Last spring the 4,400 students at Santa Fe High School, which is part of a school district near Galveston, Tex., voted to elect one of their number to deliver an inspirational message before the home games of the school’s football team. Marian Ward, the senior chosen, was warned by school admi

Good Begets BetterIs it my imagination, or is less space being allocated for letters? The stimulating articles prompt stimulating responses, and I’d like to see more.Christine Matthews, O.P.Toledo, OhioCoffee at the CliffThe article by Paul Robichaud, C.S.P., Tourist or Pilgrim, Rescuing the J

It is difficult to imagine a more complex and challenging literary life for a biographer than that of Samuel Taylor Coleridge After completing a brief critical biography of Coleridge some 25 years ago as a quot trial run quot for a full-length life Walter Jackson Bate concluded ruefully quot I

If this book sold only 535 copies and each found its way into the hands of a member of the U S Senate and House of Representatives it would be a great publishing success Bookstore browsers may be deterred by the rather ambitious subtitle quot How the Coming Age Wave Will Transform Americaand th

What happens across the kitchen table has a far greater influence on whether American adolescents smoke pot or snort cocaine than what happens across the Mexican border. America’s best hope for a drug-free society is in the kitchen, the living room, the classroom and the church pew, not in the

Over two million people have lost their lives and over four million have been displaced in the war waged by the government of Sudan against its own people in the south. It is arguably the greatest humanitarian catastrophe in the world, dwarfingat least in terms of casualtiesthe recent crises in Koso

"End detention as we know it": This was the goal presented at the beginning of the third annual Detention Watch Network conference on Nov. 25-28 in Baltimore, Md. Using the phrase in satiric imitation of Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign promise to restructure welfare, James Haggerty, an

Cuban Bishops Say Parental Rights Should Decide Boy’s CaseThe Cuban Catholic bishops say the custody battle over a 6-year-old Cuban boy should be resolved in favor of parental rights. The boy, Elian Gonzalez, has been living with relatives in Florida since he survived an attempt to reach the U

When the poet Hart Crane jumped from a ship to his death in the waters of the Caribbean on an April morning in 1932 alarmed crewmembers threw life preservers into the water after him Their rescue effort was not only futile but also ironic since Crane rsquo s father had invented the Life Saver can

Each crisp winter morning these days, I smell the steam heat creeping through the old radiators of my Upper West Side Manhattan apartment. The hot water for my morning shower also (almost) never fails. How remarkable these little comforts are! I have a fresh appreciation for warmth because two month