In All Things

After months of relatively good news from Iraq with lower levels of violence and fewer casualties this past week brought two bad pieces of news First the Iraqi government and the U S government have failed to agree to terms for a new security arrangement that replace the current UN mandate due

Sad news from Washington today Tim Russert host of NBC s Meet the Press died of a heart attack at 58 The CNN Report is here Despite an acerbic style in interviews and aggressive personality Russert has been one of political television s class acts over the past two decades He was als

The frontline in the abortion wars is no longer the Supreme Court If Roe v Wade was overturned tomorrow most states would enact its provisions legislatively Some might include restrictions on late term abortions which would be a fine thing but most abortions are not late term Crisis pregnancy

He who sings well prays twice said Saint Augustine and we must not forget that caveat who sings well Music and prayer are closely inter-twined in the great world religions and no one in the twentieth century so inextricably linked the two than the composer and organist Olivier Messiaen

In politics as in life the squeaky wheel gets the oil So our discussion of foreign affairs tends to focus on the trouble spots the on-going war in Iraq the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran the paranoid regime in Myanmar the genocide in Darfur But our political leaders should not look simply a

Terry Gross probably the best interviewer around after Tim Reidy of course interviews Ron Hansen about his new book Exiles on her NPR show Fresh Air today See post below Two New Raves about his new novel on Gerard Manley Hopkins and the writing of The Wreck of the Deutschland No

When I lived at Ciszek Hall the Jesuit house of First Studies near Fordham University in the Bronx the residents ranged in age from 23 a first-year scholastic to 83 our house father Despite the six decades that separated the two both had studied philosophy under the same Jesuit Norrie Clark

Few issues invite equal measures of demagoguery from both political parties as aging Republicans warn that Social Security will run dry when advocating their privatization schemes Democrats scare seniors with the specter of Wall Street bankers robbing them of their Social Security checks Politica

Special guest blogger Stephanie Ratcliffe the magazine s design and production coordinator–who is responsible for physically laying out the magazine–is also a talented artist in her own right A few weeks ago we featured on our cover her delightful image of our Founding Editor John Wynne

We re pleased to announce that Austen Ivereigh has joined our roster of bloggers A former deputy editor at The Tablet of London Austen s most recent article for America was about Tony Blair s baptism into the Catholic Church This week Austen offers a British view of the U S race for pres