Commonweal articles from November 2008

Commonweal archives from November 2008

What free market?(Economics & politics)(Letter to the editor)
November 7, 2008... The October 10 Commonweal included three articles on the economic crisis, and they were unanimous in assigning blame: "the perversity of market ideology" ("The Fall," by William Pfaff), belief in the "god of free markets" ("After the...

Giving shelter.(Economics & politics)(Letter to the editor)
November 7, 2008... Anathea Portier-Young's timely, thoughtful essay, "Our Community, Our Choice" (October 10), resonates with my experience as a hospital chaplain and spiritual mentor. The stories of women who are faced with an unanticipated pregnancy and who...

Homecoming.(Economics & politics)(Letter to the editor)
November 7, 2008... After being away from Commonweal for a couple of years, I received the October 24 issue, and found great comfort in it. A local pastor had recently invited me to join him in giving classes on "voting as Catholics." Those seminars made me feel...

Regime Change.(Robert Mugabe and the unjust ways on leading Zimbabwe)
November 7, 2008... Until recently, Robert Mugabe, the eighty-four-year-old president of Zimbabwe, has answered those who criticize his regime by telling them to "go hang." He has expressed contempt not only for the concerns of the international community, but...

Teacher or remedy; What is the law for?(Columnists)(Column)
November 7, 2008... Many clashes about law and public policy reflect not deep, principled divisions about moral values, but different ways of prioritizing two purposes of the law: its pedagogical function, which encourages people to do good and avoid evil, and its...

Trial marriage.(Cartoon)
November 7, 2008... "First we had a trial marriage, then we had a trial separation, and now we're just having a trial."

Broken promise: the price of expanding NATO.(North Atlantic Treaty Organization)(Column)
November 7, 2008... It did not take the clash between Russia and Georgia to reveal that relations between Russia and the West have taken a bad turn. They have been deteriorating since the mid-1990s, when the decision was made to expand NATO to include the former...

The blame game: moralizing won't fix the economy.(Short Takes)(Critical essay)
November 7, 2008... How should we talk about the financial crisis? Right now, emotional language is pervasive. Fear is a natural almost inevitable reaction to the apparent disappearance of over $8 trillion in retirement savings. Anger follows fear, as we look for...

U.S. Treasury.(Cartoon)
November 7, 2008... 2 DAYS WITHOUT BAILING OUT ANYONE

A secure border; In Canada, religion & politics don't mix.(Short Takes)
November 7, 2008... As the United States was nearing the end of one of the most engaging and fraught national election campaigns in recent history, we Canadians conducted a national election of our own on October 14. There were few surprises and even less...

How Catholic is France? You might be surprised.(Pope Benedict XVI's papal visit to France)
November 7, 2008... The four-day papal journey to France in September came off seamlessly. Benedict XVI arrived at Orly on Friday, September 12, and was received at the Elysee by President Nicolas Sarkozy. Later, he gave a much-anticipated talk to 640 French...

Bird languages.(Poem)
November 7, 2008... "...Prominent in folktale as a medium of warning, advice, prophecy, or aid to those human beings endowed with the gift of understanding them." Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary of Folklore, Mythology, and Legend Before we...

The people in darkness: 'Religulous' & 'Blindness'.(Screen)(Movie review)
November 7, 2008... So far this has been an excellent decade for village explainers, that tribe that eternally strives to get the rest of us to understand, among other things, that if religion does not answer to logic and physical science, it does not deserve to...

Paved with good intentions.(The Case for Genetic Screening)(Book review)
November 7, 2008... Heredity and Hope The Case for Genetic Screening Ruth Schwartz Cowan Harvard University Press, $27.95, 304 pp. In Heredity and Hope, Ruth Schwartz Cowan, professor of history and sociology of science at the University of...

Momma just wants.(Cartoon)
November 7, 2008... "Momma just wants you to be perfect--that's all!"

Quiet terrors, quiet joy.(The Duty of Delight: The Diaries of Dorothy Day)(Book review)
November 7, 2008... The Duty of Delight The Diaries of Dorothy Day Edited by Robert Ellsberg Marquette University Press, $42, 700 pp. In 1846, Soren Kierkegaard wrote, "All religiousness is rooted in being moved, in being shaken, in qualitative...

Unitarian advice.(Counselor: A Life at the Edge of History)(Book review)
November 7, 2008... Counselor A Life at the Edge of History Ted Sorensen HarperCollins, $27.95, 576 pp. The historian Michael Beschloss has observed that after twenty-four-year-old Theodore Sorensen joined Sen. John F. Kennedy's staff in 1953,...

Broken covenant.(A Moral Climate: The Ethics of Global Warming)(Book review)
November 7, 2008... A Moral Climate The Ethics of Global Warming Michael Northcott Orbis Books, $20, 224 pp. Michael Northcott has written a superb analysis of climate change and how it relates to technology, economics, and public-policy issues....

Wrestling with the other.(Joseph's Bones: Understanding the Struggle Between God and Mankind in the Bible)(Book review)
November 7, 2008... Joseph's Bones Understanding the Struggle between God and Mankind in the Bible Jerome M. Segal Riverhead, $15, 320 pp. Jews and Christians read the Bible differently. Though we study the same stories, we bring to them different...

