Dr. Samuel Gregg – “Acton’s Chief Thinker,” according to our Executive Director Kris Mauren – put his thinking skills on display yesterday as part of the 2007 Acton Lecture Series, delivering an address entitled “The Crisis of Europe: Benedict XVI’s Analysis and Solution.”
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As a general rule, the more media coverage an item generates, the less I pay attention, so I confess that I haven’t followed the Iran-Britain hostage situation as closely as I might have. That said, at NRO today, John Cullinan highlights some statements on the matter by two British bishops (one Anglican, one Catholic) that have provoked some controversy in the U.K. I don’t know whether the analysis of Cullinan and other critics is entirely justified, but it does seem that, at the least, Bishop Burns’ remarks skirt the question of truth: that is, whether the Brits were or were not in Iranian territory is prior to any judgment about the Iranians’ “good deeds” and “generosity.”
On this Good Friday, CNN commentator Roland Martin delivers a well-needed corrective to the errors of both the religious Right and Left.
It’s good to see that he doesn’t confuse action on poverty and divorce as primarily political but rather a social issues. Just because you aren’t explicitly partisan doesn’t mean that you cannot be as much or more political than some of the figures that are typically derided in these kinds of calls to action. It doesn’t look to me like Martin falls into that trap in this piece.
Over the weekend I had the chance to see an airing of the 1998 documentary, The Life and Times of Hank Greenberg on Detroit public television. The film does an excellent job portraying the life of a baseball superstar complicated by social and political events in the 1930s and 1940s.
Today marks the second anniversary of the PowerBlog’s inaugural post, which reflected on the recent passing of Pope John Paul II. Given that the average blog lifespan is measured in months and not years, we’re proud to have reached this milestone.
Last week I participated in the inaugural “Culture of Enterprise in an Age of Globalization” symposium at the Cato Institute. The event, co-sponsored by Cato and the Intercollegiate Studies Institute, is part of an ambitious new program that aims to encourage scholarly reflection on and greater awareness of those factors that contribute to the building and maintaining of a humane and vibrant economy—a “culture of enterprise.”
www.calloftheentrepreneur.com is now open to the public. Stop on by for the latest updates on Acton’s new documentary, The Call of the Entrepreneur. You can view the trailer via YouTube or watch a higher resolution version via the “View the Trailer” tab. Find out where the premieres will be, or request to host a screening by visiting the “Premiere Information” tab. To see a little bit more about the people featured in the documentary, visit the “About the Film” tab. Read a little bit more about the calling of entrepreneurs and the place of business in society via the “Related Materials” tab. Finally, you can leave and read feedback on the trailer or the documentary by visiting the “Feedback” tab.
Anyone concerned with good governance in the nonprofit sector — and it’s independence — should read the updated draft report on “principles of effective practice” issued by Independent Sector. The group has been working closely with the Senate Finance Committee, which for the past two years has been investigating abuses in the world of charities and nonprofits. The abuses, which usually involve excessive executive compensation and lavish perks, pop up with dreary regularity. A good example of this is what’s been revealed at the Smithsonian, the nation’s museum in Washington, where the former CEO was hauling in a $900,000 salary and more than $2 million in “office and home expenses.”
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Kishore Jayabalan reported yesterday on the latest happenings with the Acton Institute’s office in Rome and the most recent installment of the Centesimus Annus Conference Series, “The Religious Dimension of Human Freedom.”
Last week, Acton’s Rome office, Istituto Acton, held a conference entitled “The Religious Dimension of Human Freedom” at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross.
(See this Zenit piece for a brief, if unexciting, summary of the event.)
