Driving by the woods on a fall evening, and I’ve got miles to go before I sleep. The trees are tall, and their leaves are brilliant shades of red, orange, yellow and brown. One can hardly remember the green leaves, who were there but two weeks ago. The highway is lined with them: hundreds, thousands. [...]
Can books make us human or are we born human? I would like to re-word the thesis of this symposium, and present my list of books that are known to make people humane, and thus be a catalyst to make the reader an enlightened, knowledgeable, and truth-seeking missile of a human being. People are homo sapiens, even [...]
At the double-digit Catholic high schools across Cincinnati, most of them participate in KAIROS, a spiritual retreat. Myself included, hundreds of students attend and have attended the retreats every year as juniors and/ or seniors. The motto of this retreat is “Live the Fourth,” which essentially means, live every day like it is the fourth day [...]
Last Tuesday evening, I saw ‘Of Gods and Men’ at the only theater in Cincinnati showing the excellent French film, based on a 1995 true story. There were only three other people in the theater with me, and none of them cried like I did during the latter half of the movie. The monks’ triumphs [...]
Julie Baldwin The Wall Street Journal reported that “A frenzied mob incensed by a Qu’ran-burning ceremony in Florida overran the United Nations office in northern Afghanistan’s largest city on Friday, killing at least seven foreigners and several Afghans, U.N. and Afghan officials said. The attack was the most deadly for the U.N. in Afghanistan. [...]
Liberals have a new slogan (new to me, at least). They say, “Protect Our Progress!” According to the Organizing for America website, they recently held a phone bank in North Carolina. The informational page read: We’ve made significant progress together in the last two years. There are those who want to stop our country moving [...]
It was a cold night. My good friend Karen and I were driving back to campus after a quick trip to Ann Arbor for a special viewing of “The Human Experience,” the first full-length film of Grassroots Films, the Brooklyn-based company which also produced the phenomenal “God in the Streets of New York City” and “Fishers [...]
The summer I spent in Washington, D.C. was a huge learning experience for me, especially outside my internship. I went to Philly for a conference and met a guy who also happened to be in D.C. for the summer. When we got back, he invited me out to dinner with a couple of his friends. I [...]
This Sunday marks the fourth week of Advent; in a week, it will be the feast of the birth of our Lord. My mother has been blasting Christmas music. In between choir boys singing “Silent Night” and Bing Crosby, the radio DJ told his audience that the number one performer of 2010 is Lady Gaga. [...]
(more from our WikiLeaks Symposium) Gentle Readers, today Miss Manners would like to remind everyone that it is bad manners to tell state secrets, especially those found out because of a vindictive American soldier. Julian Assange is not, despite his defense, doing anyone a favor. In fact, in this time of war, he is doing [...]
I have been reading a lot of children’s literature lately, in addition to my Big Kid books. I finished The Little Prince (again) and am peeking into my beloved Little House on the Prairie series; I just bought a book on the adventures of King Arthur and am so excited to read it. I have [...]
As Advent approaches, and the leaves change colors, and the country grows increasingly befuddled, I find myself appreciating the idiosyncrasies associated with working for a small business. Specifically, my own family’s business, run by my tax attorney father and manned by a dozen or so employees. Two months ago, I left my job as a [...]