Last night I finally saw Whit Stillman’s third movie, The Last Days of Disco , and it was more brilliant than I expected. The dialog in Stillman films all has the same complex, intelligent tone and one of my favorite conversations was this one on the movie Lady and the Tramp : Josh Neff: . . . . Continue Reading »
Everyone knows that dogs did not evolve, they were (and are still, technically) wolves that were intelligently designed by us.The tight bond between humans and our best friends, and more particularly their exposure to our love and our genetic and behavioral manipulation has created special traits . . . . Continue Reading »
Vigorous criticism of President Bush in conservative circles stopped seeming heretical a long time ago. That Bush’s foreign policy has been disastrous is one of the ‘facts’ that many conservatives feel they must grudgingly grant to their liberal antagonists. No doubt many . . . . Continue Reading »
Imagine: One day a police officer knocks on your door. Standing next to him is your son Johnny, who has a look on his face that tells you he’s either done something incredibly dumb and illegal, or he just ate an entire box of Moon Pies. You cross your arms and wait for the officer to tell you . . . . Continue Reading »
Over at The Catholic Thing, Hadley Arkes reflects on the Born-Alive Infants’ Protection Act, and the revelatory role of Senator Obama. When it comes to predicting the ethical tone of an Obama presidency, it shouldn’t be hard to play prophet: The very point of the bill was to confer . . . . Continue Reading »
Pro assisted suicide advocates are expert spin artists who specialize in ignoring the forest for the trees. But this bit of cow manure is so obviously false that if the media weren’t generally totally in the tank, the campaign would become a laughing stock. From “The Oregon . . . . Continue Reading »
A friend of mine in the Lutheran Church–Missouri Synod wrote to tell me about an episode of the radio program Issues Etc. that discussed Bernard of Clairvaux, whom the LCMS remembered on August 19. I was curious to find out what a LCMS scholar would have to say on a strong proponent of . . . . Continue Reading »
Have you ever read the Hippocratic Oath? (It’s a subject not too unfamiliar to the pages of First Things ). But if you’ve read it: Which one? While I was sitting in the doctor’s office yesterday, I noticed the Oath on the wall and decided to give it a quick read. It turns out that . . . . Continue Reading »
Two days ago, Amanda linked to Harvey Mansfield’s appreciative discussion of Solzhenitsyn’s Harvard speech . Mansfield endorses Solzhenitsyn’s claim that “Legalism is [the West’s] substitute for virtue: You don’t have to distinguish good from evil and do good . . . . Continue Reading »
Last night I was at a party full of ornery conservatives. At some point the conversation turned to the French, which allowed us to take a break from discursive thought and indulge in the ritual France-baiting that is practically an American bodily function. We finished on an appropriately . . . . Continue Reading »