Culture
Such arguments become deep precipitously, but there remains something disconcerting about the method by which society determines the behaviors that are considered within the bounds of normality and those that justify treatment: The book is at least three years away from publication, but it is already stirring bitter debates over a new set of possible…
Ronn Torossian makes an important point, although I’d argue that his observation is a small part of a much broader issue: There is now an inherent distrust of the “system,” from the White House to local car dealerships. Trust has been broken in all facets of American business, because for far too long, top brands…
Rev. David Lewis Stokes’s reflections upon the failed exhumation of Cardinal Newman is a rewarding read: What really makes Newman our contemporary was his life-long sense that at the heart of modernity churns a moral vortex that promises to consume us all. Writing in 1875, Newman captured the century and a half to come: “To…
The Bush administration is entirely right to permit healthcare providers to refuse tasks that they find objectionable: The outgoing Bush administration is planning to announce a broad new “right of conscience” rule permitting medical facilities, doctors, nurses, pharmacists and other healthcare workers to refuse to participate in any procedure they find morally objectionable, including abortion…
Mark Patinkin’s column today is of his one-liner variety, and few are the folks likely to agree or disagree with everything that he writes. This item, however, strikes me as to profound to be left without exploration: From the “It’s a great country” archives: I just saw an ad for a dreidel with a picture…
Over the past few days, there seems to have been an upward ratchet in the amount of sarcasm. I’ve certainly been whacked with some in the comments sections and in personal email (especially from Tiverton teachers). This letter in today’s Providence Journal — even though I share its underlying frustration — makes me think that…
Of course, we can’t tar a social movement with the acts of a few, but at some point, the volume of incidents bespeaks a mindset. One assaulted immigrant may not suffice. One elderly woman mobbed and forced to watch as her cross is stomped may still fall short. I wonder, though, how many vandalized churches…
Gee, who’d have thought? Teenagers who watch a lot of television featuring flirting, necking, discussion of sex and sex scenes are much more likely than their peers to get pregnant or get a partner pregnant, according to the first study to directly link steamy programming to teen pregnancy. The study, which tracked more than 700…
Even as San Francisco contemplates legalizing prostitution, people who pay attention to such things in Rhode Island — where prostitution is already legal — say the regime attracts the sex-slave industry: But in fact, said Wells, slavery is occurring now in neighborhoods around Rhode Island, in the form of the forced prostitution of women and…
Video games are getting serious: A 43-year-old Japanese woman whose sudden divorce in a virtual game world made her so angry that she killed her online husband’s digital persona has been arrested on suspicion of hacking, police said Thursday. The woman, who is jailed on suspicion of illegally accessing a computer and manipulating electronic data,…