Keith Pavlischek

Nathaniel , I too enjoyed Camilia Paglia’s Salon article today—definitely more insightful than Juan Cole’s’ silly piece yesterday comparing Palin to Muslim fundamentalists. Here’s one of my favorite parts: Conservative though she may be, I felt that Palin represented an . . . . Continue Reading »

1. Take those Austen novels and pack ‘em away. 2. Drop what you’re doing and head off of to the nearest book store. 3. Buy the complete set of Patrick O’Brian’s Aubrey-Maturin novels. 4. Read all twenty volumes sequentially starting with Master and Commander . 5. No need to . . . . Continue Reading »

Over at The New Republic , Alan Wolfe has some nice things to say about Rick Warren. But then, he gets hysterical: Even as recently as the Jimmy Carter presidency, evangelicals put God before party. But starting with the Reagan years, they increasingly reversed their priorities. Jesus no longer . . . . Continue Reading »

Dr. Hymie Gordon (Mayo Clinic): “By all criteria of modern molecular biology, life is present from the moment of conception.” Dr. Micheline Matthews-Roth (Harvard University Medical School): “It is scientifically correct to say that an individual human life begins at . . . . Continue Reading »

This just in from Slate magazine, where Linda Hirshman applauds the change in the Democratic Party Platform on abortion. In an aptly titled article “Unnecessarily Evil: Reclaiming the Morality of Abortion and the Overdue Change to the Democratic Platform,” Hirshman applauds the . . . . Continue Reading »

Michael Potemra tells us that in Bernard-Henri Levy’s forthcoming book Left in Dark Times: A Stand Against the New Barbarism , there is an interesting line from the journals of Paul Claudel. On May 21, 1935, Claudel wrote, “Hitler’s speech: a kind of Islamism is being created at . . . . Continue Reading »

From the Westminster Shorter Catechism : Q. 14. What is sin? A. Sin is any want of conformity unto, or transgression of, the law of God. From the Baltimore Catechism : Q. 278. What is actual sin? A. Actual sin is any willful thought, word, deed, or omission contrary to the law of God. From Senator . . . . Continue Reading »

John Esposito is the leading voice today for those who think the likes of Samuel Huntington and Bernard Lewis make far too much of the religious and cultural differences between the West and the Islamic world. Esposito, the founding director of Georgetown University’s Prince Alwaleed bin . . . . Continue Reading »

An instructive and fascinating debate has erupted over what at first glance may seem an academic point. The debate is between Matthias Küntzel, the author of Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11 , and Andrew Bostom, the editor of The Legacy of Jihad and author of the . . . . Continue Reading »

In the introduction to this book Joel Schwartz calls our attention to the titles of two major pieces of antipoverty legislation. The War on Poverty was ushered in by the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, whereas welfare reform was more recently enacted in the Personal Responsibility and Work . . . . Continue Reading »