Author: John W Gillis

Media & Culture

Public Health Leaders Should Be Carefully Scrutinized

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Quote of the Day for Sunday, November 5th, 2010: Matthew Hanley over at The Catholic Thing on Thursday, commenting on the public reaction to Pope Benedict’s recent statement on condom use in the Peter Seewald book, in a post entitled Misrepresenting Benedict’s Bravery: The New York Times tells us the pope’s words, in the newly published book Light of the World, were received with “glee from clerics and health workers in Africa, where the AIDS problem is worst.” The pope as anachronistic obstacle to global health has long been a fashionable narrative. But...

Music

Celebrating Christ’s Redemption and Immortality?

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Quote of the Day for Saturday, December 4th, 2010: Handel and Haydn Society Artistic Director Harry Christophers, from the Conductor’s Notes in the program for this season’s performance of Handel’s Messiah: When listening to our performance, take note of [librettist Charles] Jennens’ amazing contribution. We need only look back to mediaeval carols where texts take us from Christ’s nativity through to his crucifixion and resurrection but Jennens takes us further – his is a unique journey which takes us from prophecies of Christ’s coming through the Nativi...

Politics & Economics

“I’m sure the panel did what it was asked to do, but it was asked to do the wrong thing.”

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Quote of the Day for Friday, Dec. 3rd, 2010: J.E. Dyer, posting in the Green Room over at HotAir (cross-posted here), on the misplaced priorities of the Presidential Debt Commission, in an article titled: Debt Reduction Versus Government Reduction: Members of the public who object to the proposed measures will be denigrated as whining and irresponsible. Some of them probably are. But that’s not the point. The point is that, in the debt-reduction panel’s plan, gouging American households to pay down the debt is being done instead of reducing the size of g...

Politics & Economics

“And the real problem is us.”

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Oklahoma Senator Dr. Tom Coburn (R), addressing his fellow members of the President’s Deficit Commission, as they wrapped up deliberations Wednesday: As a physician, I’m trained to find the real problem… What’s the real problem – not the symptoms, but what do the symptoms and signs lead me to is what is the real disease. And he real disease is we’ve abandoned the concepts of our founders. We’ve created reliance instead of depending on self-reliance; we’ve created government programs that are unaffordable; we̵...

Politics & Economics

“Mr. Ambassador, enter the Orient Express and go back to Istanbul, your wonderland!”

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Quote of the Day for Thursday, Dec. 2nd, 2010: Maybe Europe is not a lost cause after all? Perhaps my disillusionment with the post-modern political and cultural character of the Old World has been unduly overwrought? Between this dressing down by Austrian MP Ewald Stadler and the Nigel Farage tirade in Brussels the other day, perhaps I should be holding to a firmer hope for a European future worthy of its past. Not that I have any illusions about these guys representing majorities, but: Who woulda’ thunk? An MP on the floor of a 21st century European Pa...

Politics & Economics

Where the Streets Have No Shame

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Quote of the Day for Wednesday, Dec 1st, 2010: Elizabeth Scalia, posting an “On The Square” piece yesterday at First Things called Rationing Bono & Other Gaia-Saving Ideas, asking why the planet’s room mothers and former Vice-Presidents, who jet off to fancy places to hold “Save the Earth from the Earthlings” summit meetings on a regular basis, never seem to suggest solving the crisis of our impending planetary doom by outlawing things like sporting events, and rock concerts – like the current obscenely indulgent U2 tour, for example: As we read the ...

Church

Reconciling the World

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Quote of the Day for Tuesday, Nov. 30: Hans Urs von Balthasar, from “The Sacrament of the Brother,” in The God Question & Modern Man, 1958: The opposition between what is profane and what is sacred is indeed fully justified in its place, else there could be no movement. Yet in this openness and this reciprocally flowing movement the opposition is transcended by the unity of him in whom and for whom all things have been created, and who has therefore been charged by the Father to bring them home. Nevertheless, a man will find God in all worldly things...

Politics & Economics

the M stands for “magic”

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Quote of the Day for Monday, Nov. 29th, 2010: The ever-delightful Ed Morrissey over at HotAir, commenting today on Keynesian economics: Think of it as a Cash for Clunkers economic plan on a larger scale.  The intention is to fool people into spending money in order to give the illusion of growth, and have that illusion somehow become reality through a process best known as FM; the M stands for “magic,” and you can guess what the F means.  The problem is that the interventions run out of steam quickly without addressing the actual issues of inco...

Politics & Economics

“We Want the Whole Thing Consigned to the Dustbin of History”

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Perusing Fausta Wertz’ blog this afternoon after posting the Warren Buffett link, I came across a fabulous screed from the proceedings of the European Parliament. Honestly, I have no idea who this bloke is. Fausta identifies him as Nigel Farage, MEP. But, whoever this Brit is, may God bless him and his family forever! Our stodgy Congress could use a bit of this kind of seriousness. There may be no Emperor, but he still has no clothes:   One really important thing Mr. Farage seems to me to get right is his assertion that the faux universality and cor...

Politics & Economics

Waiting for Permission to Do Good?

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So, the uber-wealthy Warren Buffett is complaining again that he pays too little in taxes: “I think that people at the high end, people like myself, should be paying a lot more in taxes; we have it better than we’ve ever had it.” Buffett on ABC’s This Week with Christiane Amanpour The duplicity in all this is just staggering. As a commenter at HotAir noted, Warren Buffett makes a significant amount of money selling tax shelters, such as life insurance, through his Berkshire Hathaway vehicle, and would stand to make an additional personal fortune should t...