This post was originally published at The High Calling; this essay is my own theory of work, and it leads me to ask you this set of questions: Some of you have pondered what it means to work? Why? What’s the point? Share with us your wisdom. How do you approach work? Why do we work? How does a Christian approach work? How do we look at the rather ordinariness of so much of what we do? Do you think... Read more

From Stanford: (HT: DT) BY CORRIE GOLDMAN The Humanities at Stanford Those long summer days spent reading by the pool might not be so lazy after all. Readers of literary works by the likes of Samuel Beckett, Stéphane Mallarmé and Geoffrey Chaucer are getting lots of exercise from these personal trainers for the brain. New research by Stanford’s Joshua Landy, associate professor of French and Italian, illustrates how authors throughout the ages have sought to improve mental skills like rational thinking and... Read more

Roger Crisp has an excellent analysis here: In an interesting recent essay in the Atlantic – ‘Is it Possible to Wage a Just Cyberwar?’ – Patrick Lin, Fritz Allhoff, and Neil Rowe argue that events such as the Stuxnet cyberattack on Iran suggest that the way we fight wars is changing, as well as the rules that govern them. It is indeed easy to see how nations may be tempted to use cyberweapons to attack anonymously, from a distance, and without the... Read more

From AP: WASHINGTON (AP) – After years of following the paper trail of $51 billion in U.S. taxpayer dollars provided to rebuild a broken Iraq, the U.S. government can say with certainty that too much was wasted. But it can’t say how much. In what it called its final audit report, the Office of the Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction Funds on Friday spelled out a range of accounting weaknesses that put “billions of American taxpayer dollars at risk... Read more

Here’s a good collection by Uri Friedman of major statements in the history of the USA on it’s exceptionalism. On the campaign trail, Mitt Romney contrasts his vision of American greatness with what he claims is Barack Obama’s proclivity for apologizing for it. The “president doesn’t have the same feelings about American exceptionalism that we do,” Romney has charged. All countries have their own brand of chest-thumping nationalism, but almost none is as patently universal — even messianic — as this belief... Read more

Guest Blog by Brian Harris (see at the bottom of the post for more details): Quiet Leadership If you have ever ruled yourself out as a leader because you aren’t a dynamic, upfront person, you might find Badaracco’s Leading Quietly liberating. Badaracco has made a study of quiet leadership where he argues that the leadership qualities that result in long term success don’t revolve around charisma, but are more directly related to perseverance, tenacity and other centeredness, as well as... Read more

Matt Gray is a professor at Tabor Adelaide. Discernment by Matt Gray: Good looking Heretics In the 1987 movie, Broadcast News, Jane falls for the handsome but sloppy Tom. When she admits this to her best friend, Aaron, he tells her: ‘I know you care about him… but I believe that Tom, while a very nice guy, is the devil…Nobody is going to be taken in if the devil has a long, red, pointy tail. No… He will look attractive... Read more