Hope

E.J. Dionne tries really hard to transcend the current ideological polarization, and to resurrect the link between the "left" (whatever that means) and Christianity. The crucial question probably should be: is Mr. Dionne's hope based on anything present? Because if it is not it quickly degenerates into some utopian ideology, as the experience of the last two centuries has abundantly shown.

Abandoned

Kenneth Woodward from Bethlehem.

Give me the 5 billion

The truth about the current situation in higher education is revealed at the very last sentence in this article: namely, the desirable goal is having prestigious, cutting-edge scientific reseach, but not education (even in the sciences).

Abysmal confusion

Michael Gerson has a good column, which incidentally shows how the best evangelical minds more and more have to fall back on the Catholic intellectual tradition in order to face the current cultural meltdown:

"Because science has not found something which obviously it could not find, therefore something entirely different . . . is untrue. . . . To me it is all wild and whirling; as if a man said -- 'The plumber can find nothing wrong with our piano; so I suppose that my wife does love me.' " (G.K. Chesterton)

Populist conservatism

Rod Dreher explains in what sense Huckabee marks a turning point for the Republican party.

Uncertain

Robert Kaplan is an attentive observer of how the military reflects social trends. In this case, he is correct in detecting that the major weakness of Western societies is the inability to achieve certainty.

Baby tax

Mark Steyn is somewhat repetitious but he is quite a good writer.

Right to be mother

Sweden is to the early XXI century what the Soviet Union was to the mid-XX century: the guiding light of ideological purity. Except, the new ideology is destructive in a much different and subtler way...

(Another example, from Stanley Kurtz).

Trivial?

The very fact that Philip Pullman does not find the "great questions" in Tolkien sheds some light on the nature of contemporary atheism. The central themes of the "The Lord of the Rings" are the necessity of death, the passing of beauty so that it can be saved, the renounciation of power for the sake of love. That these are RELIGIOUS questions is simply inconceivable from Pullman's standpoint, since religion is not associated with the experience of beauty and love but with moralistic power. People like him can only think of salvation in juridical, not onthological terms. In other words, they are Protestant atheists. They rebel against the God of late European Christianity, but it is still the only one they can imagine.

Interesting tidbit

A different explanation for the destroyed CIA tapes.

High standard

Commonweal has an essay by Daniel Sulmasy.

Tough situation

This story from England asks T.S. Eliot's famous question: “Has mankind abandoned the Church, or has the Church abandoned mankind?”

Callused hand

Sci-fi writer John C. Wright had a striking conversion.

Gentry liberals

An interesting socio-political shift in the US is that the Democrats are now the party of the rich just as much as the Republicans used to be (maybe more?)

Working theories

How dumb do you need to be in order to get a job at the University of Amsterdam?

Half of the crimes were committed by men of Moroccan origin and researchers believe they felt stigmatized by society and responded by attacking people they felt were lower on the social ladder. Another working theory is that the attackers may be struggling with their own sexual identity.

Of course, there is no reason to think that many Moroccans may despise and dislike homosexuals.

Culture

An essay by Robert Wilken.