John Couretas

is a writer and editor based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Posts by John Couretas

August 09, 2008

‘Solzhenitsyn, Optimist’

In the Wall Street Journal, Edward E. Ericson Jr. asks whether “this week’s evenhanded obituaries signal merely momentary respect for the newly dead or augur better days ahead for Solzhenitsyn’s reputation.” Continue Reading...
August 08, 2008

Solzhenitsyn and His Critics, cont.

In this week’s Acton commentary, Solzhenitsyn and His Critics, I point to the criticism that has been leveled for many years at the writer who turned out to be not exactly the sort of dissident that many in the West were waiting for. Continue Reading...
August 07, 2008

Solzhenitsyn, a great soul, laid to rest

At Solzhenitsyn’s grave. Donskoy Monastery, Moscow. Aug. 6, 2008. The Associated Press has published a moving series of photographs from Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s funeral here. Acathistus By Alexander Solzhenitsyn When, oh when did I scatter so madly All the goodness, the God-given grains? Continue Reading...
August 04, 2008

Alexander Solzhenitsyn (1918-2008)

Solzhenitsyn “During all the years until 1961, not only was I convinced that I should never see a single line of mine in print in my lifetime, but, also, I scarcely dared allow any of my close acquaintances to read anything I had written because I feared that this would become known. Continue Reading...
June 19, 2008

A new advertising campaign

Beginning this month in Christianity Today, Acton is introducing a new advertising campaign that asks readers to look at the economic implications of policy questions put forward by religious leaders. The first ad looks at the top down planning, command-and-control orientation of many humanitarian aid programs and opens with this: In developing countries, two million children die each year from common diarrhea. Continue Reading...
June 10, 2008

Acton U. this week in Grand Rapids

“ … what is virtue if not the free choice of what is good?” — Alexis de Tocqueville Acton University, the four-day exploration of the intellectual foundations of a free society, opens today in Grand Rapids. Continue Reading...
May 15, 2008

Bubble behavior and market panic

Congress is debating a number of measures designed to “rescue” homeowners facing foreclosure as the housing and credit crisis grinds more and more financial and real estate assets to dust. Much of the reporting on the credit crisis, in the tradition of objective journalism, strains to explain the problem objectively, as if what was happening in the markets was somehow an act of nature, something unguided by human action. Continue Reading...
March 28, 2008

Medvedev and Madison

Russian emigre philosopher Georgy Fedotov (1888-1951) proposed two basic principles for all of the freedoms by which modern democracy lives. First, and most valuable, there are the freedoms of “conviction” — in speech, in print, and in organized social activity. Continue Reading...
March 26, 2008

Hoekstra: ‘Islam and Free Speech’

In today’s Wall Street Journal, Rep. Peter Hoekstra discusses the impending release of Fitna, a short film highly critical of Islam, by Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch parliament. Hoekstra: Radical jihadists are prepared to use violence against individuals to stop them from exercising their free speech rights. Continue Reading...