Saturday, December 30, 2006

Antropomorphism

This has a few good lines, especially the "Great Big Professor Dawkins in the sky" one.

Friday, December 29, 2006

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Open field

A piece on Christianity in Holland from the Weekly Standard.

Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Failing a test set by others

This piece in the Spectator makes a good point: that suddenly Western secular liberals are no longer sure that they are the yardstick for the rest of the world. And this has raised questions on who they are.

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Energy

The NYTimes story on hispanic catholics in LA is interesting. The conclusion, though, is questionable: whether this is a false dawn or a true rebirth will be not be determined by how much the Church will focus on social justice per se. It will be determined by how much it will focus on Christ, and by the kind of education this people will receive. Unfortunately, the priests interviewed in the article seem to have other concerns.

Sunday, December 17, 2006

Finished?

On the tragic situation of Palestinian Christians.

Fatherless III

What's about people that they are obsessed about who generated them?
I'm certain he has no idea how big a role he has played in my life despite his absence -- or because of his absence. If I can't be too attached to him as my father, I'll still always be attached to the feeling I now have of having a father.

Saturday, December 16, 2006

Lurches and swerves

Peggy Noonan makes a good point: The Barak Obama phenomenon may be another symptom of the deep confusion of our age. (He does not represent any particular social trend; he does not espouse any particularly original ideas; he does not advance any particular new political agenda. But we are desperate for somebody new and nice and different, and he is able to give the impression that he may be "it.")

Thursday, December 14, 2006

Mill's ideas ARE the problem

Speaking of college curricula, the first part of this essay by Peter Berkowitz is worth reading because it describes extremely well the current situation. The second part is unconvincing, because the ideas of John Stuart Mill are precisely what originated today's content-less education: teachers should not take sides but only present multiple points of view, promoting "skeptical eclepticism" etc. But SKEPTICAL ECLEPTICISM is precisely the shared philosophy of modern college education, and the reason for its collapse! How can an intelligent man like Berkowitz miss such an obvious connection?

Wednesday, December 13, 2006

No faith

What will Harvard teach about "what it means to be a human being?"

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

Rule of thumb

It is a fact that authoritarian right-wing dictators will kill people in the thousands, whereas left-wing regimes will kill them in the millions and utterly destroy their countries. The reason is not some difference in morality between the two: it is that left-wingers are by definition ideological, while right-wingers are usually just reactionary (with exceptions: see Hitler or Khomeini, who were non-Marxist revolutionaries.)

Monday, December 11, 2006

Thursday, December 07, 2006

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Unhealth centers

A well-known (at least to people working in academia) example of how adults betray young people: by not educating them in order to affirm an ideology.

An experiment

This is pretty obvious.

Fatherless and motherless

The climax of the bourgeois mentality, without any sense of what a person is: purchasing children.

Saturday, December 02, 2006

A presence

Reading about the Pope's trip to Turkey, one gets the impression of a man whose only strategy is to make himself available so that Christ can manifest himself.