Month: August 2007

August 08, 2007

Global Warming Consensus Alert: Flaming, Earth-Crushing Death!

Remember the 2004 tsunami in Indonesia and Sri Lanka? I distinctly remember people making jokes about how they’d find a way to blame the whole catastrophe on global warming. Note to self: climate change hype is beyond parody: Unlike most apparently intractable problems, which have a tendency to go away when examined closely and analytically, the climate change predicament just seems to get bigger and scarier the more we learn about it. Continue Reading...
August 08, 2007

‘Capitalist Calling’

The Washington Times reviews Acton’s Call of the Entrepreneur today in an article titled “Capitalist Calling”: The Acton Institute hopes the documentary will crush the popular myth of business as a “zero-sum game.” Continue Reading...
August 08, 2007

Keep Cool with Coolidge

A new film titled “Things of the Spirit,” takes a fresh look at the life and presidency of Calvin Coolidge. Coolidge, understandably, received renewed interest during the Reagan era of American politics. Continue Reading...
August 07, 2007

PowerBlog Upgrades

Today marks the day that the Acton Institute broadens its horizons… If you haven’t noticed, we’ve literally widened our blog to 900px, creating a bit more space for all the things we have to say. Continue Reading...
August 07, 2007

Sane Asylum?

New Haven, Conn., isn’t waiting for a green light from the federal government to solve its illegal immigration problem: Two weeks ago, it became the first city in America to issue its own ID card. Continue Reading...
August 07, 2007

Putnam on Diversity

Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam provoked a cottage industry of commentary and debate on the question of “social capital” when he published his book, Bowling Alone, a few years ago. Now he’s at it again with an intriguing study concerning the effects of diversity on civic life. Continue Reading...
August 07, 2007

Baxter, How to Do Good to Many, Part 1

Readings in Social Ethics: Richard Baxter, How to Do Good to Many (London, 1682; repr. 1830), part 1 of 3. References below are to page numbers. On Good Works: A condemnation of selfishness: “It is a sign he is a branch cut off and withered who careth little for any but himself” (292). Continue Reading...
August 06, 2007

‘A Power Out Of Ourselves’

Enthusiastic atheists are on the offensive in an effort to tear down private faith, now that religion has increasingly lost influence in the public square. Richard Dawkins, author of “The God Delusion”, and Christopher Hitchens’s, “God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything” have sold hundreds of thousands of copies. Continue Reading...
August 06, 2007

The Transfiguration of Our Lord

Mt. Tabor In much of the Christian world today, the great feast of the Transfiguration of Our Lord is commemorated (Matt. 17:1-9). In the Eastern Church, as Fr. Seraphim Rose observed, it is customary to “offer fruits to be blessed at this feast; and this offering of thanksgiving to God contains a spiritual sign, too. Continue Reading...
August 06, 2007

Lord Acton on Literature

Picking up on the themes of the importance of narrative from recent weeks, I pass along this worthy saying of Lord Acton: “Government rules the present. Literature rules the future.” Continue Reading...