I asked SA reader Rex, who just happens to be an expert in Latin, if he could provide me with the Latin translation of SA’s tagline. Here is his response, which I greatly appreciate:

Maybe we can flesh this out together:

Giving the bayonet to the “dictatorship of relativism”

“Dare cuspidem ad dictaturam obsequii”

What I have here is “giving the spear to the dictatorship of …

obsequium = compliance, blind following, etc.

This term relativism is a tough one. Perhaps we could go with something like “relativitas”, which is a Latinizing of an English word that Latin simply doesn’t have. It also maintains the look of your original slogan.

So, “Dare Cuspidem ad Dictaturam Relativitatis” might be your “sententia” (motto).

What do you think?

All the best,
Rex

Pretty cool, eh?

Take that Aaron Burr!

Except, of course, for this one.

I’ve been using Bloglines for as long as I can remember, and I’ve been meaning to ask SA’s readers whether I should switch over to Google Reader or some other blog/feed reader.

What say y’all?

Nat Hentoff, “a nonreligious pro-lifer” and columnist for the Washington Times, nails it:

[O]n abortion, Mr. Obama is an extremist. He has opposed the Supreme Court decision that finally upheld the Partial-Birth Abortion Ban Act against that form of infanticide. Most startlingly, for a professed humanist, Mr. Obama in the Illinois Senate also voted against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act . . . . Furthermore . . . [Obama] “voted to kill a bill that would have required an abortionist to notify at least one parent before performing an abortion on a minor girl from another state.” . . . . 

As I was researching this presidential candidate’s views on the unilateral “choice” that takes another’s life, I heard on the radio what Mr. Obama said during a Johnstown, Pa., town-hall meeting on March 29 . . . ”But if they [his daughters] make a mistake . . . I don’t want them punished with a baby.” Among my children and grandchildren are two daughters and three granddaughters; and when I hear anyone, including a presidential candidate, equate having a baby as punishment, I realize with particular force the impact that the millions of legal abortions in this country have had on respect for human life.

Read the entire piece. It is most excellent.

(LvFT)

I hesitate to add anything to the torrent of commentary on Sen. Obama’s press conference performance yesterday.  However, there is one line in it that is not getting the attention it deserves.  It occurs early in his remarks.  Here it is in full, with the troubling language in bold:

His [Wright's] comments were not only divisive and destructive, but I believe that they end up giving comfort to those who prey on hate, and I believe that they do not portray accurately the perspective of the black church.

To whom is Sen. Obama referring when he speaks of “those who prey on hate”?  One possibility is that he is referring to fringe groups that most Americans would agree are defined by their hatred — the Klan, etc.  That’s a possibility.  Maybe there is some evidence that groups actually predicated on racial hatred have sought to exploit the Rev. Wright situation, but I am unaware of any news reports of Klan PR campaigns directed to this end.  Maybe I am simply ill-informed.

There is another possible meaning in Obama’s phrase, however.  I worry that Sen. Obama may tend to view anyone who opposes him as someone who ”prey[s] on hate.”  As Victor Davis Hanson has pointed out, Obama often refers to unnamed others who seek to “distract” voters and “divide” voters and so on.   But there’s something even more disturbing about the “those who prey on hate” formulation.  If

those who prey on hate = GOP, or even

those who prey on hate = GOP + Democrats and Independents who don’t support Obama,

then don’t be surprised if conservatives develop a somewhat paranoid view of the Senator’s crusade for “change.”

Whither the concern for scandal?

The Catholic News Agency has this report.

I cannot think of any actor that deserved to play the role of Jesus more than Jim Caviezel.

(LvC&EI!)

Three cheers for Cardinal Egan.

Update: For thoughtful commentary on the matter, see here, here, here, and here.

I want to thank those of you who responded to my post yesterday “on being non-denominational,” and I’d like to extend our conversation a bit by responding to some of your comments.

First, like Wahoowa, several of my former college classmates (from Samford) have made the switch from SBC to PCA. In explaining his decision to leave an SBC church, Wahoowa notes:

I think the “priest-hood of the believer” tends to encourage separation as there is no higher authority to enforce a common belief or liturgy. I also grew up SBC, but have enjoyed the intellectual teaching and formalism of the PCA church. (more…)

Rebels in Darfur are accusing the government of bombing areas under their control but, of course, the government denies it:
(more…)

If you missed the Society’s recent (March) student confab in Ann Arbor (theme: “The People and the Courts”), fear not!  You can now watch (or just listen) to the whole enchilada online, here.   The full agenda is below the fold: (more…)

Professor Adler has the details.

Professor Zywicki has an interesting review of what appears to be a fascinating book.

NPR interviews Nino.

I must get back to billable work so I won’t comment beyond recommending this interesting article on why we should abolish the death penalty. (Scroll down to the “On the Square” section).  I don’t agree with the article but it is well written and thought provoking.

AFP has a good article highlighting the fact that nobody really has any idea how many people have died in Darfur:
(more…)

This past Friday, I linked to this article, which claims that “Ranks of Southern Baptists Are Still Growing Thinner”; and in so doing, I noted: “I am curious what my SBC buddies think of this article.”

