In flux

For those interested, the National Journal has a long and informative story on federal funding of the so-called faith-based initiatives (social works started by religiously-motivated groups).

Incurious people

It is true: the recent wave of atheists seem to be at the same time more ignorant and presumptuous than their predecessors. This partly due to the shallowness of what passes for "scientific" education.

Santa attack

Santa Claus boldly shows up in Kabylie. We hope nobody shoots him down.

Angry ghosts

The pervasive, moralistic anger in our public life is an obvious sign of a weak human fabric and of progressive detachment from reality, in which the person becomes

a ghostlike figure, perpetually in search of “something solid against which it can prove its own existence.” New Anger, Wood concludes, “is the desperately intense effort of these ghosts to feel real.”

For good examples of dogmatic, unquestioning, utterly moralistic and irrational anger, you can always rely on the editorial page of the Boston Globe. The possibility that people who disagree with them may have motives other than bigotry and ignorance never, ever arises. No fundamental questions (What are "rights?" Where do they come from? What is marriage?) are ever asked.

Antropomorphism

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

Extreme poverty

Growing up as girls in Long Island.

Open field

A piece on Christianity in Holland from the Weekly Standard.

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.

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.

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.

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.")

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?

No faith

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

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.)

New ethnicity

This book review by Spengler has a couple of interesting points.

Fatherless II

Children need fathers.

Consistent

Fr. Samir on the Pope's trip to Turkey.

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.