I heard Terry Schiavo’s lawyer today at a small meeting. We ended up talking privately for about twenty minutes about a host of topics. A very bright and engaging man. He had some very interesting points such as the different ways the American and non-American press reported her death, what her death was like (he escorted Mrs. Schindler when she visited Terry as she lay dying), why he took the case, evidence that Terry was not in a vegetative state (testimony not allowed in the record), and more. I’ll post my notes tonight if I have time.
Fr. Hans
Planned Parenthood Reports Record Abortions, High Profits
CNSNews.com | Randy Hall | June 15, 2007
(CNSNews.com) – Despite a drop in donations and the first fall in income from clinics in its history, the nation’s biggest abortion provider made a high profit last year, thanks to the American taxpayer. Pro-lifers want this to stop.
The Murderous Church of Rachel Carson
FrontPageMagazine.com | Eli Lehrer | June 11, 2007
One hundred years after her birth in May of 1907, it’s difficult to underestimate Rachel Carson’s influence. Unfortunately, it’s all bad. That hasn’t stopped her from remaining an academic deity to the campus Left.
Why the art world is a disaster
New Criterion | Roger Kimball | June 2007
It is now that we begin to encounter the fevered quest for novelty at any price, it is now that we see insincere and superficial cynicism and deliberate conscious bluff; we meet, in a word, the calculated exploitation of this art as a means of destroying all order. The mercenary swindle multiples a hundredfold, as does the deceit of men themselves deceived and the brazen self-portraiture of vileness.
—Hans Sedlmayr, Art in Crisis
Some of what she said was technical, and you would have had to be a welder to appreciate it; the rest was aesthetic or generally philosophical, and to appreciate it you would have had to be an imbecile. —Randall Jarrell, Pictures from an Institution
Last month, a friend telephoned and urged me to travel to Bard College to see “Wrestle,” the inaugural exhibition mounted to celebrate the opening of “CCS Bard Hessel Museum,” a 17,000-square-foot addition to the college art museum. It sounded, my friend said, spectacularly awful. She’d just had a call from her husband, a Bard alum, who had zipped through the exhibition while doing some work at the college. Huge images of body parts—yes, those body parts—floating on the walls of a darkened room, minatory videos of men doing things—yes, those things—to each other, or to themselves, all of it presented in the most pretentious fashion possible. It really was something … special.
Dr. Alveda King Says Sen. Obama’s ‘Quiet Riot’ Comment Misses the Point
WASHINGTON, June 6 /Christian Newswire/ — Dr. Alveda King, Pastoral Associate of Priests for Life and niece of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., today responded to the remarks of Senator Barack Obama, who said that “quiet riots” take place in black neighborhoods every day because of hopelessness.
The Gay Invention
Touchstone Magazine | R.V. Young | December, 2005
Homosexuality Is a Linguistic as Well as a Moral Error
For thousands of years, until the late 1800s, our ancestors were completely oblivious to the existence of a fundamentally distinct class of human beings. Indeed, during the long period of Greco-Roman antiquity and more than a millennium and a half of Christian civilization, man did not even have a name for this class.
They call this a consensus?
Financial Post | Lawrence Solomon | June 02, 2007
“Only an insignificant fraction of scientists deny the global warming crisis. The time for debate is over. The science is settled.”
So said Al Gore … in 1992. Amazingly, he made his claims despite much evidence of their falsity. A Gallup poll at the time reported that 53% of scientists actively involved in global climate research did not believe global warming had occurred; 30% weren’t sure; and only 17% believed global warming had begun. Even a Greenpeace poll showed 47% of climatologists didn’t think a runaway greenhouse effect was imminent; only 36% thought it possible and a mere 13% thought it probable.
Hitchens vs Hitchens
Daily Mail | Peter Hitchens | June 2, 2007 |
Am I my brother’s reviewer? A word of explanation is needed here. Some of you may know that I have a brother, Christopher, who disagrees with me about almost everything.
Some of those who read his books and articles also know that I exist, though they often dislike me if so. But in general we inhabit separate worlds – in more ways than one.
He is of the Left, lives in the United States and recently became an American citizen. I am of the Right and, after some years in Russia and America, live in the heart of England. Occasionally we clash in public.
Moore Stupidity
Opinio.nu | Jonathan Price | June 1, 2007
In his new propaganda piece, Sicko, Michael Moore uses interview, anecdote, and the editing room to full effect. He attacks the American healthcare industry not so much about those without health insurance (around 40 million), as about the quality of the healthcare that the insured receive.
Horse Sense
Ed. The article is dated but the author, Wesley J. Smith, shows how sexual behavior and our ideas about the intrinsic value of the human being (theological anthropology) are related.
The Daily Standard | Wesley J. Smith | August 31,2005
The debate in Washington state about bestiality is actually a fight over human exceptionalism.
A WASHINGTON MAN died recently from internal injuries he sustained while having sex with a horse. After his body was dropped off at a hospital, police discovered that out-of-towners had rented a rural farm and then made local animals available for use in bestiality. Yes, video taping was involved.