Pink-Slipped in Love
Review of "Why There Are No Good Men Left"
Posted: Tuesday, May 4, 2004
Women today are smarter, healthier, more ambitious, interesting, independent, and more confident than any of their predecessors. But the protagonists of "Chick Lit" are disconsolate and obsessed with finding a good man. What is wrong with the marriage market?   [Full Story]

A Little Learning
Study Kant, make millions? Well, at least become happier.
Posted: Friday, April 23, 2004
A visit to liberal-arts classrooms today is likely to reveal lots of "discussion" and very little "learning" in the strict sense of the word. More a kind of self-exploration with fancy texts. If colleges at least offered, in return for all that money, a character-forming education, they might be able to justify the liberal arts in loftier terms than law-school applications.  [Full Story]

Atheism's Enthusiast

Posted: Sunday, April 11, 2004
Everyone's a victim these days and Susan Jacoby would like to add her group to the list. A Pulitzer Prize-nominated writer, Jacoby feels that the voice of liberal atheists is increasingly being muffled in 21st century America.   [Full Story]

Very Personal Jesus

Posted: Monday, March 29, 2004
Americans have tried to divorce Jesus from Christianity, from the supernatural, from the Church, from the Apostles, and from the New Testament. They have affixed him to causes from the abolitionist movement to anti-drug crusades to various business models. Perhaps it should come as no surprise that the man who seems to be all things to all people has become a role model even for Howard Dean.  [Full Story]

Young evangelicals and gay issues

Posted: Saturday, March 13, 2004
When Baylor University President Robert Sloan finished reading the school newspaper's editorial in favor of gay marriage last week, he was angry. In a statement that garnered much more attention than the editorial itself, Sloan explained, "While we respect the right of students to hold and express divergent viewpoints, we do not support the use of publications such as the Lariat, which is published by the university, to advocate positions that undermine foundational Christian principles upon which this institution was founded and currently operates." But the guy who should have been upset is Karl Rove...  [Full Story]

Come together
When religious denominations merge
Posted: Sunday, March 7, 2004
Religious schism is in the air. With the Episcopal Church bitterly divided over the recent ordination of a homosexual priest and the ranks of American Catholics more distant than ever from the dictates of the Vatican, many churches in America seem ripe for a split. But an article in the March issue of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion highlights a powerful countervailing force in American religious history -- church mergers.  [Full Story]

Yes, Polygamy Is Everybody's Business
It's no 'private matter' when children are raped and intellectually starved in isolated settings.
Posted: Monday, February 9, 2004
In January, a lawsuit was filed in federal court to overturn Utah's 113-year-old ban on polygamy. The action was prompted by the Supreme Court's decision to strike down Texas' anti-sodomy law last year. But before we slide down the slippery slope of this kind of reasoning, we should consider what polygamy means for the treatment of children.  [Full Story]

There's Art and Music In These American Ambassadors' Portfolios

Posted: Wednesday, January 28, 2004
The U.S. State Department runs a program called CultureConnect that sends prominent American writers, artists and musicians to foreign countries to serve as "cultural ambassadors." They, in turn, pick artists from those countries to visit the U.S. "It gives us a vehicle for people of good will to connect," says Patricia S. Harrison, assistant secretary of state for educational and cultural affairs.  [Full Story]

A More Public Yeshiva

Posted: Friday, January 23, 2004
Richard Joel, the newly invested president of Yeshiva University in New York, has a tough road ahead of him. Not only must he answer the questions asked of all university presidents -- How will the school bring in the best professors? Where will all the money come from? -- but he must also respond to the more difficult questions relating to Yeshiva's role as the only major Jewish university in the country.  [Full Story]

Questioning Islam

Posted: Sunday, January 18, 2004
Irshad Manji's book The Trouble with Islam is a jolting look at the lifelong faith of a Canadian Muslim woman, and an examination and investigation of the problems facing modern Islam.  [Full Story]