A thirst for meaning

We keep enjoying Dalrymple's columns.

For the literature?

The people who 130 years ago would become anarchists today become jihadists

He said he decided to go to a predominantly Muslim country last fall to study Islam and learn about “the morals, the customs, the ethics and the literature.”

He should have read Dostoevskii instead.

Think and grow rich

Ryan Lizza is a brilliant writer with a knack for grasping what really motivates a politician. In this case, Romney is indeed a good example of the core appeal of Mormonism, which does not lie in its quite peculiar doctrines, but in the attraction of a wholesome and successful life

I want you to understand, the Lord does not care whether you become rich or not, but he does want you to learn how to succeed, and to be successful.

Perhaps. But the Lord's idea of success (also known as sanctity) is certainly greater than excelling as a business consultant, having a nice family and becoming president of the US of A.

Écrasez l'Infâme

Michael Gerson makes a decent point (modern liberalism places great faith in "science," but "science" per se can be twisted into very illiberal philosophical positions). It starts a bizarre flood of hatred (literally) in the comments section (Gerson was a speechwriter for Bush).

Nohing else?

Nothing more sad than having to choose between two extreme ideologies (islamism vs. Kemalist nationalism).

Neo-totalitarian

An example of ideology leading to violence.

Analysis

Fr. Samir on the letter by the 138 Muslims to the Pope.

Imaginative

There is something refreshing about Japanese openess to weird ideas.

Coming

Also Dick Morris predicts a Huckabee surge on the Republican side.

Forget global warming

A truly global phenomenon. You could call it "the final dissolution of traditional pre-industrial societies."

Arrogance

One characteristic of the dominant liberal post-marxist ideology is that it is unable to recognize that other ideologies matter. At most, those who have not yet joined our wonderful bourgeois life-style are just subjects for "cultural studies" departments.

Not serious

Slavoj Zizek makes (implicitly) a good point. Why should we care about "culture" if we don't value what's cultivated (the human person as relationship to the infinite).

Still there

An interesting article on people in a vegetative state.

Corpses are not biodegradable?

Sometimes one wonders if some aspects of the environmental ideology express a quiet return to Paganism.

Education's end

A review of the Kronman book on "meaningless" education.

Interesting

Actually, Huckabee does sound like an "authentic" politician, in the sense of expressing a genuine strand of American popular (Evangelical) culture (even including the weight loss part). In an increasingly ideological age, one can certainly do worse.

Witnesses

We have to be thankful when somebody rediscovers what should be obvious.

Collapsing

What is most striking about horrific stories like this one is not how bad the criminals are, but how they are enabled by the absolute human and moral vacuum of the surrounding society (England).