the world. more>>

Bush, Blair, Pope, and Oprah doing "Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes"

2005-11-06T14:42:00.000-05:00

more>>

Jimmy Carter on Abortion

2005-11-06T14:38:00.000-05:00

"These things impact other issues on which President Bush and I basically agree," Carter said of his abortion stance. "I've never been convincedthat Jesus Christ would approve abortion." Carter said leaders in the Democratic Party have hurt it because of their insistence on a rigid pro-abortion stance within the party and for party leadership positions. more>>

Speaking of Nutrition, Mrs. Beeton

2005-11-06T08:31:00.000-05:00

I love Battenburg Cake. And a well-oiled happily running domestic life. And a thousand other things I associate with the name "Beeton". Turns out the Mrs Beeton diet in the 19th century was healthier than the food consumed by the average British family today. more>>

Looking Back at Nutrition

2005-11-05T14:14:00.000-05:00

One hundred years from now, people will look back on our nutritional pieties and marvel: They thought red meat was bad for you? They forced themselves to drink soymilk? more>>

Torture and Exemptions

2005-11-05T09:14:00.000-05:00

Cheney told his audience the United States doesn't engage in torture, these participants added, even though he said the administration needed an exemption from any legislation banning "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment in case the president decided one was necessary to prevent a terrorist attack. more>>

What Is Oprah's Power?

2005-11-05T09:09:00.000-05:00

Winfrey provides what's missing in stores and online. She also creates communities of readers... more>>

Thinking About Iraqi Casualties

2005-11-05T09:03:00.000-05:00

Over 100,000 Iraqi civilians dead as casualties. What's the reality behind that number? What do we do with these numbers anyway? It instantly brings you to all these imponderable questions. more>>

Anatomy of Teenage Nerdery

2005-11-04T10:41:00.000-05:00

"I know a lot of people who were nerds in school, and they all tell the same story. If I could go back and give my thirteen year old self some advice, the main thing I'd tell him would be to stick his head up and look around. I didn't really grasp it at the time, but the whole world we lived in was as fake as a Twinkie." more>>

World 'fails to grasp' scale of Pakistan disaster. As thousands die, much work remains.

2005-11-04T10:07:00.000-05:00

"There are many thousands, potentially tens of thousands, up there in the mountains that are wounded we haven't gotten to," Jan Egeland said. A "second wave of death" could come from "people who could freeze to death, starve to death, or just be sick because of infected water." NPR>> Australia Broadcasting Corp>> AP>> PBS>>

Community: Passing on the China, Rosting Pot, Recipe, Culinary Skills, and Sense of Obligation to Produce New Cooks

2005-11-04T09:31:00.000-05:00

Encouraging us to move in post-cultural, anti-cultural, or auto-cultural direction is finally dehumanizing. Many Christian churches have adopted techniques of ministry that fit nicely into this regime. But what about community as a multi-generational project? Continuity? more>>

A Minimum of Sound to a Maximum of Sense

2005-11-04T08:56:00.000-05:00

Ancients called them sententiae. Necessity saves us the trouble of choosing. A thought is a thing as real as a cannonball. Amicus certus in re incerta cernitur. NPR>> New York Sun>> in Latin>>

Jesus the Boy, in the First Person

2005-11-03T20:21:00.000-05:00

It wasn't all that hard to see Anne Rice's latest coming: her vampire fiction always centered on characters of extraordinary powers and destinies wrestling with oversize ontological questions, and she returned to the Roman Catholic Church in 1998. Salon>> NYTimes>> USA Today>> LATimes>> Chicago Trib>>

I Literally Love This Essay

2005-11-03T13:21:00.000-05:00

Meg, in Little Women, moaned that "It's been such a dismal day I'm really dying for some amusement" Hey! She wasn't talking about a real death! more>>

Making the Good News Threatening

2005-11-03T12:31:00.000-05:00

The group views me as a window to a parallel universe. "You know evangelicals, right?" I nod yes. "Can you explain to us why they..." more>>

