Joseph Bottum

Embryonic stem cells are back in the news , as the Senate debates the use of federal funding for destructive research. There’s something about the drive to force this issue that corresponds far too closely to political seasons: We seem compelled to have this debate again whenever elections . . . . Continue Reading »

It surely means something that we live in an age containing the greatest ukulele player ever born, but I’m not sure just what it means. His name is Jake Shimabukuro , a twenty-nine-year-old from Hawaii, and he can make a four-string ukulele do everything but sit up and beg¯and the . . . . Continue Reading »

He had a name like a James Bond villain¯ Money , Dr. Money ¯and he lived his life as though he were one of those villains, as well: With the mad conviction that he had come like Prometheus to deliver fire, with the crazed confidence that his genius raised him above the quotidian norms of . . . . Continue Reading »

The Los Angeles Times this week published its latest poll on 2008 presidential candidates , and the results looked bad for Mitt Romney: "Thirty-seven percent of those questioned said they would not vote for a Mormon presidential candidate." Except, perhaps, that the connection between . . . . Continue Reading »

For some authors, it’s always personal¯history and the human condition combining to be about, mostly, them. James Carroll, for instance. Perhaps it’s a kind of paranoia: In Constantine’s Sword , Carroll seemed to think that the whole history of Christianity was a conspiracy . . . . Continue Reading »

OK, so this weekend my wife and I indulged a guilty pleasure and rented The Shoes of the Fisherman to watch. You remember the 1968 film? The indefatigable Anthony Quinn¯Hollywood’s favorite generic ethnic actor in those days¯plays an Eastern European priest elected pope. Laurence . . . . Continue Reading »

A friend emails thoughts on the recent firing of a transportation commissioner in Maryland for remarks about homosexuality: Back in 2004, Rocco Buttiglione was nominated to be the commissioner of justice on the newly formed European Commission, the executive branch of the European Union. A . . . . Continue Reading »

Cynthia Gorney takes to the pages of the New Yorker to report on abortion in South Dakota. The article itself is not available online, but the New Yorker is promoting the article by posting on its website an interview with the author¯and, in its way, the interview is more revealing than the . . . . Continue Reading »

On the left-wing Daily Kos website , a commentator named CheChe writes: I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a look of misery and dejection on the face of my daughter as I just did a moment ago. She just couldn’t understand why the President would be going to Iraq when so many things . . . . Continue Reading »

At first glance Melanie Phillips’ Londonistan , seems a little off-putting. The prose is shrill, the point repetitive and relentless, the outrage so ceaseless that it quickly grows tiresome and, worse, unbelievable. Yes, you find yourself saying, the British let Muslim culture in England . . . . Continue Reading »