Scruton's Western Landscape (Image from Roger Scruton: writer and philosopher ) Conservative British philosopher Roger Scruton has recently published a thoughtful article, "Islam and the West: Lines of Demarcation," in the journal Azure:Ideas for the Jewish Nation (No. 35, Winter 5769 / 2009). In th...

Now that we've heard Cousin Bill recount the story of his personal re-enactment of original sin, his own fall from the paradise of youthful innocence, Uncle Cran has also come forth to confess his even worse sin. Worse than killing chickens, worse than Cousin Bill's murder of innocent pullets? Yes, ...

An Ancient Conundrum The Chicken's Puzzling Propensity to Cross a Road As Cousin Bill Lies in Wait (Image from Wikipedia ) This morning I received a "Weekly Rambling" newsletter from Cousin Bill that rambles not into the present heartland of Kansas for economic advice from grain-elevator farmers but...

Professor Jasper Kim Ewha Womans University Department of International Studies (Image from Ewha GSIS) Professor Jasper Kim, of Ewha's International Studies Department, published a column, "The global financial crisis 101," in last Thursday's Korea Herald that helped clarify for me our current finan...

Northanger Abbey (Image from Wikipedia ) If Jane Austen is right (and she most certainly is), then my past 25 years as a sort-of 'historian' have been . . . well judge 'sort of' for yourself based on how the young Miss Eleanor Tilney responds when the equally young Miss Catherine Morland, heroine of...

Tehching Hsieh Photo by Chester Higgins Jr. (Image from The New York Times ) I learned of Tehching Hsieh in yesterday's International Herald Tribune, but a fuller version of the article appeared several days ago (February 25, 2009) in the original source, The New York Times. Titled "A Caged Man Brea...

Postlapsarian Paradise Falling or Rising? (Image from Poets Online ) I suppose that's a ball being tossed by John Updike, but I like to think of it as an 'apple' of his postlapsarian paradise and ask myself whether it's rising or falling. In the foreward to John Updike: a Bibliography of Primary and...

Dawn Perlmutter (Image from Amazon.com ) A couple of weeks ago, I openly wondered if Muzzammil Hassan had beheaded his wife in a ritual act as a type of honor killing. Now, I see that Bill O'Reilly of Fox News, on a segment of "The O'Reilly Factor" for February 26, 2009, attempts to deal with the sa...

William F. Vallicella 'Maverick Philosopher' (Image from Maverick Philosopher ) My cyber-friend Bill Vallicella has a post on "the Question of Tone in Philosophy" in which he offers the following advice on how to react to individuals who post insults: I view it all with Olympian detachment and refus...

William Lane Craig (Image from Reasonable Faith ) In a comment left on my first post in this series, Dominic Bnonn Tennant noted the following point about an omniscient being (in the context of interpreting Matthew 11:23): Moreover, how does Jesus know what Sodom would have done? That is, what groun...