My good friend and co-blogger Joel rightly pointed out that my comment, given my conversion from SBC to Catholicism, came across as uncharitable. I agree with him, even though that was not my intent at all. And for that I humbly apologize. I am proud of my SBC background, and I remain a great admirer of the SBC, a denomination that taught me to love Jesus and the Bible. For that, I will always be thankful. 

Now, allow me to be more specific. This is the part of the article that I am really interested in my SBC friends addressing:

The drop in numbers reflects trends in other declining mainline Protestant churches, which are losing members as nondenominational and unaffiliated churches are growing.

Why do y’all think this is? It almost seems as if some evangelicals want to disconnect themselves from any kind of tradition, and I simply don’t understand that at all. This trend, of course, isn’t just impacting the SBC, but the SBC remains the largest protestant denomination in the United States, and I am curious what my SBC (and other protestant) buddies think about the rapid growth of non-denominational churches over the last 20 or so years.

Here’s something I’ve been meaning to post since returning to SA.  The best movie I’ve seen lately — actually, in years — is “The Lives of Others.”  If you haven’t seen it yet, I strongly urge you to rent it.   It is a riveting portrayal of life in East Germany — particularly the surveillance activities of the Stasi.    That’s all I’m going to say about it.  My advice is that you not try to learn any more about it prior to seeing it; that’s why there are no links in this post.

It is quite a powerful film.  But you don’t have to take my word for it; on seeing it, William F. Buckley “turned to [his] companion and said, ‘I think that is the best movie I ever saw.’”

Once you’ve seen it, you should take a look at the film’s fine website, accessible via www.sonyclassics.com  The short interview with the director, Donnersmarck, is well worth reading. Don’t look at the website before you see the movie, though.  It gives away too much.

The soundtrack is fantastic, as well.

You can read or watch the 60 Minutes segment aired tonight, that includes clips from Lesley Stahl’s interview.  The ABA Journal website also posted a bunch of links related to Scalia this evening, including another interview and excerpts from his forthcoming book.

Michael Hirsh wants you to understand that “the South — or what has become the South-Southwest” is the vessel of “a rather savage, unsophisticated set of mores” traceable to Scotch-Irish migration patterns and Andrew Jackson.  “The coarsened sensibility that this now-dominant Southernism and frontierism has brought to our national dialogue is unmistakable.”  And Hirsh doesn’t care for it — the “intolerant nation” he says we’ve become — not one bit.  The essay is subtitled “Southernism is taking over our national dialogue. Maybe it’s time for the North to secede from the Union.”

Yawn.

Such media fear and loathing of the South in Presidential election politics is at least as old as its reaction to Nixon’s “Southern strategy.”   Give it a rest, guys.

Well, good news for people like me who think the International Criminal Court is a good idea - and we are probably in the distinct minority here at SA … so bad news for the rest of you:

A senior Bush administration official said Friday that the U.S. now accepts the “reality” of the International Criminal Court, and that Washington would consider aiding the Hague tribunal in its investigation of atrocities in Sudan’s Darfur region.

“The U.S. must acknowledge that the ICC enjoys a large body of international support, and that many countries will look to the ICC as the preferred mechanism” for punishing war crimes that individual countries can’t or won’t address, John Bellinger, the State Department’s chief lawyer, told a conference in Chicago marking the 10th anniversary of the tribunal’s founding treaty, the Rome Statute. More than 100 countries have ratified the treaty.

Although it reiterated longstanding U.S. concerns about the court, Mr. Bellinger’s speech represented a rhetorical turnabout for an administration that came to power determined to hobble the movement for a permanent war crimes tribunal.

(more…)

LifeNews has this report.

My column in today’s Examiner urges the GOP to grow a spine and fight about judges, but I did not have space to get into a subject that should be of particular interest here: Leahy again is going out of his way to shaft nominees from the old South (excluding semi-southwest such as Texas). Again and again Leahy and the Dems put more roadblocks in the way of southerners than in the way of anybody else. (They also tend to block conservative Catholics.) I will now go so far as to call Leahy an anti-Southern bigot. Consider that for months and months he has used “blue slips” as an excuse for not moving lots of judges, but now confronted with the actual fact that he has blue slips from BOTH senators from both Carolinas, he suddenly ignores his own previous standard and continues to block both Steve Matthews of South Carolina and conservative Catholic Robert Conrad of North Carolina (whom Leahy actually had the gall to claim had some “anti-Catholic writings” when in fact Conrad had written to criticize a leftish nun because SHE had denigrated an older priest specifically because the priest, to the nun’s distaste, had emphasized the traditional aspects of the faith). (more…)

Courtesy of HRC.

What’s next? Barack Obama wearing a scapular?

This is actually a few months old, but I just came across it: The International Rescue Committee reports that 5.4 million people have died because of the conflict and humanitarian crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo and 45,000 continue to die every month:
(more…)

“Ranks of Southern Baptists Are Still Growing Thinner” (I am curious what my SBC buddies think of this article)

“Florida lawmakers debate offering a Christian license plate” (The ACLU is, no doubt, prepareing the lawsuit as I type this post)

K-Lo on why elections matter.

Ramesh to GOP: “Don’t get cocky.”

Hillary rap.

“Menstrual Blood Shows Heart Repairing Stem Cell Properties“

NARAL strongly opposes his candidacy.

Blackadder answers this question in the negative.