Last week, President Barack Obama, at a Capital Hilton fundraising event, told the crowd, “We can’t go back to this brand of you’re-on-your-own economics.” Throughout my professional career as an economist, I’ve never come across the theory of “you’re-on-your-own economics.” I’m guessing what the president means by — and finds offensive in — “you’re-on-your-own … Read more
Winning Our Future, a “super PAC” that supports Newt Gingrich’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination, is spending more than $1.2 million on ads in South Carolina, which holds its primary on Saturday. That fact requires some explanation. First, why would anyone want Newt Gingrich to be president? Second, what is a super PAC? … Read more
Finding Joe Directed by Patrick Takaya Solomon (documentary). Featuring Deepak Chopra, Mick Fleetwood, Catherine Hardwicke, Sir Ken Robinson, Akiva Goldsman, Chungliang Al Huang, 80 minutes I wasn’t sure what to expect from a documentary on the life of Joseph Campbell, the 20th century American philosopher and mythology expert who was captivated by Krishnamurti and … Read more
This month, in Amman, Jordan, Israeli and Palestinian peace negotiators met for their first time in 15 months to try to restart the “peace process.” Meanwhile, the Palestinian group that rules in Gaza, Hamas, has repeated its declaration: “The battle for the liberation of Jerusalem is closer than ever and, God willing, we will win.” … Read more
What are students and what are professors or teachers? On coming to a university, the student will hear of the names and characters of the teachers who are there. Most student bodies will have a kind of underground evaluation of the characters and effectiveness of teachers. These can be unfair but often they serve as … Read more
This is the time of year when 2012 prediction lists abound. I am struck by how many lists have included some reference to a surge in American entrepreneurship during the next year. Entrepreneurs are clearly being counted upon to act as one of the centerpieces of America’s economic recovery. The educational and networking opportunities for … Read more
“They’re vultures that are sitting out there on the tree limb, waiting for a company to get sick, and then they swoop in … eat the carcass … and … leave the skeleton.” So Rick Perry colorfully characterized the private equity firm Bain Capital, once run by Mitt Romney. How did Bain prosper? Says … Read more
Of course President Obama is not concentrating on campaigning, White House press spokesmen assured us — as the president headed off to Chicago for three fundraisers and a drop-in at his campaign headquarters, two days after a high-roller fundraising choked off traffic five blocks from the White House, with the assistance of a score … Read more
I wrote here once before about the repartee that keeps the snarks flying between me and my beloved lady Texan. I noted that each of us treasures his own impossible dream. In mine, the Habsburg monarchy is restored in Central Europe, accepting the voluntary fealty of most of its historic realms (I don’t expect the Czechs, … Read more
If Mitt Romney gets the GOP nomination, prepare for a season of class warfare in America unlike any before. Not only has President Obama been pushing class warfare unceasingly for three years now, but his chief strategist, David Axelrod, has been employing precisely this tactic against Romney, and well before Newt Gingrich and Rick Perry … Read more
Lee Wishing of the Center for Vision and Values interviewed Helen Krieble, author of the plan proposed by Rep. Newt Gingrich for resolving the status of millions of illegal aliens in the U.S. Krieble was responding to a recent column by Ann Coulter which criticized the plan. Ms. Krieble will be a speaker at the … Read more
It was symbolically perfect that on the same day Hollywood went to the Supreme Court to make the case for broadcast profanity, Entertainment Weekly reported that the next showing of the ABC smutcom Modern Family would feature a two-year-old girl dropping the F-bomb. The episode’s title will be “Little Bo Bleep.” Shameless. There’s no … Read more
Last May, Ron Paul filed his financial disclosure form, and The Wall Street Journal enlisted financial analyst William Bernstein to scrutinize his investments. “Paul’s portfolio isn’t merely different,” said an astonished Journal, “it’s shockingly different.” Twenty-one percent of his $2.4 to $5.5 million was in real estate, 14 percent in cash. He owns no … Read more
I must confess to an intellectual sin. I delight in the paintings of Norman Rockwell. I know I’m not supposed to do this. As a college professor, I have a duty to pretend to others that I derive real satisfaction from poems whose sentences cannot be parsed, from sculptures that look like green blobs from … Read more
In 1999, Pope John Paul II wrote a Letter to Artists. In this he called for a “new epiphany of beauty” and for a “renewed relationship between Church and culture” in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council. A “new epiphany” will not just happen by itself. This article aims to set out a basis … Read more
This essay originally appeared in the October 1998 edition of Crisis Magazine. Thirty years after the close of the Second Vatican Council, liturgical reform remains one of the most contested topics of Catholic debate. The subject, most often discussed from either the dogmatic or historical perspective, leaves little time for the powerful role played … Read more
What if Democrats and Republicans were two wings of the same bird of prey? What if elections were actually useful tools of social control? What if they just provided the populace with meaningless participation in a process that validates an establishment that never meaningfully changes? What if that establishment doesn’t want and doesn’t have … Read more
To win just under 40 percent of the vote in a primary with five active candidates is pretty impressive, even for a candidate like Mitt Romney, who started off with significant advantages in New Hampshire. Yes, he is well-known there because he was governor of next-door Massachusetts, had run before and owns a house … Read more
The Republican presidential race now moves from New Hampshire to South Carolina, but it’s really taking place in an upside-down Lake Wobegon — where all the men are homely, all the women are weak and all the candidates are below average. We are often told that modern campaigns generate rivers of pointless trivia and … Read more
Sitting through the Republican debate on Saturday night with ABCs George Stephanopoulos was just painful, from beginning to end. Some of it was just political Ambien. But when it was finally over, there was just one question: Who in the GOP in his or her right mind invites a historically shameless Democratic spin controller … Read more