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The Organbuilders

The name of the one organbuilder was Craft, the other Dream, both descendants of an ur-figure. Creation. To graft metal to wood, not to look askance at fanatics in the guise of shepherds, and to listen with both delicacy and might was required. A duration. Death . . . . Continue Reading »

Editorial: Democracy and Obscenity

The nation braces itself for yet another round of moral indignation against moral indignation. The first indignation is that of publishers, booksellers, and sundry civil libertarians in a state of alarm about the second group of indignants who are doing battle against smut. The first indignants howl . . . . Continue Reading »

Academic Integrity Betrayed

Abortion does funny things to the mind. Not necessarily the procedure itself: expert opinion on its mental effects is, at least according to Dr. Koop, inconclusive. I am referring to abortion polemics, specifically to the political, judicial, academic, and popular debate over its legality. It has . . . . Continue Reading »

The Many Causes of Environmentalism

The Woodstock Center at Georgetown University is where some distinguished Jesuits, and some less distinguished Jesuits, fiddle with their theological fretwork. A recent Woodstock Report is entirely given over to fretting about today’s favorite crisis, the environment. It comes with a recommended . . . . Continue Reading »

Intra-Tribal Warfare

Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes by laurence h. tribe norton, 259 pages, $19.95  Abortion: The Clash of Absolutes is an expert brief on behalf of strict adherence to the terms of the abortion liberty granted in Roe v. Wade, no matter how much leeway the Supreme Court may give to legislatures in . . . . Continue Reading »

A Man of Contradictions

Kazantzakis: Politics of the Spirit by peter bien princeton university press, 318 pages, $29.95  By the time he died in 1957, the Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis had established himself as one of the major literary figures of the twentieth century. His extension of the Homerian epic. The . . . . Continue Reading »

Poverty and Morality

The Undeserving Poor: From the War on Poverty to the War on Welfare by michael b. katz pantheon books, 293 pages, $22.95  In The Undeserving Poor, there are two Michael Katzes on view, the historian and the social commentator, and the former is much the more persuasive. Katz, who teaches . . . . Continue Reading »

Being Modern

Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity by charles taylor harvard university press, 601 pages, $29.95  To describe Sources of the Self as a learned book would be a little like describing Michael Jordan as a skilled basketball player: accurate, but hardly adequate to the . . . . Continue Reading »

Hank Gathers and Cultural Christianity

When the Loyola Marymount basketball team, riding the crest of an emotional high after the death of star player Hank Gathers, was making its spirited run in the NCAA basketball tournament last spring, CBS did a short feature on Gathers before one of the team’s games. At one point. Brent Musberger . . . . Continue Reading »

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