Bob Weir at American Thinker offers this….

The scene is a darkened, wood-paneled office with a huge oak door providing entrance to a dimly lit, sanctified chamber. On each side of the portal stands a tall, husky man wearing a 3-piece suit and a sinister countenance. A grim-faced middle-aged man sits behind a huge desk next to a floor to ceiling window shrouded in dark drapes. He nods solemnly to one of the sentinels and the man opens the door slowly, revealing the drooping, cowering figure of a has-been comic who made the near fatal mistake of using racist language during his onstage act. –continued here.

A college student has asked for a recommendation of law review articles and books dealing with the Roe and its unconstitutional nature.  I, of course, suggested Ely’s 1973 Yale law review article, but wanted some additional suggestions from SA readers.  Please use the comments and give full cites when possible. 

Wow.  This means big changes on the Fourth Circuit.  Here is the scoop.

 Rumor is that he will run for governor in SC in 2010. 

I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned it on this site, but I’m a big fan of Francis Schaeffer, the evangelical theologian, writer, activist, etc. Although his work is far from perfect, without it I doubt whether I or many other Christians would ever have moved into the broader world of intellect beyond the slim volumes available in the local Zondervan store. Certainly, I doubt whether I would have begun work for the Ph.D. without his influence.

I recently provided research assistance to Barry Hankins in his book about Schaeffer’s life and work. Though Hankins is sometimes critical, I think he also saw a great deal to admire in Francis Schaeffer. His book The God Who Is There is particularly compelling. My introduction to his work came through the multi-part film series How Should We Then Live.

Schaeffer was an unusual fellow. Though born and raised in America, he rose to fame as the host of a Christian retreat in Switzerland that ministered to young wanderers from the universities of Europe. They crashed at his place and he engaged them continually with an examination of their worldview. It worked amazingly well. He began to tour the United States, blowing minds at Christian colleges and churches, and challenging students at secular institutions. My in-laws were at Wheaton when Schaeffer came to give lectures. This strange man with knickers, long hair, and a chin beard talked about art, music, history, culture, politics, and science. He knew what was happening at the cutting edge of society and could comment intelligently about it. He had seen the films and listened to the music, even the aharmonious works of John Cage.

I give you this background to say that I cannot understand the attitude of his son and longtime partner in his work, Frank Schaeffer (formerly known as Franky Schaeffer). I decided to look in on his website and found the following:

Frank was born in Switzerland to the famous American evangelical theologian/evangelist Dr. Francis Schaeffer. Frank was sent to British boarding schools—from which he ran away at fifteen. He became an artist protégé. His first one-man show was in New York at the Frisch Gallery when he was seventeen. It was followed by successful shows in London and Geneva. Mrs. David Rockefeller bought the first painting sold at Frank’s New York show.

Frank is a survivor of both polio and an evangelical/fundamentalist childhood, an acclaimed writer who overcame severe dyslexia, a home-schooled and self-taught documentary movie director, a feature film director and producer of four (“pretty terrible”) low budget Hollywood features, and a best selling author of both fiction and nonfiction.

As you might imagine, I find the portion I italicized rather galling, as though an evangelical/fundamentalist childhood were a scourge comparable to POLIO. I didn’t have that kind of upbringing. In honesty I felt blessed to run into those kind of folks at Florida State University. I guarantee you I didn’t feel like I caught a crippling disease.

Last I heard, Frank had converted to Eastern Orthodoxy.  I have to hope that his position on evangelicals is not foundational to their church.

Fairfax County, Virginia wants to keep the homeless from getting food posioning. Maybe they overlooked the fact that they will keep the homeless from getting food too. Here’s Jonah Goldberg’s take from the corner.

A federal judge has ruled that the U.S. “Treasury Department’s failure to design, produce and issue paper currency that is readily distinguishable to blind and visually impaired” people violates federal law, since paper money effectively precludes them from “meaningful access to U.S. currency.

The Order can be found here. 

Like the writer of the story I’m going to link, I was horrified (and intrigued) to hear that Sylvester Stallone was going to make another Rocky film. I hated the fifth installment after enjoying the first four immensely.

But get this, Stallone is marketing the film to Christians. He says he wrote the first film with Christ in mind and that he has returned to his childhood Catholic faith. Stop sniggering!

