These are not easy to read; imagine your families trying to deal with this. “What prayers shall I say now?: Father Anis Hanna explained in detail how life has now changed for the different minorities who once lived in peace for centuries under the reign of Islam in Iraq and Syria. In July, ISIS declared from different mosques in Mosul that, starting on 28 July 2014, new laws and rules would be applied to everyone living in the territories under... Read more
Wow, first Dana Milbank, then Richard Cohen, then New York Magazine and now this*: After [the president’s] truth-challenged oversell of the Affordable Care act, the unconscionable overreach of his CIA and his disastrous indecision on so many foreign policy issues, it’s unnerving to realize that his presidency still has two more years in office. An administration with no agenda and no competence would be hard enough to live with on the domestic front. But the rest of the world simply... Read more
Depression is a hissing false witness. It lies and tells someone there is no hope; it lies and declares, “you’re a fraud”; it lies when it warns you to hide your feelings, because people won’t love you if they know how terrified and alone and desperate you feel; it lies and sneers that you’re weak — that you can just snap out of it, anytime, if you really want to; it croons the lie that love is not real, and... Read more
…is a seriously ridiculous pair of reading glasses to lighten the mood around here! Read more
In an article covering President Obama’s reluctant decision to begin limited airstrikes against the so-called Islamic State (IS), New York Times writer Peter Baker quoted Ambassador Ryan Crocker, who affirmed US national security interests and added “This is evil incarnate.” Few would disagree. Do not click here unless you are willing to see horrific images of beheaded children, or videos of young men being led into trenches and summarily executed, but their existence — along with news that there are... Read more
Others tell me it is “schtick” meant to “make us think” but if that’s what Ann Coulter is serving up with her “charity begins at home” number, she’s doing it badly. Leading people into productive thought shouldn’t involve dragging them through a toxic swamp, where all sorts of rank and dubious detritus may become attached to our thinking. Writes Coulter: America is the most consequential nation on Earth, and in desperate need of God at the moment. And how does... Read more
Ross Douthat and Reihan Salam recently had a very cordial exchange on the merits of legalising prostitution – so cordial, in fact, that they were accused of doing Twitter fights wrong. Salam was making a reluctant case based on harm reduction, which followed a familiar pattern: “people are going to buy sex anyway, and legalising it will make things safer for those selling sex.” Douthat, in defending the Swedish model (where selling sex is not criminalised, but buying is) made... Read more
“Please, brothers! Our sisters are being taken and sold as slaves in the slave market!…I speak here in the name of humanity! Save us! Save us!” “Genocide in the 21st Century! We are being slaughtered! We are being exterminated! An entire religion is being exterminated from the face of the earth!” And it likely won’t be the last. To paraphrase Niemöller: First, they came for the Yezidi, and I wasn’t a Yezidi, so I said and did nothing… Let’s be... Read more
I’ve been grousing for a long time about the way advertisers (and sitcom writers) portray fathers as buffoons and ignorant slobs who must be instructed by their children when they are not being utterly emasculated by their wives, to whom they must obediently kowtow. So, kudos to General Mills and whoever has their Cheerios account: How refreshing is that? A smart, easygoing dad who is involved with his family and has a sense of humor. I see a lot of... Read more
I’ve written two posts worth of thoughts on the idea of an authentically Christian left-wing political movement, and they’ve mostly consisted of cautions and warnings – obstacles to be overcome, temptations to be avoided. That may run the risk of under-emphasising how glad I am that people are thinking about such a movement, and indeed, how glad I am that it’s possible for people of all political stripes to unabashedly talk, in mainstream media outlets, about being inspired, not just... Read more
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