Here’s a fascinating article by Ethan Watters in the New York Times about how mental illness is being exported from the West to other parts of the world: For more than a generation now, we in the West have aggressively spread our modern knowledge of mental illness around the world… There is now good evidence … Read more
Two news tidbits for an overcast Friday: First, as everyone knows, my neighbors to the south in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are getting ready to vote on the Senate seat vacated by Ted Kennedy when he vacated the earth last August (they’ve been represented since by his temporary replacement Paul Kirk, whom state lawmakers appointed … Read more
A happy announcement for carpetbagging opportunists everywhere: You have a new king, and his name is Harold Ford, Jr. You may remember Ford as the former five-term Congressman from Tennessee, where his voting record — and campaign rhetoric — marked him as a moderate Democrat. But political winds rarely blow in one direction for long, … Read more
I’ll admit, I thought Brit Hume’s “Tiger should convert” moment on Fox News the other week was a bit jarring, even if the backlash against him was over the top. In the New York Times, Ross Douthat says that, if we want a healthy debate about religion in this country, we all need to get … Read more
If I could remember everything I’ve read over the last few years, I’d be quite the pundit. Unfortunately, that’s becoming less likely as I age… or is it? This article in the New York Times gives me a glimmer of hope. Health editor Barbara Strauch says that even though the middle age brain gets distracted … Read more
From todays’s New York Times comes a story by Jodi Kantor about Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI). It contains the following very interesting tidbit: (Mr. Stupak says he urged the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to toughen its stance on the legislation; representatives from the conference and the National Right to Life Committee did not return calls.) … Read more
With 2009 in the books, we asked the staff and friends of InsideCatholic to offer their predictions for the new year. Here’s what they told us… ♦♦♦ Congress will take another stab at comprehensive immigration reform and will pass a less-than-perfect bill before May and the run-up to the midterm … Read more
LifeNews.com is reporting that the Catholic Health Association does not endorse the Senate health care bill and the abortion language crafted by Sen. Bob Casey, Jr. (D-PA). In an interview with Catholic News Service, CHA president, Sr. Carol Keehan, explained, ‘The Catholic Health Association has not endorsed the health legislation that was passed by the Senate . . . … Read more
In 1917, Wallace Stevens published “Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird,” a poem now firmly ensconced in every anthology of American poetry. Generations of students have read it as a lesson in perspectivism — how the imagination can see the same thing under a variety of guises. Bart Stupak (D-MI) is not the subject … Read more
The New York Times‘ house economist Paul Krugman is no fan of the filibuster… at least, when it’s used against the kinds of intrusive, big government legislation he promotes. In March 2005, he warned America that “extremists” were trying to eliminate the filibuster to push through their partisan (and pro-life) judges. But now that Obama … Read more
Joseph saw Avatar this weekend so you wouldn’t have to — look for his review later today — but meanwhile, Ross Douthat has some reflections in the New York Times on what he calls “[director James] Cameron’s long apologia for pantheism,” that vague, naturalistic spirituality that he says has held sway with Americans for some … Read more
In a statement released today by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, President Francis Cardinal George spoke plainly in response to the defeat of the Nelson-Hatch amendment to the health-care bill in the Senate: Failure to exclude abortion funding will turn allies into adversaries and require us and others to oppose this bill because it … Read more
The topic of physician-assisted suicide, or PAS, is a confusing and heart-wrenching issue for many. In some ways, it can touch us more personally than abortion, as we are all likely to face difficult end-of-life choices at some point, whether for ourselves or for a loved one. We have to navigate Church teaching on bioethics; … Read more
Every couple of days it seems somebody falls apart due to “insensitivity.” The problem has been buzzing around in our headlines for years. We all remember back in January 1999 when a group of Professionally Aggrieved Grievance Professionals came unglued after David Howard, a white aide to Anthony Williams, the black mayor of Washington, D.C., … Read more
Our family has finally called it quits. We’ve folded our tents and abandoned the strip mall and peep show known as American television. We still have the machine in the living room, whereon we can watch Going My Way, with Bing Crosby as the “progressive” Father O’Malley, back when progressive meant that he took … Read more
In this Crisis Magazine classic, Ted Gioia says it’s time for some new and improved profanity. He has some ideas… Some years ago, during the seventh inning of a baseball game, umpire John Hirschbeck got carried away in a dispute with pitcher Hideki Irabu, the temperamental but promising New York “Yankee” from Japan. … Read more
This week I’d planned to address the complex, nuanced topic of humility — the virtue that consists in facing honestly your own good habits and vices. Key to it, of course, as C. S. Lewis explained unforgettably through Screwtape, is to pay yourself attention without getting overly interested in the subject. We are each our … Read more
How should Catholics think about Iran? And how should a Catholic think about Iran? These are two different questions, as an individual person and the Church are two different things, but in trying to follow the news recently, partly through electronic “tweets” directly from Iran, including those from one anonymous Catholic Persian we have on … Read more
Since writing The Thrill of the Chaste — a recovery manual for grown-ups who missed the memo on abstinence — I have addressed all kinds of people, from fishermen in Alaska to unwed moms in New York City, pornographers at “Sex Week at Yale” to hooting Catholic schoolboys in Drogheda, Ireland. But never have I … Read more
June 1 was a lovely day in Northern Virginia when the staff of InsideCatholic gathered with friends for our annual Lazarus Golf Tournament at Bull Run Golf Club, nestled against the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Before playing, however, we hosted a roundtable discussion entitled “The Future of the Christian Vote: Is It in … Read more
