Reopening the Cold War
What a mess in Ukraine! Is it reversible? That’s doubtful. From now on, it’s a long way back to normality in the international arena.
Tagged: Cultural Commentary
Challenge of the Week (Belated): Ghislaine Maxwell, Political Prisoner
We have heard much too much, in the past few years, about Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, Prince Andrew and Virginia Roberts. I wonder how people would respond to the argument that these cases are more in the nature of a public ritual or show trials than they are actual legal procedures?
A Modest Proposal to End the Abortion Dilemma
What wonderful things one learns on Facebook. All these years, I thought it took a male and a female to make a baby.
Jerks 01.B: Peter Pans
In learning how not to be a Jerk, the hardest part is to listen to criticism from friends and colleagues who may be bigger Jerks than we are.
Jerks 0.C: Diversity
Diversity breeds moral confusion, which is aggravated by the high population density that encourages a comfortable sense of anonymity. Anyone who has lived 50 or 60 years in North America can understand what has happened
Resisting Evil III
The admonition to resist not evil is not aimed at army commanders, kings, and emperors, much less at settlers in a violent wilderness or urban homesteaders, but at members of a face-to-face community of the sort that Jesus had experienced in Galilee and in which Christians are going to live as members of a parish and diocese.
Resisting Evil, Part II
Christians have interpreted Christ’s injunction to turn the other cheek in different ways. Over the centuries Catholic authorities have generally and consistently upheld the righteousness of self-defense, just war, and capital punishment, while the Orthodox have been more prone to view all war, just and necessary as they may be, as nonetheless sinful and requiring absolution. When a Byzantine emperor asked his Patriarch to proclaim as martyrs all the soldiers who died fighting Islam, he was refused. Neither Church, it goes without saying, instructed its followers not to resist the aggression of evil men…. The injunction to turn the...
The Wrongs of Rights