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  1. Public Life

Jewish Survival in a Gentile World

There are only two possible strategies for Jewish survival in a gentile world. One is to be tolerated. The other is to be indispensable. The first strategy hopes that if every minority is tolerated, then perhaps even the Jews, the minority with the longest history of persecution, might also be . . . . Continue Reading »

Confessions of a Coward

Early in April, with the publication of the May issue of First Things, I stepped out from behind the pseudonym Spengler to begin arguing my more considered ideas under my own name. The experience has been an interesting one: constricting in some ways and yet freeing in others. My Spengler columns actually began as a joke. In 1997 the Asia Times asked me to write a humor column, and the name Spengler seemed a funny touch: the author of The Decline of the West as a comic writer for an Asian daily. The print edition of the newspaper soon went under, but I revived the persona for the online-only edition in 1999. Contrary to my expectations, it won an audience and became a vehicle for more than I had originally imagined it would be. Continue Reading »

My Brother in Christ

I was out of the country when I received the news that Richard John Neuhaus had died, and to my everlasting regret, I could not get back for the funeral. I felt the strangest sense of loss. Not only did we lose one of the great warriors in the battle between the culture of life and the culture of . . . . Continue Reading »

Biotech: What to Expect

Over the past fifteen years, the pro-life movement has succeeded in enacting some modest limitations on embryo-destructive research. Passage of these depended heavily on Republican control of the Congress, and their defense in the past eight years depended heavily on a Republican president willing . . . . Continue Reading »

Rational Control

We learned last night that Timothy Geithner was confirmed as the Obama administration’s Secretary of the Treasury.  While this outcome was never in real doubt, the revelation that he had failed to report upwards of $26,000 in self-employment taxes when he was an overseas employee of the . . . . Continue Reading »

O Death, Where Is Thy Sting-a-Ling-a-Ling?

Nothing to Be Frightened Of by julian barnesknopf, 256 pages, $24.95 Death has many masks. He comes cruel with his sweeping scythe, cutting down men and women in their prime. He comes kind and compassionate as a nurse, closing the eyes of long-suffering patients. Death comes slowly and shyly behind . . . . Continue Reading »

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