Some years back, some of my readers might remember, an advertisement for corn whisky ran on billboards across the country: “Old Grand-Dad—Over a Hundred Years Old and Still in the Bars Every Night.” Something of the same might be said about T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land... Read More →

  By the fourth week of January, resolutions made for the New Year are likely to have lost any momentum they might briefly have claimed. Resolutions usually take the nature of goals, and goals are fantasies, which isn’t to dismiss them—daydreams serve a purpose. But I prefer... Read More →

    One day, a priest of my acquaintance heard the voice of a young woman through the screen of his confessional: “Father, tomorrow I will have an abortion. I know that it is wrong. Can you forgive me in advance?” The priest was stunned. “Dear child,” he said, “wh... Read More →

    “I’m done with the pro-life movement.” I heard that trope all too often this past fall, as erstwhile prolifers washed their proverbial hands of responsibility for the failures and foolishness of so-called pro-life politicians in this year’s midterm elections. The... Read More →