In a New York Times column today, Mark Oppenheimer reviews the controversy surrounding former Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen’s efforts to square waterboarding with Catholic moral doctrine. Mr. Thiessen has some ill-informed views, and Mr. Oppenheimer seems to have failed to do his homework… . Continue Reading »
First Things : How did you get involved in the magazine? Where and when did you meet Fr. Neuhaus? George Weigel: I first met Father Neuhaus in May 1978, in New York, when I was arranging a conference on international human rights in Seattle, where I then lived and worked. We quickly became fast . . . . Continue Reading »
First Things : So I think the first thing we would like to know is what it was that brought you to New York in the first place and how you met Father Neuhaus and your background. James Nuechterlein: In the early ’60s, he was then Pastor Neuhaus of St. John the Evangelist in Brooklyn, and I . . . . Continue Reading »
Recently it was observed that novelist Anne Tyler “writes about middle-class people trying to endure life in Baltimore.” Tell me about it. The snow that came earlier this month”and came, and came”never left because we Baltimorons (as we like to call ourselves”but don’t you try) are inept at clearing it away… . Continue Reading »
In the Wall Street Journal, Michel Gurfinkiel reviews the new book by Frederick Brown, For the Soul of France”an account of nineteenth-century France, in all its glory and all its disaster. As Gurfinkiel remarks, from 1830 to 1905 … Continue Reading »
Our nation has begun a modest surge in Afghanistan, ostensibly as a prelude to substantial withdrawal of ground forces from that country, if not from Southwest Asia altogether. The decision to surge seems to be based upon two key assumptions… . Continue Reading »
In a 1967 lecture on the “cruciform character of history,” Dartmouth professor Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy”the anniversary of whose death is today”observed … Continue Reading »
Colleges and universities today manifest a paradoxical combination of remarkable success and abject failure. Vast resources and extensive funding for research have made our system of higher education the envy of the world”but its extraordinarily ideological homogeneity corrupts its contribution to American society… . Continue Reading »
On a Wednesday afternoon I made my way from my office on the Baylor University campus over to the central administration building to begin the process of reviewing candidate files for the next president of Baylor. I had no idea what I would find… . Continue Reading »
In his Cairo speech in June of 2009, President Obama gave religious freedom a place of heightened importance in his administration’s agenda. His speech both emphasized the importance of religious freedom when considering overall human dignity and human rights … Continue Reading »
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