Here’s a quote from Stallone that made me sit up:

“The more I go to church,” he said, “and the more I turn myself over to the process of believing in Jesus and listening to His Word and having Him guide my hand, I feel as though the pressure is off me now.”

And you Catholics will dig this one to the max:

“You need to have the expertise and the guidance of someone else. You cannot train yourself,” he said. “I feel the same way about Christianity and about what the church is: The church is the gym of the soul.”

Read the story from Stuart Shepard and think about checking it out. I’ve already decided to walk the aisle, the movie theatre aisle, that is.

ABC has the scoop.

Sound advice from Pat Buchanan:

What conservatives should do now is what they should have been doing for six years. Stand behind the president when he fights for low taxes and conservative judges. But when he joins with Pelosi, Fox, Calderon, and McCain-Kennedy for open borders, or with Dick Durbin for “moderate justices,” give him another “thumping” like he got from conservatives when he sought to elevate Harriet Miers and just as he got from the nation on Nov. 7. 

I wasn’t able to attend Robert Sloan’s inauguration as president of Houston Baptist, but an observer told me there were a thousand people in attendance. I was shocked. Houston Baptist is currently a small school. A thousand people for an event like this is huge.

Sloan and Houston megachurch pastor Ed Young (the elder, not his son who is also well-known) both delivered powerful addresses about the need for vital Christian higher education. I’m going to try to get those transcripts if they don’t appear on the HBU website pretty quickly.

For a guy living in Georgia and contributing to a website called Southern Appeal, I end up writing a lot about Texas!

Nevertheless, I know the sophisticated mix of Catholics and Evangelicals merrily perusing the daily commentary will be interested to know that today is the day Robert Sloan is inaugurated as president of Houston Baptist University.

Get ready for that school to massively increase its profile in the city during the next decade.  The resurgence of Christian higher education continues in the metropolis.

K-Lo at the Corner seems to be jumping on board . . . or at least endorsing the idea that a Newt campaign would make things fun.

Ivan Maisel’s take on the firing of Mike Shula and the state of the ‘Bama nation.

Yep, in South Carolina we are pretty big on the Clemson v. SC rivalry–maybe some folks too much so.

Paul Beston wrote about the Michael Richards case today. In so doing, he invoked the question of taboos. I think taboos do explain the powerful reaction to Richards’ outburst at the Laugh Factory. I wrote about the topic in connection to the Rush Limbaugh/Donovan McNabb controversy a couple of years ago:

I have a theory about why Rush’s brief remarks have unleashed so much antagonism. Many will believe it’s just about liberals trying to bring a big conservative down. That’s part of the story, but there’s something larger underneath. Every society must have taboos. We need to know the difference between sins and virtues so we can order our lives and live in community. In short, knowing what is right and wrong is the key to social order.

America has witnessed a radical re-ordering of our conception of what is good and bad. Socially useful taboos like unmarried cohabitation, having children out of wedlock, adultery, consumption of pornography, and divorce have all been transformed into acceptable activities through a powerful shove from the cultural elite and correspondingly widespread practice. G.K. Chesterton once famously complained about the rich preaching their vices to the poor and introducing them to ruin. He was right. The old sins aren’t sins any more and we’ve paid a certain price for that. Just ask any child of a single mother who hosts a series of transient males in the home.

But sins don’t disappear and leave a vacuum. We have a moral sense and we will exercise it on something. The ever-considerate cultural elite did not leave us empty-handed. Commandments they destroyed have been replaced by others more favorable to people of fashion. The sin that now stands center stage is the improperly crafted negative remark about anything having to do with race, gender, sexual orientation, or non-dominant religions.

I hasten to add that Rush’s remarks on McNabb were nothing like Richards’ blast of racial slurs. But the general point about taboos holds. We will exercise our sense of moral outrage about something. We just aren’t sure what that will be at any given point in time.

This is from CNN:

An HIV-positive man accused of knowingly exposing three women to the virus has been sentenced to nearly three years in prison.

Robert Richardson II, 30, apologized at his sentencing Wednesday, but he argued that while his behavior was unethical, it wasn’t criminal.

If you ask me, he got a pretty light sentence. 

