Joseph Bottum

Daniel Drezner on what would happen if those author blurbs that come at the end of articles were forced to be honest: * Suzie Wong has never been to the country about which she is writing. What’s in this op-ed is culled from a quick perusal of the Economist and a few phone calls. * Cass . . . . Continue Reading »

“What accounts for the six-fold increase in the total number of horror films released since 1999?” asks David Goldman in “Be Afraid”Be Very Afraid.” “Subgenres such as erotic horror (mainly centered on vampires) and torture (the Saw series, for example) dig deep into the vulnerabilities of the adolescent psyche. Given the success of these films over the past ten years, the number of Americans traumatizing themselves voluntarily is larger by an order of magnitude than it has ever been before.” That’s an odd fact Goldman notes, and an interesting question he poses”but it’s only one of many in the new issue of First Things… . Continue Reading »

Our friend Chris Mueller, who directs the music here in New York for Notre Dame, the Polish Dominican parish up near Columbia, joined what you’d have to call the battle of the early music bands last week. Secular vs. Sacred, the event featured Trio Triumvirum , an all-male ensemble singing . . . . Continue Reading »

A nice line on a philosopher: “He wants to substitute rhetoric for argument but without quite giving up argument. So he ends up giving shoddy arguments.” In a good online discussion of truth and Richard Rorty. . . . . Continue Reading »

Is there a line between transparency and compiling an enemies list? See this Washington Times exclusive: White House Collects Web Users’ Data Without Notice . In the wake of last month’s health-care email fiasco, one might wonder what the people in the administration were . . . . Continue Reading »

Religious education and youth ministry often sacrifice intellectual rigor for sociability and sensibility. Jesus devolves into “Our Homie,” and normal adolescent questioning leads mostly to apostasy under another name. People who underwent Catholic sacramental catechesis from the 1970s on . . . . Continue Reading »

Among the more revealing moral dilemmas are those that arise less for the actors themselves than for others evaluating the actions after the fact. One such case is that of British reporter Stephen Farrell, rescued from the Taliban on September 9 at the cost of two dead: his Afghan interpreter and a . . . . Continue Reading »

“Last summer’s marriage wars” —as Mary Eberstadt describes them in our current issue—pose anew the question whether divorce has also evolved in ways worth debating. In the inaugural issue of National Affairs , Brad Wilcox’s “The Evolution of Divorce” . . . . Continue Reading »

Ten Anglican Nuns and their chaplain received into the Catholic Church. . . . . Continue Reading »

Non-Muslims should fast during Ramadan , says the mayor of London. And non-Catholics skip meat on Fridays, too, of course. Well, no, that would be imposing religious views, wouldn’t it? . . . . Continue Reading »