The greatest disorder

What one sees in many stories about persecution is that Christianity is hated because simply by affirming the value of the person it is the greatest threat to the powers that be.

The elite again

Hanna Rosin comments on some statistics that show that

An intact happy marriage that produces well-behaved children, it turns out, is becoming a luxury of the elites.

The conclusion seems to be that (at some level) being affluent helps people getting their act together (apparently "well-behaved" means "using contraception"). A functional family as a bourgeois privilege: one more item in a catalog of possessions. Richer people can afford it, the poor cannot.

Terrified

Ross Douthat and Yuval Levin are scandalized by the media's hysterical reaction to the Palin nomination. But the reason is very simple: nothing scares the liberal elite like the idea that after losing the working classes culturally, they may also lose them electorally. In this sense, Palin is truly the anti-Obama, in a way McCain could never be -- because she explodes the contradiction that the interest of the common people should be best defended by an intellectual class that deep down despises those same people's values and ideals. For this reason Peggy Noonan is right when she says that

"they are going to have to kill her, and kill her quick."

He loves Hemingway

An essay on the life of Sen. McCain. He clearly comes through as a true representative of the U.S. "stoic" tradition. Like all forms of romanticism (i.e. an esthetic substitute for Christianity) it's ambiguous: it can be a step on the way out or it can bring one back. But at least is something...

Boring

The New Yorker has an essay on religion and the elections. It is fair to say that there is nothing new (which unfortunately means that the discussion remains quite shallow).

German villages?

More evidence of historical affinities between European and Arab anti-semites.

In the City Journal, read also the latest Dalrymple.

Religious cleansing

Anti-Christian persecution in India.

Unmoored

The interesting point about Sen. Obama's infamous vote in Illinois is not that IT was morally revoltING but that HE was not morally revoltED. We are in a time in which, deep down, everything is politically negotiable, Why? Because morality is not rooted in any form of knowledge, i.e. in reason. There is hope of redemption even for the most hardened criminal if he KNOWS his wretchedness. But today, one can be a very nice person (like Obama seems to be) and a perfect nihilist without even knowing it.

Contretemps

The thing about France is that it was the first country to develop a modern, post-Christian ideology: the myth of the "Grande Nation." As is well-known, ideology enables people to stomach much bigger bloodbaths.

Living big

People from New York will recognize something familiar in Mr. Melvyn Kohn (I mean, Mr. William Milliken Vanderbilt Kingsland).

Perpetual adolescents

Beside the silly slogan about "saving the males," Kathleen Parker has a few good points. What she misses is that our culture does not value fathers because it does not value (in fact, it rejects) the authoritative side of love. In this respect, we are the living proof of the fact that without authority there is no growing up to adulthood.

The opposite of "universitas"

Given that our society regards as the colleges' main task the training of the workforce (and this is what most students expect: to be prepared for a job), Charles Murray's proposal is not without merit. As long as one remembers that there are some things that cannot be certified by a CPA-type exam, and that without them there is no education of a human person, and thus no civilization. But does anyone care?

Dead

Joseph Bottum on the historical collapse of mainline protestantism in the USA. The most interesting parts is how a dying religion turns into politics, and how politics becomes the substitute religion.

Foggy Bottom

Some people say the U.S. State Department is about to make yet another major blunder. Same conclusions here.

All forgotten

A piece on Catholicism in Australia. At least the writer goes beyond the usual liberal cliches by recognizing that there is a deeper problem. Except it gives it the wrong name: he says the question is Catholic "identity" while the problem seems to be, quite simply, Faith.

Back to reality

Today Tom Friedman is disgusted. The only good thing can come out of Zimbabwe is putting an end to some of the lingering fantasies of the 1960's (the neat division of the world between evil colonialists and good anti-imperialist fighters).

Interesting data

Some say that McCain could make inroads with hispanic voters by supporting school choice.

Apparatchik class

What Dalrymple writes about the psychiatric system in the UK,applies very well to many state universities in the US, where the administration is dominated by highly political PhD's in education who are interested in many things but certainly not in education....

Lowest of the low

The NYTimes magazine" has a long piece on demographics.

New elites

Goldman Sachs is taking over the country (says David Brooks).