The Post-Modern Narrative of Star Wars

2005-11-03T05:58:00.000-05:00

As Star Wars works to make us aware of its own narrative structure, other odd things about the films start to come into focus. The characters come to understand that there is another agent, external to themselves, that is dictating the action. Within the films' fiction, that force is called … er, "the Force." The Force is a metaphor for, or figuration of, the demands of narrative. The Force is the power of plot. more>>

Art from Human Bodies

2005-11-03T05:40:00.000-05:00

Gunther von Hagens' exhibit Body Worlds opened recently at Philadelphia's Franklin Institute. Slate slideshow>> Guardian slideshow>> WaPo>> Chicago Trib>>

Art, high or kitsch, out of human bodies: a sign of the culture of death? more>>

Surely a contrast says something about the age. I'm reminded of the church of the Capuchins in Rome. more>>

CIA Black Sites

2005-11-02T14:55:00.000-05:00

The CIA has been hiding and interrogating detainees in a covert prison system set up nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries. The existence and locations of the facilities -- referred to as "black sites" in classified documents -- are known to only a handful of officials in the United States and, usually, only to the president and a few top intelligence officers in each host country. more>>

Fame or Celebrity? Talent, Pretense, and Hype

2005-11-02T13:01:00.000-05:00

Celebrity in America is epidemic, and it's spreading fast, sometimes seeming as if nearly everyone has got it. In an increasingly noisy cultural scene, with many voices and media competing for attention, one feels--perhaps incorrectly but nonetheless insistently--the need to make one's own small stir, however pathetic. more>>

Sony Not Leaving Behind Left Behind

2005-11-02T10:13:00.000-05:00

How comfortable is Hollywood with the Christian audience? This week Sony releases "Left Behind: World at War." "It emotionally touched me," said Yolanda Figueroa, wiping away tears. "I'm not a fan of Tim LaHaye, nor do I agree with the theology in it," said Ed Carey, a Baptist pastor. more>>

Scowcroft the Realist

2005-11-02T09:36:00.000-05:00

“I believe in the fallibility of human nature,” Scowcroft said. “We continually step on our best aspirations. We’re humans. Given a chance to screw up, we will.” more>>

Fred Kaplan says "Hear hear! Too late!" more>>

Christopher Hitchens is having none of it. As usual. more>>

$50,000 in credit-card debt on salaries well below that figure

2005-11-02T09:26:00.000-05:00

Debt is a moral weakness, a failure to embrace Protestant values of industry and restraint. Even so, 30 or 40 years ago, borrowing money wasn't quite so easy to do. more>>

Lincoln's Melancholy and Cabinet

2005-11-02T06:59:00.000-05:00

Paradox is at the heart of Lincoln’s appeal. Nothing about his personality was simple, and questions of state were involved in its complexities. New Yorker>> Melancholy: The Atlantic>> WaPo>> NYTimes>> NPR>> Cabinet: The Atlantic>> LATimes>> USA Today>> NYTimes>> NYTimes#2>>

Substituting Images of Reality for Reality Itself

2005-11-01T13:39:00.000-05:00

Be careful reading this: since it's on the Internet, you might cleave yourself from reality. And then you might be confused about getting your life back. Lost in a world of simulacra. Crying out to be noticed. Rehab? Deep analysis? Prozac? more>>

But it's no surprise with the generation succeeding Lasch's 1970s narcissists. more>>

Re-Ordering the Narnia Series

2005-11-01T11:26:00.000-05:00

Which comes first, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe or The Magician's Nephew? The series was re-ordered because Lewis once expressed a mild preference for the books to be read not in order of publication, but based on internal chronology. If Lewis were still around, you could buy him a drink at the pub and persuade him he was wrong. more>>

Confession in 16th-Century Germany

2005-11-01T11:09:00.000-05:00

Like many who grew up Protestant, my experience of confession has been of a general or purely private sort. Only Catholics, it seemed,... more>>

Insights from Sartre for Christians

2005-11-01T10:40:00.000-05:00

Jean-Paul Sartre is not, to put it mildly, very high on the reading list of those seeking to grow in Christian piety. But by turning the essence of sin into the foundation of a philosophical system... more>>