Aurora Victim: “I do forgive him…”

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A remarkable take-back of power: Within just a few short hours of surgery on his foot Monday, Aurora, CO shooting victim, Pierce O’Farrill tells nationally-syndicated radio host, Todd Schnitt, that he wants to talk to the shooter, James Holmes. In the exclusive “Schnitt Show” interview, O’Farrill, who was shot three times, recalls the horror in [...]

What the CO shooting “says about us”

Jack Shafer with a thoughtful piece: . . . attempts at pattern recognition are as inevitable as they are necessary. Philosophers may be capable of throwing the null set at a suburban bloodbath. For the rest of us, attempts at finding causation – however tenuous – helps settle the mind. The shooter did it because [...]

Peek-a-Boo, Mr. President. We see you.

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Back in October of 2009 I asked, Does Obama Know Who We Are? Obama is an American President who is not particularly American in character or disposition. He seems not to really understand Americans, or their way, which is a way peculiar to the rest of the word, at once shallow and heroic, capable of [...]

Mandates, the IDEA of America and the Worrisome Line

Someone wondered why I seem less plugged in to the “Fortnight for Freedom” than he had expected me to be. I’m not sure why he is surprised; I’ve never been much of a joiner. But he’s right. I am lukewarm on the F4F, because I am a little uncomfortable with it. I certainly am in [...]

Teen Suicide, Media Excess, Palin and Bullies, Again

A horrible story made even worse by our excesses of media. Try to fully engage and consider this awful story while attempting to ignore the unstoppable video-with-commercials that ABC News plops into almost all of its pages, and which cannot be stopped while in commercial mode. The story is shattering — two young teenage girls [...]

The Toxicity of Idolatry – UPDATED

My Tuesday column at First Things is up, and today we’re talking about the strange gods we put before us and the toxic effect it has had on our politics: [In Barack Obama] . . . chattering classes, largely indifferent-to-agnostic-to-hostile toward religion, had suddenly found themselves a god, and to speak his name in vain [...]

The Healy Brothers; a Thrilling, Shameful Story

February is Black History Month, and to kick it off historian Dr. Pat McNamara brings us a fascinating story that thrilled and shamed me. What a remarkable family of faith existed in the sons and daughters of Michael Healy and Eliza Clark; they became priests, nuns and even a bishop emerging from their home in [...]