I’m back home in Mississippi for Thanksgiving and currently recovering from the great feast of yesterday that included twice-baked potatoes, creamed corn (the thick Southern kind, not that disgusting soupy variety foisted upon the country by Yankees), butter beans, dressing, succulent turkey, banana pudding (that my Mama made especially for me) and a rich chocolate pie among other great Southern cuisine.

Speaking of going home, here’s an article that my aunt wrote for her magazine about that very subject.

If you are conservative, what brand of conservative are you? Have we all become postmodern political mongrels that defy any of the classical labels? In this recent editorial, Rod Dreher examines the neocon thinking that may have been responsible for ‘06 Republican losses. It’s all worth mulling over. Dreher says in part….

You will search the conservative canon in vain looking for the principles that justify the corruption and incompetence that helped deliver the well-deserved thrashing to the GOP. The incorrigible spending that destroyed the GOP’s reputation for being trustworthy stewards of fiscal sanity was actually a violation of conservative principles. And as for the disastrous Iraq war, Jonah Goldberg writes, “it is not the conservative position to botch wars.”

Now wait a minute. If a liberal offered a defense of failed Great Society policies by saying, “It is not the liberal position to create a vast helpless underclass wholly dependent on the government,” conservatives wouldn’t let them get away with that. The obvious reply is that failed welfare-state policies grew out of flawed liberal ideas about human nature and society, not just bureaucrats who applied those policies ineptly. Ideas, as conservatives never tire of saying, have consequences.

I wish all a Happy Thanksgiving, and hope pleasure is found in reading these WSJ editorial traditions.

“The Desolate Wilderness.”

So they left that goodly and pleasant city of Leyden, which had been their resting-place for above eleven years, but they knew that they were pilgrims and strangers here below, and looked not much on these things, but lifted up their eyes to Heaven, their dearest country, where God hath prepared for them a city (Heb. XI, 16), and therein quieted their spirits.

and

“And the Fair Land.”

Anyone whose labors take him into the far reaches of the country, as ours lately have done, is bound to mark how the years have made the land grow fruitful.

This is indeed a big country, a rich country, in a way no array of figures can measure and so in a way past belief of those who have not seen it. Even those who journey through its Northeastern complex, into the Southern lands, across the central plains and to its Western slopes can only glimpse a measure of the bounty of America.

I’m in Atlanta for Thanksgiving, preparing to eat as though I’ve been deprived of food for some time.  While perusing today’s AJC, I noticed that former Ala. Chief Justice Roy Moore has an op-ed providing the reasons why the GOP lost in the recent elections.  Enjoy.

C-SPAN has posted streaming videos from last week’s Federalist Society lawyers’ convention.  You can watch Justices Scalia and Alito by clicking here, then on ”America and the Courts” (on the left margin).  The Scalia-Alito program is, this morning, at the top of the list of “recent programs,” dated 11/18/2006.  Vice President Cheney’s remarks can be viewed by clicking here, then on ”Bush Administration” (on the left margin).  The VP is in the list of “recent programs,” dated 11/17/2006.   Several other speakers — including Sec. Chertoff and Gov. Barbour — can be reached by clicking here.

Check out James Glassman’s new venture for AEI, which launched last week.  Here’s the mission statement:

The American is a magazine of ideas for business leaders. Modeled on Henry Luce’s original vision for Fortune Magazine, it surveys the full scope of American life through the lens of business and economics. The magazine is published six times a year–our first issue came out on November 15, 2006. Our web site, American.com, takes the same editorial mission to the web, with original writing every day and a selection of thought-provoking links from around the web. The American is a project of The American Enterprise Institute.

John Andrews at Claremont has it right:

We give thanks for a stable, competitive, mutually respectful two-party system that forces consensus toward the center and fairly registers the people’s choice, so the trustees of power can be turned out when they lose touch or break faith – and the reins of authority can then be peacefully transferred. Much of the world lacks that.

We give thanks for the blessings of material abundance, opportunity, tolerance, innovation, cultural creativity, and the most optimistic educational system on earth, adding up to a magic escalator for group after group from marginal status to full participation in American life – minorities, women, immigrants, the disabled, who next? The striving of millions to come here isn’t just a policy problem, it’s an accolade to us.

