Sixteenth Century Society 2007

I’m preparing to travel to Minneapolis later this week to present a paper at the annual conference of the Sixteenth Century Society, which is a major academic society focusing on the study of the early modern period. Continue Reading...

Belgium No More?

If you haven’t been following this story, now might be a good time to look into it – Belgium may be dividing into two separate entities sooner rather than later, with Brussels possibly becoming an independent city-state in the process: Belgium is the host country for the EU project, and the bureaucrats in Brussels are terrified that the epicenter of European anti-nationalism may be about to break apart due to national differences. Continue Reading...

Say Goodbye to Right Reason

Max Goss, an alumnus of Acton programs and the purveyor of the weblog Right Reason, subtitled “the weblog for conservative philosophers,” has written a farewell post marking the blog’s “retirement.” It’s not clear whether or how long Right Reason’s archives will remain publicly accessible, so avail yourself now of searching through their extensive archives. Continue Reading...

Prison for Paul Jacob?

For those of you following the case of Paul Jacob, here’s a link to John Powers’ column in the Chicago Daily Observer. For those of you catching up: Jacob, the Senior Advisor at the Sam Adams Foundation, has been indicted on charges related to his work leading a petition drive in Oklahoma. Continue Reading...

‘Mission Accomplished’?

“The mission in Iraq may be on the way to being accomplished…” So says Bartle Bull in Prospect magazine (HT). Maybe we should start thinking of the first declaration of “mission accomplished” (May 1, 2003, pictured above) as a sort of D-Day, and the imminent(?) Continue Reading...

As if by an Occult Hand…

Freemasonry has been deemed to be worthy of protection under the Religious Land Use and Institutionalized Persons Act of 2000 (RLUIPA). Does this mean that freemasonry is a “religion”? A California court of appeals statement said in part, “We see no principled way to distinguish the earnest pursuit of these (Masonic) principles … from more widely acknowledged modes of religious exercise.” Continue Reading...

Saving Secular Society

I used to have more regular and extensive interaction with people whose worldviews were starkly different from my own. That’s not so much the case anymore, so it’s good to be reminded occasionally that some people live in different worlds that are sometimes hard to comprehend. Continue Reading...

Human Events on “The Call of the Entrepreneur”

Erika Andersen reviewed the “The Call of the Entrepreneur” for Human Events in a piece titled, “Entrepreneurship Preserves Life as We Know It.” The Call premiered last week to DC audiences at the E Street Cinema, as part of the Renaissance Film Festival. Continue Reading...