Orthodox Editors

The little president who wasn’t there

American Thinker | James Lewis | June 24, 2009

The White House is now occupied by a little president who just isn’t there when he is called upon to take a clear, moral stand. For such sheer gutless flabbiness and evasion, you have to look back to the dismal Jimmy Carter years. If Tehran seems quieter today, it’s because the civilian demonstrators have been identified and are being beaten and tortured and maybe killed in Evin Prison. Don’t believe for a moment that the sadistic regime has changed, just because you don’t see people bleeding on the streets. They are bleeding all right. It’s just out of public view. [Read more…]

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Feminist Embarrassment, D-CA

FrontPageMag | Dennis Prager | June 24, 2009

Last week, a brief moment in time captured much that has gone wrong with post-’60s liberalism and feminism.

Brig. Gen. Michael Walsh of the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers was testifying at a hearing before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works. At one point during his responses to questions posed by the Committee Chair, Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California, the senator interrupted the general to admonish him about using the word “ma’am” when addressing her:

“You know, do me a favor,” Boxer said in an annoyed tone of voice. “Could you say ‘senator’ instead of ‘ma’am?’ It’s just a thing; I worked so hard to get that title, so I’d appreciate it. Yes, thank you.” [Read more…]

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Who Really Inspires Violence, the Right or Left?

American Thinker | June 21, 2009

Is the right responsible for inspiring murder, such as that of late-term abortionist George Tiller by Kansas native Scott Roeder? Some certainly seem to think so. For instance, the Friday before last Bill O’Reilly had as a guest on his show Joan Walsh, the editor of leftist news site Salon.com. She appeared because she had criticized O’Reilly for engaging in what she called a “jihad” against Tiller. Her thesis is that O’Reilly and, presumably, the rest of us who are passionately pro-life are culpable in Tiller’s death. [Read more…]

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PETA wishes Obama hadn’t swatted that fly

The radical leftist lunatics at PETA never fail to amaze us with their idiocy!
AP | June 18, 2009

Norfolk-based group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals wants the flyswatter in chief to try taking a more humane attitude the next time he’s bedeviled by a fly in the White House. PETA is sending President Barack Obama a Katcha Bug Humane Bug Catcher, a device that allows users to trap a house fly and then release it outside.

“We support compassion even for the most curious, smallest and least sympathetic animals,” PETA spokesman Bruce Friedrich said Wednesday. “We believe that people, where they can be compassionate, should be, for all animals.” [Read more…]

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Save the Planet, Get Married!

OrthodoxyToday | Jonathan Price | June 2009

Environmental activists want us to change our lifestyle to save the planet. We must drive less, fly less, eat less meat, and take fewer baths. Green political parties and activist groups such as Greenpeace design policies to stimulate green choices, and to tax polluting ones. Bookshops are full of cheerful little guides which tell us how to reduce our carbon footprints by growing our own vegetables, using shampoo but not conditioner, and going on one long holiday instead of several sort ones.

Yet amidst all this detailed advice, these green knights remain silent on two of the most important ecological catastrophes: the explosive growth in singles, and divorce. In other words, the decline of the bourgeois family both as cultural ideal and reality. [Read more…]

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Beauty and Desecration

City Journal | Roger Scruton | Spring 2009
We must rescue art from the modern intoxication with ugliness.

At any time between 1750 and 1930, if you had asked an educated person to describe the goal of poetry, art, or music, “beauty” would have been the answer. And if you had asked what the point of that was, you would have learned that beauty is a value, as important in its way as truth and goodness, and indeed hardly distinguishable from them.

Philosophers of the Enlightenment saw beauty as a way in which lasting moral and spiritual values acquire sensuous form. And no Romantic painter, musician, or writer would have denied that beauty was the final purpose of his art. [Read more…]

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OrthodoxNet Blog Wins 2009 Best Group Blog Orthodox Award!

ECNMA | Blog Editor | June 11, 2009

Our OrthodoxNet Blog has won the 2009 Eastern Christian New Media Awards for Best Group Blog. We rejoice knowing that all the hard work, passion, and dedication that has gone in maintaining and managing this blog has been appreciated and supported. A warm and heartfelt Thank You to all our readers who voted and recognized these efforts. – Blog Editor

[Read more…]

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Power Plants Are Batteries

Human Events | Dr. Arthur Robinson | June 8, 2009

We are all familiar with various kinds of batteries — batteries that power all sorts of devices such as cell phones, toys, motor starters, and even some automobiles. Electrical energy is easy to make by several methods, but it is difficult to store. This is the reason that most devices that use electricity are stationary, so that they can be connected through the electrical power grid directly to electricity generating plants. Portable batteries and electrical generators are bulky and expensive.

Most of us are not aware, however, that our electrical power plants themselves are also batteries in a sense — huge installations that cost very large amounts of energy to construct. This construction energy comes in various forms, but all of it is fungible — that is to say is inter-convertible with electrical energy when estimating its value and availability. [Read more…]

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The Church Everywhere

BreakPoint | Stephen Reed | May 29, 2009

Chuck Colson is fond of saying that the church shines brightest in tough times. History appears to support BreakPoint’s founder on this, as Christians have served extraordinarily well in a variety of ways during economic difficulties and social unrest. John Wesley, William Wilberforce, Mother Teresa—none of them had ideal circumstances in which to operate. That is why their respective ministries were so needed.

So what happened to America? Here we are, known far and wide as the most religious country in the West, and yet people constantly turn to the government more than the church in times of crisis. President Obama’s approach of having the federal government bail out banks, the automotive industry, and now perhaps even credit card users makes him the man of the moment. Obviously, even if the nation’s churches banded together and gave sacrificially to bail out all these entities, we probably couldn’t pull it off. [Read more…]

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