As the venerable Chicago radio newsman and commentator Paul Harvey would say, “Here is a strange . . . “ According to the time stamp in the e-mail headers, I received a “Press Advisory” last night, at 11:50 P.M. CST.  The headline of the advisory reads: “Student’s Civil Disobedience and Arrest at Rockefeller Center: Demonstration against the war in Iraq.” Yet … [Read More]

Over at Townhall.com late last night, Michael Medved slipped in some Thanksgiving Eve—well, “thoughts” would be too strong a word: “The Thanksgiving holiday provides an opportunity to refocus on the motivations of early New England settlers, who crossed the ocean not to escape the Old World, but to change it by the force of their example.” Really?  I’m not a particular … [Read More]

In my younger days, I participated in a bit of political theater.  (The Ted Kennedy Swim Team, which waded through a fountain on the Senate side of the Capitol grounds on the 20th anniversary of Chappaquiddick, was perhaps the most interesting.  The fact that no one was arrested shows how far we have fallen over the past 18 years, because I … [Read More]

While I cannot (by which I do not mean “will not,” but truly cannot) endorse the opening paragraph of Kevin Michael Derby’s “The Silence of Father Neuhaus,” the rest of the piece is excellent, and even the fulsome praise in Mr. Derby’s first paragraph serves a rhetorical purpose, heightening the effect of the criticism throughout the rest of the piece.  Mr. … [Read More]

I like my Apple products as much as the next guy (OK—better than the next guy, because judging from the groans and angry rumbling, he’s apparently running Windows Vista on a Dell laptop and “squirting” songs from his lovely brown Microsoft Zune), but there’s something wrong with this picture: “iPod being used by Army as Arabic translator in Iraq.”  Yes, I’m … [Read More]

In 2004, His Eminence Raymond Burke, archbishop of St. Louis, received a standing ovation from the denizens of St. Blog’s Parish, that loose collection of conservative Catholic bloggers, when he declared that pro-choice Catholic politicians such as John Kerry should be denied Communion for the sake of their souls.  Archbishop Burke was rightly hailed as courageous, and St. Blog’s parishioners defended … [Read More]

Bill Sammon, the author of The Evangelical President: George Bush’s Struggle to Spread a Moral Democracy Throughout the World, cannot be labeled a critic of President Bush.  As both the senior White House correspondent for the Washington Examiner and a reporter for the Washington Times, he’s had greater access to the President than any other journalist.  And his book has been … [Read More]

You make up your mind, you choose the chance you take.You ride to where the highway ends and the desert breaks.Out on to an open road, you ride until the dayYou learn to sleep at night with the price you pay . . . Oh, the price you pay, oh, the price you payNow, you can’t walk away from the price … [Read More]

“All things have their season, and in their times all things pass under heaven.A time to be born and a time to die. A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.A time to kill, and a time to heal. A time to destroy, and a time to build.A time to weep, and a time to … [Read More]

Well, no, not really.  Babar Ahmad is a British Muslim who ran jihadist websites that raised money for radical Muslims fighting in Chechnya and Afghanistan.  He’s currently being held in England, awaiting extradition to the United States.  His case is of interest to me, because it was Ahmad to whom former U.S. Navy signalman Hassan Abujihaad passed classified information on the … [Read More]