Latest Posts

May 24, 2006

Acton Lecture Series: economic lessons from the parables

Earlier today, Rev. Robert A. Sirico delivered an address as a part of the 2006 Lord Acton Lecture Series entitled “The Eye of the Needle: Economic Lessons from the Parables.” For those who were unable to attend the lecture personally, we are pleased to be able to provide the audio of today’s event in downloadable form – just click here (10 mb mp3 file). Continue Reading...
May 24, 2006

Who will protect Kosovo’s Christians?

Seven years after the United Nations assumed control of the Serb province of Kosovo, talks are underway about its future. Orthodox Church leaders for the minority Serb population, which has been subject to attacks for years by Muslim extremists, are hoping to forestall mounting pressure to establish an independent state. Continue Reading...
May 24, 2006

Playing the Kyoto card

The researchers report that “latent heat loss from the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean was less in late spring and early summer 2005 than preceding years due to anomalously weak trade winds associated with weaker sea level pressure,” which “resulted in anomalously high sea surface temperatures” that “contributed to earlier and more intense hurricanes in 2005.” Continue Reading...
May 23, 2006

‘The school’ – attack on Beslan

New York Times reporter C.J. Chivers has a lengthy — and chilling — narrative on the terrorist attack on Beslan, Russia, that began on September 1, 2004. Chechen separatists took over School Number One, filled with children and parents on the first day of the academic year, and wired the place with bombs. Continue Reading...
May 23, 2006

Outsourcing education

A couple years ago I wrote a commentary that didn’t exactly defend outsourcing, but did recognize its benefits and argued that it could be done morally if done correctly. I won’t pretend that my writing is read widely enough to generate voluminous responses of any sort, but that piece did elicit a significant number of responses, many of them negative. Continue Reading...
May 23, 2006

The wisdom of Woz

Steve Wozniak, famed inventor of Apple I, Apple II, and the original Apple software, has a new autobiography coming out. Here is a snippet from a Businessweek interview where he gives a nice, Actony take on creativity and education. Continue Reading...
May 22, 2006

Doubt and certainty about spiritual realities

This Live Science article, “How Children Learn About God and Science,” by Robert Roy Britt, summarizes a new survey of scientific studies about the way children learn. It seems that an interesting conclusion has surfaced from these studies: “Among things they can’t see, from germs to God, children seem to be more confident in the information they get about invisible scientific objects than about things in the spiritual realm.” Continue Reading...
May 19, 2006

Toward “peaceful coexistence” in India

I blogged last week on the ongoing dispute between China and the Vatican. Another demographic giant with tremendous economic potential—and some religious freedom issues—is India. ZENIT reports on Pope Benedict’s address to the new Indian ambassador to the Holy See (May 18 daily dispatch). Continue Reading...
May 19, 2006

Bono: give us a call

The Rock Star, sounding kind of Acton-ish: Bono acknowledges that four years ago when he toured Africa with then U.S. Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, bringing private sector with him would never have crossed his mind. Continue Reading...