Nicholas Kristof doesn’t appreciate the Bible being used to support conservative moral positions with which he disagrees, so it must have been an exciting moment when he unwrapped Jennifer Wright Knust’s new book, Unprotected Texts: The Bible’s Surprising Contradictions about Sex and Desire. Knust, an ordained Baptist minister and assistant professor of religion at … Read more
It was not so easy for a Catholic in the early 1980s to advocate for a free society. While much of the nation welcomed the conservative shift President Reagan brought to U.S. policy, the American Catholic bishops were not among them. Those Catholics whose common-sense politics leaned right found themselves isolated in their larger faith … Read more
There is only one John Zmirak. A prolific author, popular literature professor, gadfly critic of culture and politics, and out-and-proud beagle enthusiast, John leaves an impression. And gives a memorable interview. He spoke with Brian Saint-Paul about his latest book, The Bad Catholic’s Guide to the Seven Deadly Sins. ♦ ♦ … Read more
President Barack Obama will be interrupting a day filled with closed-to-the-press meetings to receive an award for his “deep commitment to an open and transparent government.” Matt Negrin of Politico wonders what the president will say when he accepts: [H]e probably won’t mention that his administration acted on fewer requests for information last year even … Read more
Over the past two weeks, protestors around Egypt have been breaking into State Security Agency offices and carrying out documents they fear will be destroyed by government operatives. The records have already produced a few bombshells, but this tops the list: Perhaps the most controversial document to surface was one that purports to lay out … Read more
In a Chicago Sun-Times opinion piece this morning, Reason magazine’s Jacob Sullum says the Democrats aren’t serious about the national debt. Nothing surprising about that, but he concludes with this beauty: Picking up the president’s investment theme, The New York Times says it’s “obfuscating nonsense” to declare that “we’re broke,” as House Speaker John Boehner … Read more
If you’re having a hard time understanding the problem with raising the statutory debt limit (yet again), here it is on a family scale:
On April 26, 1783, two weeks after Congress approved a preliminary peace treaty with England, the states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey entered into a compact over their shared use of the Delaware River. The waterway was an important shipping route, and any interference in its operation, either from dams or bridges, would harm both … Read more
InsideCatholic columnist and friend Al Lagan of CAMC sent me a few observations about our current budget situation. I thought I’d share them here: Government deficit spending has accelerated dramatically in recent years. Both fiscal and monetary policy have used access to the debt markets as the main engine of efforts to revive economic growth. … Read more
Rev. Robert Sirico of the Acton Institute takes Washington Post columnist Anthony Stevens-Arroyo to task for a piece he wrote about Catholic Social Teaching. Stevens-Arroyo argues that “since the world economy has been so badly distorted by those seeking advantage of one class over the other, Catholic social justice demands a redistribution of wealth.” Rev. … Read more
As you’ve probably noticed from the Home page, we’re conducting an InsideCatholic fundraising drive this week. I hope you’ll participate. While we offer our articles, columns, and blog posts free of charge — unlike a print magazine — that doesn’t mean that they’re free to us. Running an online publication is an expensive business — … Read more
Last night, the best response to the president’s State of the Union address came not from Reps. Paul Ryan or Michelle Bachmann, but from freshman Senator Rand Paul. Earlier in the day, he released a plan to cut the Federal budget by close to $500 billion. Paul’s budget cuts more than five times as much … Read more
Former Planned Parenthood director and new author Abby Johnson (see the banner ad for Unplanned to the right) is in the process of entering the Catholic Church. “When we went to the Catholic Church for the first time we knew that was where we were supposed to be and we have been there ever since,” … Read more
Rabbi Dov Fischer of Young Israel of Orange County is tired of hearing the Tucson rampage blamed on anti-Semitism. Jared Lee Loughner is a nut. He has earned by dint of his own merit the privilege of being deemed a 100% crackpot. Yes, he may have had an interface with a hate group whose name … Read more
Is neoconservative icon Bill Kristol coming around on the idea of returning to the gold standard? In response to Chinese President Hu Jintao’s recent comment that “the current international currency system is the product of the past,” Kristol writes: Isn’t Hu in this one respect right? And does the current international currency system of fiat … Read more
The Japanese are in the mist of a serious population decline, with one estimate claiming the citizenry shrank by 75,000 in 2009, an increase of almost 150% from the year prior. As the Japan Times noted in a 2010 editorial: The National Institute of Population and Social Security Research estimates that Japan’s population will dip … Read more
From Tom Woods, Jr.’s introduction to ISI’s new book of essays, Back on the Road to Serfdom: The Resurgence of Statism: When we argue that the winds are blowing in the direction of an ever-larger role of the state in American life, we must be careful not to imply that prior to 2007-8 a broad … Read more
In today’s Los Angeles Times, Skeptic editor Michael Shermer brings some sanity to coverage of both the shootings in Tuscon and the well-reported fish and bird deaths around the country: We live in a causal universe, so all effects do have causes, but before we turn to grand, overarching causal theories such as political rhetoric or … Read more
I was pretty swamped this past week, so I missed Joseph Susanka’s Patheos column on Yojiro Takita’s Oscar-winning 2008 film, Departures. If you haven’t seen the movie, Joseph’s column will make you regret your sad mistake. It tells the story of young Daigo Kobayashi, an aspiring concert cellist, who finds himself forced to return to … Read more
Now this is encouraging: Egypt’s majority Muslim population stuck to its word Thursday night. What had a been a promise of solidarity to the weary Coptic community, was honoured, when thousands of Muslims showed up at Coptic Christmas eve mass services in churches around the country and at candle light vigils held outside. From the … Read more