Confusions.(Catholic votes on the presidential elections)
November 7, 2008... Early in October, I appeared at St. Theresa's Parish in Briarcliff Manor, a leafy New York suburb, along with Commonweal contributor (and former columnist) David Carlin, to discuss the question of whether a Catholic can vote for a prochoice...

Catholicism & capitalism, joblessness, Sir Thomas.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
November 21, 2008... NO HERESY HERE For a magazine that publishes authors who consistently dissent from the moral and theological postulates of the church's magisterium (for example, the intrinsic evil of contraceptive acts, the impossibility of women's...

Noel's way.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
November 21, 2008... It is with great emotion that I read the article by Joseph Cunneen ("An Editor Without Borders," September 12) on Noel Copin of La Croix. It evokes with much sensitivity the role and commitment of Noel, who was a friend and colleague for many...

The root of the problem.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
November 21, 2008... An article by a university professor who recommends a vast new increase in government spending to deal with unemployment and income issues ("Help Wanted," October 24) makes me wonder whether the writer is out of touch with the real world. Such...

Abracadabra.(Letters)(Letter to the editor)
November 21, 2008... In the midst of the nation's economic plunge and political tumult, i turned to Mollie Wilson O'Reilly's review of the Broadway revival of Robert Bolt's A Man for All Seasons ("Fanfare for an Uncommon Man," October 24). Her words were magical!...

Obama's faith.(From the Editors)(Barack Obama)(Editorial)
November 21, 2008... This nation faces daunting challenges both at home and abroad. In electing Sen. Barack Obama as president, the American people have turned to a man who, even his opponents readily acknowledge, possesses both a first-class intelligence and a...

A letter to our readers.(Editorial)
November 21, 2008... Dear Commonweal Reader, It has been a tumultuous 2008, to say the least, with economic gloom, chaos in the financial markets, and a contentious election season. I'd like to take this annual opportunity to tell you a little about how...

Tough love; The challenge of the Cross.(Columnists)(Column)
November 21, 2008... In Christianity, both God's love for us and the love we are to have for one another are linked to the Cross. In his discourse at the Last Supper, Jesus said: "There is no greater love than this, that a man lays his life down for his friends"...

Chosen to lead how should obama govern?(Columnists)(Barack Obama)
November 21, 2008... Just about everyone is giving President-elect Barack Obama advice based on one interpretation or another of what his victory really means. Obama should be wary of any counsel that the advice-givers had in mind before a single vote was counted....

Islam & democracy: hopeful developments in Denmark.(Short Take)
November 21, 2008... Fall in Denmark seemed darker than usual this year, even before the Scandinavian autumn fully gave up its light. In September, street riots broke out between motorcycle and immigrant gangs. On September 14, bullets struck two nonethnic Danes in...

Two poems by Anna Catone.(Poem)
November 21, 2008... Hungry Ghost Love let him in. I make dinner-- salmon and capers, potatoes, asparagus. He begs me, the faint outline of a woman behind him. He begs me, when once I would have said, "Here, take mine." The floor tilts inward,...

What Flannery knew Catholic writing for a critical age.(Articles)(Flannery O'Connor)(Viewpoint essay)
November 21, 2008... Forty-five years ago, Flannery O'Connor went from her home in Georgia to Georgetown University, in Washington, D.C., to give a lecture during a festival marking the university's 175th anniversary. As things turned out, it was the last such...

Uncoupled: what does a widow's life mean?(Essay)
November 21, 2008... During the past few years, I have read several accounts of bereavement written by widowers. The authors narrate their experience in detail, and then speak of the newfound happiness and zest they have discovered in subsequent relationships. What...

Cake topper; 'Rachel Getting Married'.(Screen)(Movie review)
November 21, 2008... Jonathan Demme has had a long and varied career. After stints as a film critic, movie publicist, and TV director (including an episode of Columbo), he apprenticed himself to famed B-flick genius Roger Corman, before emerging as a...

Bitter pill.(The Fertility Doctor)(Book review)
November 21, 2008... The Fertility Doctor John Rock and the Reproductive Revolution Margaret Marsh and Wanda Renner Johns Hopkins University Press, $29.95, 384 pp. For Catholics of a certain age, John Rock's name evokes distant battles. Popularly...

The man in gray.(Johnny Cash and the Great American Contradiction)(Book review)
November 21, 2008... Johnny Cash and the Great American Contradiction Christianity and the Battle for the Soul of a Nation Rodney Clapp Westminster John Knox Press, $16.95, 192 pp. When the editors of Relevant, a magazine for Evangelical hipsters,...

Always with us.(Book review)
November 21, 2008... Poor People William T. Vollmann Harper Perennial, $16.95, 464 pp. The prolific novelist, journalist, and essayist William Vollmann possesses a readership divided between passionate followers who laud his every book, and critics...

All in the family.(The Last Word)
November 21, 2008... My wife was raised Catholic and converted to Judaism six months before our wedding. Her conversion was not one of convenience or social pressure--she flirted with Orthodoxy and Conservatism until I steered her to Reform Judaism. She attends...