The bully comes in all shapes and sizes, from the playground variety that hits you and takes your lunch to the mobster who “allows” your store to operate as long as you send in the “insurance money.” His basic goal is to make people serve him—and more importantly, to do so in a way that everyone knows who the boss is. Typically, though not always, the bully does not much care what you do the rest of the time, as... Read more

As countries go, Israel is quite tiny. But as archeological sites go, it’s vast. http://www.jidaily.com/YSHu/e Read more

Stanley Hauerwas, one of the most distinguished and surely most interesting Christian thinkers of the modern era, has been in the middle of this moral and theological fray for decades, arguing in various ways that being a Christian means never killing others in war. His new collection of essays, War and the American Difference, is his latest effort to show what it would mean to abolish war, and what it would mean to really live as Christ lived, and to... Read more

This incredible description of the world by a Hungarian Catholic cleric ends with a quotation from David C. Korten’s 1995 book When Corporations Rule the World. It is a leftist critique of global capitalism, but I have noticed over the years that it is also a favorite book of the far right. http://esbalogh.typepad.com/hungarianspectrum/2012/02/a-hungarian-catholic-archbishop-looks-at-the-modern-world.html Read more

Forget politics. Muslim countries are poised to experience a new wave of change — but this time it’s all about demographics. http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2012/03/09/the_islamic_worlds_quiet_revolution?page=full Read more

Morally responsible, prudent voting seeks to defend the common good to the extent realistically possible, even if that means only preventing further damage to an already highly degraded culture. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/03/4841?utm_source=RTA+Holloway+Voting&utm_campaign=email&utm_medium=email Read more

Twenty-five years ago, I was born to a woman married to an infertile man. His infertility motivated their purchase of anonymous sperm. My biological father’s lifetime contribution to me and my existence arrived in a nondescript box, courtesy of our local mailman. The circumstances of my conception have inspired me to think about certain things that many people take for granted. Sex was not necessary for me to exist. I was not the natural fruit of a marriage. I was... Read more

What is this thing called Jewishness? What does it look like? What are its boundaries? Even the most neutral-sounding answer reflects some position on one side or the other of the crazy-quilt of conflicts that have defined and continue to define Jewish life over the last 200 years. The meaning of “Jewish identity,” the Holy Grail of organized Jewish life, is massively unclear, the very search for it a sign of abiding uncertainty and anxiety. How can we make sense... Read more

The fundamental question of why there is something rather than nothing is a metaphysical and theological question—and with respect to such a question the natural sciences necessarily have nothing to say. http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2012/02/4852?utm_source=RTA+Carroll+Nothing&utm_campaign=email&utm_medium=email Read more

This year, the Catholic Church in the United States is being told she must “give up” her health care institutions, her universities and many of her social service organizations. http://www.catholicnewworld.com/cnwonline/2012/0226/cardinal.aspx Read more