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August 14, 2014

Platitudes Make For Poor Policies

A platitude is a flat, dull, or trite remark, especially one uttered as if it were fresh or profound. Politicians love platitudes, which is why we have laws with names like the Clean Air Act, the Pure Food Act, the Fair Sentencing Act, and the Anti-Puppy Kicking Act (okay, I made up that last one). Continue Reading...
August 13, 2014

The politicization of life and death and what it means

Many people once viewed politics merely as a form entertainment. We could all collectively laugh at the likes of Edwin Edwards even if he was notoriously corrupt. Many folks in Louisiana embraced the former governor for his antics and not merely for his ability to fix every problem in the state. Continue Reading...
August 13, 2014

Radio Free Acton: The Intellectual Life of Edmund Burke

This week on Radio Free Acton, Michael Matheson Miller takes the interviewer’s chair for a conversation with David Bromwich, Sterling Professor of English at Yale University, to discuss the thought of Edmund Burke in the wake of the release of Bromwich’s first volume of what will be a two-volume intellectual biography of Burke. Continue Reading...
August 13, 2014

Pope Francis And Foreign Policy: A Voice For The Poor

In a lengthy World Affairs piece, journalist Roland Flamini takes the position that Pope Francis is a “major player” on the stage of global foreign policy. Flamini examines the pope’s travels in the Holy Land and the Ukraine, noting “that the non-European pope is shaping his own foreign policy course.” Continue Reading...
August 12, 2014

Wanted: Code of Shareholder Ethics

With the mountain of books and articles that have been written about business ethics, one wonders why nothing much has been written on what we might call shareholder ethics. I’m thinking of religious shareholder activists such as As You Sow and the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility. Continue Reading...
August 12, 2014

Think Things Are Getting Better For Girls In China? Not So

While Jezebel tells women to get fighting mad about having to pay more for deodorant than men,  and HuffPo is worried about why women “really” shave their legs, real feminists (you know, those who care about all women [and men], from conception until natural death) are noting that girls in China are in no better shape than they were under the most draconian years of Communism. Continue Reading...