King James Leaves Cleveland

by Mary Rose Somarriba

A voice was heard in Cleveland, wailing and loud lamentation, Cleveland weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because he was no more . . . . . Continue Reading »

9 Jul 2010 0

I Have a Right to a Baby Girl! Using IVF for Sex Selection

by Wesley J. Smith

One of the big stories today in Australia is of a Melbourne woman who has announced that she is traveling to Thailand to have sex selection IVF because it is against the law here.  She just has to have a girl, don’t you know!  From the story:A MELBOURNE mum is so desperate to . . . . Continue Reading »

9 Jul 2010 0

The 100 Greatest Children’s Toys

by Joe Carter

[Note: Every Friday on First Thoughts we host a discussion about some aspect of pop culture. Today’s theme is greatest children’s toys. Have a suggestion for a topic? Send them to me at jcarter@firstthings.com.] Although the topic for last week was faddish objects from childhood , the . . . . Continue Reading »

9 Jul 2010 0

The Perils of Clericalism

by Kevin Staley-Joyce

Mark Shea penned an excellent primer on clericalism yesterday at Catholic Exchange , identifying it as a prominent culprit in the “cover-up” mentality among some members of the episcopacy. While the Church does not operate on the principle of vox populi, vox Dei , Shea argues, neither has . . . . Continue Reading »

8 Jul 2010 0

By Appointing Berwick as Medicare Office Temp, Obama Shows His Weak Hand

by Wesley J. Smith

. . . . Continue Reading »

8 Jul 2010 0

The Occupational College

by David Mills

A “mammoth analysis of jobs data being released today by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce” bears on the subject of David Goldman’s Americans Who’ll Never Work Again , though it deals with a different group of people facing long-term . . . . Continue Reading »

8 Jul 2010 0

Empowering But Not Necessarily Christian

by David Mills

“If you look past the Bible-study scenes, young-adult novels from evangelical authors and publishers are offering their young Christian readers a surprisingly empowering guide to adolescence,” claims a writer for Slate. (The writer is not so positive about them as this opening claim . . . . Continue Reading »

8 Jul 2010 0

“Americans Who Will Never Work Again”

by David P. Goldman

I am now writing a regular column On the Square; today’s installment about permanent unemployment is up this . . . . Continue Reading »

8 Jul 2010 0

They Need Jobs

by David Mills

“How many Americans will never work again? Perhaps a lot,” notes David P. Goldman in today’s “On the Square” article, Americans Who’ll Never Work Again .  Using worrying figures from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, he draws out the implications of our . . . . Continue Reading »

8 Jul 2010 0

“Her eyes drank in the breadth of it”: a phenomenology of receiving the land

by Christopher Benson

Here I am again at the writer’s desk with a tall glass of lemonade, ready to analyze two passages that invoke “the Genius” of the land in Willa Cather’s novel O Pioneers! In the first passage, we witness the retrospective despair of John Bergson, a first generation pioneer in . . . . Continue Reading »

8 Jul 2010 0