If you thought Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke hated testifying in front of Congress before, it’s about to get a lot worse. Congressman Ron Paul (R-TX) — author most recently of the best-selling End the Fed — is about to become chairman of the House Subcommittee on Domestic Monetary Policy. That means he’ll have oversight … Read more
A quick look around the Catholic mom-o-sphere might leave you with the impression that most Catholic moms — especially those with large families — are a bunch of Frugal Frannies. And that might be so. Depending where you click, you can find articles about sewing your own clothes, baking your own bread, and making your … Read more
In the LA Times today, Jonah Goldberg defends conservatives against those who blame them for holding up infrastructure improvements. Goldberg says we just don’t build things the way we used to for a number of reasons — among them, low tolerance for deaths on the job and environmental regulations. Much of the liberal intelligentsia is … Read more
When you see a homeless man with a sign saying, “Hungry, need a meal,” what is the biblical thing to do? Here are possible answers: Be generous: Give him a quarter, a dollar, or a five-dollar bill. Be tough: Go on by, being careful not to make eye contact. Select some other option. Lots of … Read more
Aunt Lucerne was the only relative Philip and Roger Knight had, so it was perhaps fitting that she should be absolute. Once in the dimly remembered past she may have entertained doubts, but this was long before her nephews came to know her. In their experience, she had always been omniscient, riddled with certainty and … Read more
This past weekend, the Church set before us one of the most mysterious parables Jesus ever told, the Parable of the Dishonest Steward (Lk 16:1-12). It’s the sort of thing that makes homilists all over the world feel their collars tighten and gives them an overwhelming urge to just skip the Gospel and focus on … Read more
Have you ever purchased a fake Gucci bag, Rolex, or pair of Ray-Bans? New research suggests that wearing knockoffs makes you less honest and more cynical. Sound far-fetched? I thought so, too, until I read more details. Three psychological scientists have been studying the way fake adornment affects attitudes and behavior — Francesca Gino of … Read more
If you live in Philadelphia and operate a blog, your city government wants to charge you $300 for the privilege. For the past three years, Marilyn Bess has operated MS Philly Organic, a small, low-traffic blog that features occasional posts about green living, out of her Manayunk home. Between her blog and infrequent contributions to … Read more
Anne Hendershott alerted me to the post at National Review Online about the funding George Soros provides to Jim Wallis and his organization/magazine called Sojourners. Wallis is the de facto leader of the Religious Left coalition that does everything it can to aid the Democratic Party. Any pretense of Wallis to non-partisanship was completely blown … Read more
The column Brian links to below makes for discouraging reading. In an attempt to lighten the mood, I offer the following, as a sort of “bright side” to our current economic woes: With less money to spend, people are finding that they may in fact be happier without it. [T]he practices that consumers have adopted … Read more
One of the best examples of the battle between personal freedom and government regulation is the raw dairy issue. More people are turning to raw dairy — often for health reasons — and because of this, we’re seeing more crackdowns by regulatory bodies. Just a few months ago, an Amish farmer not far from me … Read more
I have crossed over to the other side. I’m not sure when it happened, but something fundamental about my circumstances has changed. I am an old person now. I first realized it a few years ago when I was flipping through a women’s magazine and an ad caught my eye. It was the kind of … Read more
Distributism teaches that ownership of the means of production should be widespread (there’s got to be a way to say that without so many prepositional phrases!). In other words, it opposes our current form of capitalism (the means of production in the hands of very few; a near-oligarchy) and also opposes socialism (the means of … Read more
Commenter H.D.W. (7th comment down) wisely suggested a “Do It Yourself” approach to Distributism: To make economies more centered on individuals and families, work to make your household a place of value creation. This is both powerful and satisfying. Gardening, homeschooling, raising chickens, caring for elderly parents, shopping at the farmers market, fixing your own … Read more
I admit I was taken aback by some of the comments under my article on Gov. Christie’s effort to privatize many government services, such as toll collection, etc. (“A Catholic Governor Embraces Subsidiarity“). Given the fact that Catholic teaching on subsidiarity is directly connected to the encroachment of centralized government into the lives of communities … Read more
From Amanda Carey at The Daily Caller: A new report by the Office of Inspector General for the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) shows that the Obama administration has indeed been using taxpayer dollars to fund a “yes” campaign in Kenya ahead of the August vote on the proposed new Kenyan constitution. One provision … Read more
The latest revelations that yet another Connecticut Catholic priest has stolen yet another million dollars from his own parishioners to support a flamboyant gay lifestyle in New York City are especially disappointing to those of us who thought Connecticut’s religious leaders had learned a lesson the first time this happened in 2009. Many of us … Read more
As my eldest son’s Little League season draws to a close here in town, this (somewhat tardy) story seems eerily relevant: In “Field of Dreams,” Kevin Costner’s character builds a baseball diamond out of a corn field after a voice tells him: “If you build it, he will come.” Well, now he can buy it and so … Read more
To put it bluntly, this rules: Dozens of people who were blinded or otherwise suffered severe eye damage when they were splashed with caustic chemicals had their sight restored with transplants of their own stem cells — a stunning success for the burgeoning cell-therapy field, Italian researchers reported Wednesday. The treatment worked completely in 82 … Read more
A new study has been released by the Commission on Parenthood’s Future, showing that young adults conceived by sperm donors generally fair more poorly than adopted children or those raised by their biological parents. The authors — which include Professor Norval Glenn of the University of Texas at Austin — surveyed more than 1 million … Read more