Some observers ascribe racist and anti-business sentiments to proponents of a new nationalist political order, but such pejoratives distract from alternative and more plausible explanations for populism’s contemporary popularity… There is much to commend in David Mr. Brooks’ latest op-ed, “The Coming War on Business,” but his assessment goes significantly astray from appraising accurately the [...]
The Jeffersonian philosophy of rights and duties is not to be blamed for the explosion and inflation of rights. It is by doing our duties that we protect our rights, and rights come at cost of these duties. Today’s offering in our Timeless Essay series affords readers the opportunity to join Paul Kuntz as he [...]
I’ve not been fully sure what to “make” of Pope Francis. He is clearly a man of God with a deep love for the poor and an even deeper personal humility. But how is one to respond to his pronouncements on economic and environmental issues? Pope Francis and the Caring Society, ed. Robert M. Whaples (Independent [...]
Those colleges that neglect the heritage of their benefactors should cease living off their munificent endowments and chart their own course, which, if history gives witness, is the straight and narrow path to oblivion… With sonorous tones on the annual Founder’s Day in my school, the Reverend Sub-Dean clad in his academicals would slowly recite the long [...]
That time of year thou mayst in me behold When yellow leaves, or none, or few, do hang Upon those boughs which shake against the cold, Bare ruin’d choirs, where late the sweet birds sang. […]
The Vatican knew it had a winner on its hands with Allegri’s “Miserere” and, wanting to preserve its aura of mystery and exclusivity, forbade replication, threatening anyone who attempted to copy or publish it with excommunication. But that didn’t stop the teenaged Mozart. The fourteen-year-old Mozart didn’t see himself as being a music pirate, mind [...]
Ottorino Respighi wrote his suite, Church Windows: Four Impressions for Orchestra, in 1925-1926. They were based on three earlier piano pieces, which the composer had written after developing an enthusiasm for Gregorian Chant; he incorporated elements of chant into the works. In recasting them for orchestra, Respighi affixed religious titles to the movements: "The Flight [...]
During her first century, America’s foreign policy closely guarded her place as a holy land, set apart from the wicked Old World. The purpose of foreign policy was to keep the corrupt outer world from shaping our nation. Who are we, we Americans? Are we champions of liberty, both civil and religious, both at home [...]
In the wake of President Trump’s decision to rescind DACA, prominent voices have been raised in moral indignation, painting him as a villain. But is that characterization fair? Much of the Catholic world is in an uproar over President Trump’s decision to phase out the DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) order enacted by former [...]
The Hobbit shows us that we are those who look beyond ourselves to the goodness, truth, and beauty of objective reality; and we are those who see our lives as a journey, a quest, an adventure, the purpose of which is to get to the heaven-haven of the reward... “In a hole in the ground there lived [...]
"Every human being, my dear, must thus be viewed according to what it is good for, for none of us, no not one, is perfect; and were we to love none who had imperfections this world would be a desert for our love. All we can do is to make the best of our friends: [...]
When Facebook came on the scene, I immediately saw this new online forum as a platform from which to express my opinion about current events like I did as a newspaper editorialist. It was all just so easy and convenient. Except for one thing. For about a decade before joining Facebook, I wrote weekly opinion [...]
Because the Civil War is the American Iliad, it is constantly being refought in the public memory. Much is at stake, for myths make meaning, meaning makes politics, and politics make myths… Jesse Jackson made a remarkable run for the presidency in the early months of 1988—two decades before America would elect its first black [...]
Controversy surrounds the story of John Sullivan’s life. Yet he is among the representative Americans of his time—generous to a fault, jealous of his personal honor, optimistic, gregarious, ambitious, and “larger than life.” John Sullivan (1740-1795), lawyer, entrepreneur, soldier, and political leader of New Hampshire during and after the American Revolution. Both a commercial and [...]