Not long ago I had a conversation with the dean of a mainline Protestant divinity school. I asked him what his students are like these days. He said that there are three main groups: white women—most of them feminists and/or GLBT activists—African-Americans and Koreans, most in both groups being fundamentalists. He laughed and said that […]

Yesterday’s press carried the results of a Pew poll on “identity” issues among American Jews. The New York Times entitled its page A11 take, written by Laurie Goodstein, “Poll Shows Major Shift In Identity of U.S. Jews”—read it for yourself to get the full flavor of the story.Now, those who have made their way through […]

The media fawned over the Kellogg-Briand Pact, too, you know.

As Congress continues to debate whether to support the President on Syria, numerous pundits have turned to the Powell Doctrine for guidance. The Powell Doctrine was a useful tool in its time, forcing its would-be adherents to meet a stringent set of conditions: Is a vital national security interest threatened? Do we have a clear […]

Religion News Service, in its online bulletin on September 17, 2013, carries an article entitled “Liberation theology finds a new welcome in Pope Francis’ Vatican”, by Alessandro Speciale (who regularly covers the Vatican). The story was triggered by the news that Francis is about to meet with Gustavo Gutierrez, the Peruvian Dominican, who was one […]

I said in a recent post that juxtaposition can sometimes qualify as serendipity. It’s now just happened again.Last week I got a letter from my doctor of the past dozen years informing me that he was changing his practice’s modus operandi.  He’s joining some new group that offers direct email and telephone access to patients, […]

In the weekend  newspapers one can find obituaries for “Rabbi Philip Berg”, dead at 86. The New York Times obit headline credits Berg as follows: “Updated Jewish Mysticism.”“Updated”, huh? Well, that’s one way to describe the shenanigans of the huckster who “ministered” all the way to the bank to the likes of Madonna, Demi Moore, […]

Earlier this week, the staff posted a notice on the blog that my mother’s life was nearing its end. She breathed her last around 11 PM on September 16; since then the family has been caught up in the grief and the business of a heavy loss. We held her funeral on Friday and committed […]

George Bernard Shaw once quipped that “if you laid all the economists in the world end to end they still would not reach a conclusion.” If Shaw were still around he might amend his observation with “except when they do and it’s wrong.” Or, reading a certain article in Friday’s Washington Post, he might opt […]

I began my last post on Syria, from September 11, with a quip-like protest of sorts: that every time I finish writing about some wild and wooly development in the U.S. “Syria crisis” portfolio, another even weirder one comes along at a speedy clip whose evident purpose is to provide a safety net for the […]