We give thanks for living in the most religious nation in the world, a country where humanity’s restless search for God is unfettered by state-sponsored churches or compulsory worship, a country where much individual conduct is still regulated by the sense of moral obligation before an eternal Judge, allowing government’s hand to rest more lightly on our lives.

We give thanks for freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and the right to petition the government for redress of grievances. This daring, exuberant, risk-defying openness gives our system an almost miraculous capacity for self-criticism, self-correction, and self-renewal. This is what doomed slavery and defeated communism. It makes tyranny unlikely here. It is the jewel of humility in America’s crown.

We give thanks for our families. Parents, spouses, siblings, kids, babies and elders, eccentric uncles and cousins, grandparents and grandchildren, foster and adoptive relatives, those difficult in-laws, that couple who fits no conventional definition but just undeniably belongs together, the “stray” at your Thanksgiving table who doesn’t need to be blood to have a place in your heart – what would we do without them? Family transcends all politics, thank heaven.

But consider the last phrase. When “Oh thank heaven” can become a convenience-store slogan, America’s problem isn’t theocracy, it’s superficiality. Too many of us bring only a Hallmark faith to Thursday’s national feast. The mere attitude of gratitude is not enough. As the turkey is carved, remember that thanks are meaningless unless given TO someone – in this case to the Creator of all things. “Our fathers’ God to Thee, Author of liberty, to Thee we sing.” From our house to yours, happy Thanksgiving.

My buddy Joseph Knippenberg has done a nice job, too.

Perhaps . . . according to this report.

As usual, the Federalist Society put on a terrific CLE.  The speakers from both right and left always promise spirited debate.  One thing I could have done without was all the politicians.  Cheney, McCain, Barbour, and Arlen were just about more than I could take.  Word on the street was that at least 2 of them were not originally scheduled but wormed their way onto the docket. 

I actually enjoyed McCain’s speech.  He came out and admitted that the GOP lost the election because it had strayed from the principles of limited government.  It had, in his words, become just like the Democrats.  Haley Barbour made similar points.  McCain’s speech was refreshing, but that sensation wore off when one contemplates his voting record and realizes that he is as much to blame for the GOP era of big government as anyone else with a vote in Congress. 

Inviting all the pols does run the risk of the Federalist Society being seen as the legal arm of the GOP.  The Society, of course, is much more than that–as anyone who attended the myriad panel discussions can attest.  All in all–a good convention.

Here is Rep. Ron Paul’s tribute to Milton Friedman. 

I’ve written about Baylor University for the websites of Christianity Today, National Review, and American Spectator. During the struggle for control of the university a couple of years back I interviewed several of the key players and eventually wound up working in the university relations department in addition to my graduate research work for Francis Beckwith and another prof. who dislikes publicity.

Because of my scholarly interest in a battle that was essentially defined by how one felt about Baylor’s stated goal of being simultaneously Christian and a comprehensive research university, I was asked to write a chapter for a book on the topic to be published by Baylor University Press. Contributors were drawn from both sides of the controversy. I was more favorable to the vision. Others were more opposed.

Since that time, I have heard that Baylor University Press would not publish the book because it was too controversial. That was okay because Baylor University would publish the book separately from its press. Then, I heard some contributors were making unhappy noises about the book, which was really hard to understand because they had written chapters for it. After hearing the administration would still publish the book and that copies had already been printed, I have now been informed the book will not be released.

The cherry on top of this unhappy story is that a former Baylor president (not Robert Sloan, who initiated the school’s vision and was forced to resign) has written a charged email threatening those responsible for the book. He mentions his skill in psychological warfare and his willingness to release damaging information that he has passed on to some mysterious third party. The threatening email has been widely distributed. It looks like he got his way because the book has been suppressed.

The object lesson may be that academic freedom is an untrustworthy virtue. Those who cried out against Robert Sloan and Baylor’s Christian vision regularly complained that the vision would circumscribe academic freedom and Baptist freedom. They don’t like a new book — a balanced book — and have now suppressed it. There are apparently copies lying around. Will they be burnt?

More to come if there is more . . .

In today’s WSJ, Christopher Hitchens takes an appropriately sharp look at O.J. Simpson’s new “book.”

ESPN on possible rematch for national championship?

just called it quits?