How do you get an actor to complain? Hire him! An old joke, but I first heard it from television’s iconic Robert Conrad (a fact that allows me to name-drop, another thing actors are prone to).
In the May issue of First Things, I was introduced as New Media Editor, a unique opportunity to serve this journal. I am sincerely honored. Now, let me complain.
Every day I seem to scour the news looking for irritation. I find myself keeping score: tallying insults to my gender, ethnicity, race, country, church”even my favorite quarterback. I have one snarl in the barrel and another in the chamber as I click to the websites of the New York Timesand the Washington Post. If I’m really in the mood for a barroom brawl, I’ll check in with The Huffington Post or Daily Kos… . Continue Reading »
The casual observer might wonder how a pre-war English detective novelist could possibly be relevant to a twenty-first century economic crisis. That would be to underestimate Dorothy L. Sayers. In the 1933 whodunit Murder Must Advertise , Sayers placed Lord Peter Wimsey incognito in an advertising . . . . Continue Reading »
At a blog called “Brutally Honest,” the proprietor Rick is, well, brutally honest as he ponders and works out the moral questions concerning the murder of late-term abortionist Dr. George Tiller. It is not easy reading. Rick quotes from this piece at Another Think : After years spent . . . . Continue Reading »
My heart sank when I read the headline: “Abortion Provider Is Shot Dead.” It sank still further as I read the story. Dr. George Tiller of Wichita, Kansas was one of the few doctors willing to perform late-term abortion, even some, the newspaper reported, in the ninth month. Kansas . . . . Continue Reading »
My dictionary defines the word tool in some interesting ways. A tool is “an instrument like a hammer, used or worked by hand.” A tool is “a means to an end.” And”more sardonically”a tool is “someone who is used or manipulated by another; a dupe.” Humans have been making tools for a . . . . Continue Reading »
In all human probability, by the end of the summer Judge Sonia Sotomayor of Second Circuit Court of Appeals will take the seat of Justice David Souter on the United States Supreme Court. On the grossest level, we have one liberal judge replacing another, and so the change is unlikely to affect the . . . . Continue Reading »
Michael D’Antuono has removed his exhibit of The Truth, a painting depicting President Obama in a Christ-like pose complete with spread arms and a crown of thorns. The outstretched arms appear to be holding back two sides of a dark curtain. Behind him is the presidential seal. D’Antuono removed . . . . Continue Reading »
Today begins the new website design for First Things : more punch, more power, more action, more zowie! Or so I’m told. You’ll have to check it out to see for yourself. As I promised in our May issue , we’ve launched our redesigned and much-improved website, which includes both a . . . . Continue Reading »
On previous Chelsea gallery walks featured in this forum , I have played the role of naysayer. Just as Nietzsche could not forgive Christianity for what it did to Pascal, I had difficulty forgiving the art world for what it did to friends who might have been wonderful painters. Saddled by a (not . . . . Continue Reading »
Terry Eagleton’s Reason, Faith, and Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate is an engaging, witty, and largely successful critique of the new atheists, especially Christopher Hitchens (author of God is Not Great ) and Richard Dawkins (author of The God Delusion ), whose delusional . . . . Continue Reading »
