This is going to be an odd review. Fortunately, there will be no spoilers. My wife and two oldest children saw The Pirates Who Do Nothing. This movie is from the creators of VeggieTales. I did enjoy walking around Gander Mountain and Shopko with my youngest while the other three watched the movie. Upon picking up my children from the theater, my oldest son Jonathan said, “I want to buy this movie and watch it over and over and over.” ... Read more
In a short response piece in a 1999 issue of the Journal of Markets & Morality, my former professor Patricia Donohue-White raises a number of issues that must be taken into consideration while conducting economic analysis of markets. Her intention is not to defend or criticize the practical status of any given market, but simply to note non-economic “costs” that ought to be factored into any discussion of the impact of the free market on culture. Donohue-White poses two questions... Read more
There has been a lot of talk of the importance of Romney winning Michigan today. A second place finish would be a significant loss for Romney today, but he still wouldn’t be out of it. As I wrote in my post Iowa post and my post New Hampshire post, it is more important for Romney to beat McCain. For Huckabee fans, I’m afraid there are two tickets out of Michigan. If Huckabee gets 3rd place as the polls project, he... Read more
I just got my hands on Jon Sobrino’s new collection of essays No Salvation Outside the Poor: Prophetic-Utopian Essays. I have only read the first chapter, but so far the book is fantastic and appears to be a great place to start reading Sobrino. Here is the description from the back cover: The provocative title of these essays plays on a traditional Catholic slogan: “No salvation outside the church.” But as Fr. Sobrino notes, salvation has many dimensions, both personal... Read more
The first thing that impressed us was that God reveals Himself in poverty. We see this in the election of Israel, the people which was the bearer of the revelation. It was not because Israel was powerful, or because it stood out as a creative force in the cultural fold, that it was chosen as beneficiary and witness of the revelation. Israel was, on the contrary, small, and it was because of its smallness that it was chosen (see Deut... Read more
There were some who thought I was cruel in my post comparing French President Sarkozy to people in the Republican Party. Chronicles has a wonderful article dealing with divorce and the Republicans. It deals more generally with the failure of family policy. A brief excerpt. While the left was revolutionizing the legal structure of marriage, the conservative response was to lament and bemoan. “Republicans did not want to alienate their upscale constituents or their libertarian wing, both of whom tended to favor... Read more
I left the following comments at the Crunchy Con blog concerning Catholics being unenthusiastic with Mike Huckabee: I was enthusiastic at first for Huckabee’s candidacy. As the preceding statement implies, my enthusiasm has waned. Admittedly, my own views are only representative of myself. The Haggee thing never bothered me. My threshold for outrage is a lot bigger than others. What bothers me about Huckabee is that his foreign policy doesn’t appear it will be modest but rather guided by the interests of... Read more
Having argued for quite some time against what has become a “witch hunt” for “illegal” immigrants in this country with family, friends, and in the Catholic blogosphere, I can personally attest as to how the debate always boils down to this: illegal immigrants are breaking the law when they enter the country illegally; therefore, they should not be given any type of ‘pardon’ or ‘amnesty’ or special treatment for that matter. It is as if entering the country “illegally” automatically... Read more
In the latest NY Times Book Review, discussing a book by John Allen Paulos called “Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up,” Jim Holt comments that mathematicians believe in God at a higher rate than academics of certain other disciplines. He then goes on to say: So you might say that mathematicians are no strangers to belief in the unseen. (Of course, mathematicians don’t drag their beliefs into the public square, let alone fly planes... Read more
U.S. national intelligence chief Mike McConnell told the New Yorker that water-boarding would, indeed, be torture if he were subjected to it. BBC has the story here. Michael Mukasey, as Morning’s Minion reminded us, is a bit more vague on the topic. At least we know where Rudy Giuliani stands. Read more
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