Many more sick people need kidneys, hearts, and livers than there are kidneys, hearts, and livers to go around. This shortage is the result of both decreased supply and increased demand. For example, public safety laws requiring that motorists wear seat belts and motorcyclists helmets have reduced the kind of catastrophic head injuries that often lead to organ donation… . Continue Reading »
Fair-minded Americans might not know what to make of the furor set off by Arizona’s recent law directed against illegal immigrants. The law requires state and local law enforcement officials to determine the immigration status of any individual whom they “stop, detain, or arrest” and about whose status they have a “reasonable suspicion.” This new law may not prove workable or effective, and it may not pass constitutional muster… . Continue Reading »
This issue marks, as you may have already noticed, the redesigned layout of First Things. The blame for all this belongs solely to me, the editor, for I’m the one who decided that the old layout had grown tired and stale. There has been, over the twenty years of the journal’s history, something self-assured and unapologetic about the purity of the unaesthetic presentation”a declaration that text is what matters and visual frills are a weakness for others to indulge… . Continue Reading »
What happens when the godfather makes you an offer that you can, in fact, refuse? Veteran Israeli politicians expect the Obama administration to give Israel an ultimatum later this year to make peace with the Palestinian Authority … Continue Reading »
For the past two Passovers, President Barack Obama has hosted Seders in the White House, becoming the first president in history to do so. The Seder is the latest in a series of escalating steps taken by presidents of both parties to appeal to religious constituencies… . Continue Reading »
Cardinal Sodano has to go. The dean of the College of Cardinals, he has been found too often on the edges of scandal. Never quite charged, never quite blamed, he has had his name in too long a series of depositions and court records and news accounts”an ongoing embarrassment to the Church he serves… . Continue Reading »
May 9, the fiftieth anniversary of the birth control pill’s approval, is being celebrated in the mainstream media by both feminists and environmentalists enamored of zero population growth. The pill is often considered the root cause of the sexual revolution … Continue Reading »
Just when we were told that the governments and central banks of the world had put the financial crisis behind us, the governments of Europe found it necessary to commit more than a trillion dollars to support of the financial system … Continue Reading »
Today is the twentieth anniversary of Walker Percy’s death. He died at home in Covington, Louisiana on May 10, 1990 following a two-year bout with prostate cancer. He left us six novels and two works of nonfiction, as well as numerous essays … Continue Reading »
The idea of the separation of church and state “began, in fact, with Jesus”, the editor of Newsweek assures us in a May 3 editorial on a federal judge’s recent decision that the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional. You can probably fill in the rest of the argument … Continue Reading »
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