The road to slavery

It is undeniable that the New York Times stands out today as the media outlet where news are most thoroughly shaped by radical ideology.

Totalitarianism III

From Canada

traditional religious groups essentially must either abandon any religious beliefs that conflict with the ideologies of the state, notably that of radical feminism, or cease to make any claims to special financial considerations for their charitable, non-profit works for the community.

Delusional

Mark Davis on motherhood without fatherhood.

Fear of competition

George Will on school choice and its enemies.

Totalitarianism II

Rowan Williams gets the point:

I think what’s at stake ultimately is whether the church is answerable finally to the State as the only court of appeal or whether the church can rightly appeal to other sources for its moral compass and whatever one’s views on this particular issue.

Totalitarianism

The Church as "the representative of liberty as such."

Nothing

The article by David Cameron, the British Conservative leader, is very symbolic of the time we are living. It means to be a philosophical statement, yet there is not one discernible idea (teaching English to everybody? That's it?). It is obsessed with identity, yet it shows a complete lack of it. In fact, it does not distinguish itself in any way from the opposite political side. When both sides have coalesced into complete cultural vacuum, what's left in democracy?

Hypocrisy

Rather than about spanking, our leaders should worry about Darfur.

Theory and moralism

The spanking controversy is another example of disappearing common sense (in the literal sense: a set of shared judgements based on real-life experience and passed on, often implicitly, from a generation to the next.)

Cold war

An interesting (if accurate) account of some KGB activities re.the Vatican.

An event

Hrant Drink's funeral has been quite remarkable.

Second Life

The Tablet has a story on the booming phenomenon of avatars (having an alternative self living in an imaginary digital universe). The problem, however, is not how Christianity can be a better "imaginative option." The question is whether Christianity can help us live reality so that don't feel the need to escape from it.

Clueless

A very typical result of contemporary Catholic education.

Oasis

John Allen on the presentation of Oasis yesterday in New York.

Book of the year

Sandro Magister has posted the preface to the Pope's important new book on Jesus Christ.

Not nothing

Charles Krauthammer on the latest stem cell developments.

Exodus II

Spiegel has a good piece on Christians in the middle east.

Exodus

A Saudi journalist realizes that there is a problem.

Nation vs. revolution

A helpful update on Iran.

Intolerance

An unusual column for the Guardian.