On the Square Today

George Weigel on the crisis of a second Obama administration :

President Obama’s re-election and the prospect of a second Obama administration, freed from the constraints imposed by the necessity of running for re-election, have created a crisis for the Catholic Church in the United States. In the thought-world and vocabulary of the Bible, “crisis” has two meanings: the conventional sense (a grave threat) and a deeper sense (a great moment of opportunity). Both are applicable to the Church in America these next four years.

Also today, Eric Miller on unlocking the academy’s language :

Reading Tim Clydesdale’s  The First Year Out: Understanding American Teens After High School  put this professor on edge. I suddenly could see that I had been an inveterate practitioner of, in his memorable phrase, “liberal arts hazing,” the touchingly misguided attempt to get Meaning into the Lives of Our Youth. This notion of “hazing” would cover, I presume, the team-taught course to which half of my load is devoted, Invitation to the Humanities, which includes units on death, love, and the 1960s. By Clydesdale’s lights, we’re nuts.