In its issue of June 2011, Christianity Today, the banner publication of conservative Protestantism, carried a cover story about the latest wrinkle in the Evangelical struggle with the ghost of Darwin. The old fight over evolution is still continuing robustly, with fervent believers in a “young  earth” (a lovely phrase—meaning an earth some six-thousand years […]

The greatest example of anticlimax in the English language, said William F. Buckley, was the final line in the unofficial anthem of his undergraduate college:  “For God, for country, and for Yale.” Buckley’s anticlimax now faces a challenge from an even shorter phrase:  “The Obama Administration” is on the road to becoming the most anticlimactic […]

The United States is the most revolutionary power in the history of the world, but after more than 200 years of a brilliant revolutionary career we are still not very good at understanding or responding to the revolutions our example, our ideas, our economy and our technology do so much to create.The Arab spring is […]

In my last post, I wrote about “Fanniegate“, the scandalous goings on by well connected Democrats that trashed the nation’s financial system.  It was not that Republicans didn’t join the fun or that Republican malefactors of great wealth weren’t abusing the public trust in other ways.  The moral and intellectual meltdown of the American elite […]

The Roman Catholic Church is famous for its hospitality. Its arms are always wide open to receive converts or repentant schismatics, and it is ready to make all sorts of compromises to make them feel welcome. But there are limits to this accommodation. In its issue of May 27, 2011, the National Catholic Reporter published […]

Democrats, watch out.The Republican Party and especially its Tea Party wing have just acquired a new weapon of mass destruction — and it has nothing to do with any of Congressman Wiener’s rogue body parts.  If they deploy this weapon effectively in the next election cycle — a big if — then they have the […]

In one of the great American classic musicals “Little Shop of Horrors,” Audrey sings a paean to the American Dream of the twentieth century: “Somewhere That’s Green.”  Living in Skid Row, she dreams of escape to life as it ought to be lived:A matchbox of our own A fence of real chain link, A grill […]

The news from the housing market this week is bad.  Really bad.  House prices today are lower in most of the country than they were in the dismal month of April 2009; we are now in the second dip of the double dip housing downturn. This doesn’t just mean that President Obama’s re-election is in […]

I am going to say uncomplimentary things about some American realities. I would not want to be misunderstood. I love this country. I felt at home from the moment I arrived here when barely aged eighteen, and it was with a sense of great privilege that I became a citizen a few years later. I […]