Essays
Jan 1st 2015
As the end of the year approaches, we reflect on the past year and make resolutions for the one ahead, celebrating the transition between old and new.
Dec 31st 2014
What do James Taylor and The Beatles have in common with the Head of the National Institute of Health?
Dec 30th 2014
Our poor old world lurches from crisis to crisis:
Ebola. Ferguson. Syria. ISIS.
So New Year’s most welcome. Let’s start again
With peace on earth and goodwill toward men.
Dec 26th 2014
I am a member of the Lotos Club in Manhattan, a literary club celebrated for having Mark Twain as its most famous member. Apparently, he had spent many happy hours with fellow members there in his declining years.
Dec 21st 2014
The holiday season is always a good time to take stock of the year just past and see what we might anticipate in the 12 months to come. In the case of Pope Francis, it is fair to say that a great deal went well.
Dec 20th 2014
The day went something like a Keystone Kops comedy from the silent movie era.
Dec 18th 2014
Pope Francis has opened the Pearly Gates to Blue Heelers.
Dec 18th 2014
William Shatner is daring to go where no author has gone before.
The original Star Trek captain is using modern technology—Kickstarter—to fund a campaign to publish and market a new book.
Dec 16th 2014
There is a growing crisis haunting the Catholic Church. And it is a crisis larger than the events that have so greatly afflicted the American Catholic Church. The pedophilia scandals are a horrifying element of this crisis. So, too, are the bishops who covered up and excused these outrages.
Dec 14th 2014
We are haunted during the holidays by things done and left undone, but especially by the Ghost of Christmas Past.
Dec 11th 2014
Many of us are deeply grieved by the recent events surrounding The New Republic, where Chris Hughes, its current publisher, having rejected the magazine's time-hon
Dec 4th 2014
A long time ago, I was a kid.
And when I was a kid, I played.
Dec 4th 2014
Popes are not merely the head of a Church. Because they are the spiritual leader of a billion people, popes also have a role to play in shaping and forming global order. And historically, there have been popes who have used this position to change the direction of world events.
Dec 4th 2014
Dec 2nd 2014
So it’s Saturday night, date night, and I’m looking for somewhere fun to take my wife. Then I see there’s something called Ice Theatre of New York. And The New York Times has called it one of the 10 best cultural experiences in New York City.
Dec 2nd 2014
Roderick Thorp was part of a small group of novelists who came together on a monthly basis in the late eighties in Los Angeles to chew the fat.
Dec 2nd 2014
Are Western historians going soft on the Cold War that the Russians waged against the West for 45 years?