Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
Last week I did a "commencement address" to college students. Today I take on their high school counterparts. I have accumulated a decidedly incongruent academic career, by current standards at least. After enduring the offspring of this country's premier zip code at the Palm Beach Day School (now the Palm Beach Day Academy,) I went …
Continue reading "Advice to Graduates: Go Where the Future Is"
This business about Massachusetts senatorial candidate Elizabeth Warren's Cherokee heritage is getting out of hand: Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, fending off questions about whether she used her Native American heritage to advance her career, said today she enrolled herself as a minority in law school directories for nearly a decade because she hoped to …
Note the sign to the right. You think we need one like this for our fiscal condition?
I have to admit it: I was amused when the poster at the right appeared on Drudge, who linked with this article, which likened Obama's use of the "Forward" theme with its use in socialist/communist contexts. First: the slogan "Forward" does have strong roots in the history of communism. Whether we will see iconography like …
Continue reading "They Used to Put Posters Like This in the Dry Cleaners in the Soviet Union"
It's the time of the year when most people graduate from whatever school they're graduating from. This is a hypothetical graduation address, this week aimed a college students. I'll take on the high school students in a subsequent post. These days college--especially undergraduate studies--is a long, expensive undertaking, usually accomplished by a large amount of …
Continue reading "Advice to Graduates: Past Performance is Not a Guarantee of Future Returns"
The Washington Post's Dana Millbank is just a little too happy over the Catholic bishops' rebuke of Rep. Paul Ryan's economic proposals: In an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network’s David Brody this month, Ryan, the author of the House Republican budget endorsed by Mitt Romney, said his program was crafted “using my Catholic faith” …
Continue reading "Playing Both Sides of the Street on Catholic Social Teaching"
Notre Dame's Gary Gutting doesn't think much of the real import of the Sermon on the Mount: The Sermon on the Mount, however, does not offer a clear view of what makes for a good life. Many seem to think Jesus is saying little more than be nice to everybody. Others see a call to …
Continue reading "Living the Sermon on the Mount, Episcopal Style"
At the end of the quest, victory: A coalition of bishops and leaders from Africa, the Americas and Australasia said it was time for a “radical shift” in how the church is structured away from models of the “British Empire”. They criticised what they called “revisionist attempts” to abandon basic doctrines on issues such as …
Continue reading "They'll Finally Get the Communion After All"
Nobody--yet--is thinking about this as things develop: In an article in the current National Journal called "The Post Al Qaida Era," I write that the Obama administration is taking a new view of Islamist radicalism. The president realizes he has no choice but to cultivate the Muslim Brotherhood and other relatively "moderate" Islamist groups emerging …
Continue reading "The Only Freedom That Matters is Sacrified to Foreign Policy Considerations"
Oh, yes he should have: Clashes between supporters of two prominent Shi'ite clerics in Iraq have spread from Nasiriya in the southern province of Dhi Kar to other parts of the country, as Baghdad struggles to calm tensions between them. The trouble began on February 17, when a recently-opened office of Shi'ite cleric Mahmoud al-Hasani …
Continue reading "Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani Should Have Quit While He Was Ahead"
Positive Infinity 