Second Links — 7.20.10

In Homecoming , a journalist explains “What soldiers are searching for when they return from the frontlines.” (Interested readers will want to read our In the Name of the Sons .)

In Whistling past the graveyard , a law professor reviews Stephen D. Smith’s new book The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse , which (disenchanted secular discourse) Smith calls “the real conversation-stopper.” (For R. R. Reno’s view of the book, see Metaphysics and the Common Good .)

In  A Strange Silence , an Italian priest and scholar explains “the strange silence” of those “who work in the world of education and have experience in dealing with children” in speaking about pedophilia.

In China surpasses US as world’s top energy consumer , the International Energy Agency reports that “China’s 2009 consumption of energy sources ranging from oil and coal to wind and solar power was equal to 2.265 billion tons of oil, compared to 2.169 billion tons used that year by the United States.”

In The Gold Standard , an economist makes “a principled case” for that policy against “fiat money.”

Speaking of gold, in Goa a priest bans burying dead with gold because vandals are tearing up graves looking for it.