John W Gillis | MaybeToday.org

There can be no lasting prosperity without a moral foundation in law

Posted on January 24, 2011 by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

Quote of the Day for Monday, January 24th, 2011: Indiana Congressman Mike Pence addressing the rallying assembly this morning before beginning the annual Walk for Life in Washington DC: We gather to mark the 38th anniversary of the worst Supreme Court decision since Dred Scott. And we gather today in the shadow of a new pro-life majority on Capitol Hill. And we will keep gathering until Roe v. Wade is sent to the ash heap of history where it belongs. These are trying times in the life of this nation. Our economy is struggling and our national government ...

Religion & Society

It is only human to be exhilarated if one thinks one is riding on the crest of the future.

Posted on January 22, 2011 by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

Quote of the Day for Saturday, January 22nd, 2011: Sociologist Peter L. Berger, concluding his 1970 book, A Rumor of Angels: Modern Society and the Rediscovery of the Supernatural: I would like to emphasize once more that anyone who approaches religion with an interest in its possible truth, rather than in this or that aspect of its social manifestations, would do well to cultivate a measure of indifference in the matter of empirical prognoses. History brings out certain questions of truth, makes certain answers more or less accessible, constructs and di...

Politics & Economics

Of the increasingly common bad habit of local politicians to resort to cosmic sermonizing…

Posted on January 21, 2011 by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

Quote of the Day for Friday, January 21st, 2011: Victor David Hanson, writing yesterday for National Review Online, on when sermonizing on real or imagined global issues trumps the exercise of competence for local officials – or camouflages its absence: Dupnik is a good example of the increasingly common bad habit of local politicians to resort to cosmic sermonizing when more mundane challenges go unaddressed. In Dupnik’s case, it is hard to monitor all the nuts like Loughner in the sheriff’s department files to ensure they don’t get guns and bullets and...

Critical Issues

They couldn’t help noticing the disgusting conditions, the dazed patients, the discarded fetuses

Posted on January 20, 2011 by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

Quote of the Day for Thursday, January 20, 2011: From page 8 of the Grand Jury report of the First Judicial District of Pennsylvania concerning the long-unfettered illegal practices of abortionist Kermit B. Gosnell, M.D: Pennsylvania is not a third-world country. There were several oversight agencies that stumbled upon and should have shut down Kermit Gosnell long ago. But none of them did, not even after Karnamaya Mongar’s death. In the end, Gosnell was only caught by accident, when police raided his offices to seize evidence of his illegal prescription...

Politics & Economics

The western world is an end state: the comfy couch at the end of history

Posted on January 19, 2011 by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

Quote of the Day for Wednesday, January 19th, 2011: Walter Russell Mead, writing at The American Interest on the on-going decline – and largely unconsidered future – of the structures underpinning modern life in the West: The word ‘developed’ contains an important assumption: that a historical process known as development (closely related to modernization — another problematic word) not only exists throughout the world, it culminates in a known end which has already been reached. This word implies that countries like France, Canada and our ow...

Religion & Society

The smoking gun we’ve been looking for

Posted on January 18, 2011 by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

Quote of the Day for Tuesday, January 18th, 2011: Priestcraft hysteria breaking out in an AP article by Shawn Pogatchnik, as published on Boston.com this evening, relating to the release today of a 1997 letter allegedly implicating the Vatican in a “cover up” of clerical sexual abuse: Any bishops who tried to impose punishments outside the confines of canon law would face the "highly embarrassing" position of having their actions overturned on appeal in Rome, [Apostolic Nuncio Luciano Storero] wrote. Catholic officials in Ireland and the Vatica...

Media & Culture

Such dangerous behavior could be triggered by any number of future public events

Posted on January 17, 2011 by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

Quote of the Day for Monday, January 17th, 2011: Call it a parting shot (!) on the Great Tucson Media Meltdown of 2011. This is former Washington Times Editor in Chief, Tony Blankley, commenting over at National Review Online: Because even though the Tucson shooting did not cause the media irresponsibility — this time — continued media misreporting and bias is now so ingrained that such dangerous behavior could be triggered by any number of future public events. Now is the time for us all to pause, and consider how the working members of the media can li...

Media & Culture

Almost 1,700 people had clicked that they “like” “General Rachid Ammar President”

Posted on January 16, 2011 by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

Quote of the Day for Sunday, January 16, 2011: From the New York Times’ World News desk, in an article on the evolving – or devolving – political situation in Tunisia, following the sudden departure of long-entrenched President Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali: On Saturday afternoon, there were some signs that General Ammar himself may now have an eye on politics. On Facebook, a staging ground of the street revolt, almost 1,700 people had clicked that they “like” a Web page named “General Rachid Ammar President” and emblazoned with his official photographs. While...

Politics & Economics

That sometimes frustrating, sometimes contentious, but always necessary and never-ending process to form a more perfect union

Posted on January 13, 2011 by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

Quote of the Day for Thursday, January 13th, 2011: President Barack Obama, from his address yesterday at the memorial service for those killed in the Tucson shooting: In George and Dot, in Dorwan and Mavy, we sense the abiding love we have for our own husbands, our own wives, our own life partners. Phyllis – she’s our mom or grandma; Gabe our brother or son. In Judge Roll, we recognize not only a man who prized his family and doing his job well, but also a man who embodied America’s fidelity to the law. In Gabby, we see a reflection of our public spirite...

Politics & Economics

Vicious charges made by people who claimed to be criticizing viciousness

Posted on January 12, 2011 by John W Gillis / 0 Comment

Quote of the Day for Wednesday, January 12th, 2011: New York Times columnist David Brooks, in a too-rare moment of lucidity, commenting Monday on the despicable liberal media spin on the Giffords shooting: Keith Olbermann demanded a Palin repudiation and the founder of the Daily Kos wrote on Twitter: “Mission Accomplished, Sarah Palin.” Others argued that the killing was fostered by a political climate of hate. These accusations — that political actors contributed to the murder of 6 people, including a 9-year-old girl — are extremely grave. … They ...