Oswald Clark, U.S. Correspondent: On May 13, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Lee Zeldin told a U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee hearing that he did not know anything about abortion-related contaminants in the country’s water supply even though he has been personally briefed on the issue by Liberty Council Action. Zeldin was asked by Senator Patty Murray (D, Wash.) during the budget hearings [...]
Selected Letters of John Updike: Edited by James Schiff (Penguin Random House, $73, 912 pages) John Updike is perhaps the preeminent example of what is called a man of letters – the author of short stories, novels, critical essays. A number of his letters are collected in a large volume, Selected Letters of John Updike. At 912 pages, one might remark that [...]
Modern Monsters: Political Ideologues and Their War against the Catholic Church: George Marlin (St. Augustine’s Press, $45.50, 227 pages) Version 1.0.0 George Marlin, chairman of Aid to the Church in Need-USA, has written an accessible examination of a dozen or so intellectuals whose ideas have, in his estimation, greatly harmed society by attacking the Catholic Church and the Christian view [...]
Pornocracy: Jo Bartosch and Robert Jessel (Polity, $36, 183 pages) In their introduction, Jo Bartosch, a journalist, and Robert Jessel, a human rights campaigner, argue that pornography defines our culture, calling our society a “pornocracy” which they define as, “A society in which political power, culture, relationships and identity are shaped or dominated by the purveyors of pornography.” Bartosch and Jessel continue: [...]
Mary Zwicker, European Correspondent: The United Kingdom is planning to expand abortion access by incentivizing abortion providers to offer “lunch hour” or “same day” abortions. In April, the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care published the “Renewed Women’s Health Strategy for England.” This strategy includes plans to increase abortion access in England by removing former financial incentivization which stretched out the [...]
Paul Tuns: On May 14, thousands of Canadians took part in the largest annual demonstration on Parliament Hill, the National March for Life, organized by Campaign Life Coalition. Before participants marched through the streets of the nation’s capital, they heard pro-life speakers [...]
Paul Tuns: Nova Scotia Education Minister Brendan Maguire said that parents do not have “rights over a child.” Maguire, a Liberal who crossed the floor to join the Nova Scotia Progressive Conservative government of Premier Tim Houston in 2024, was answering a question about Bill 201 in the provincial House of Assembly. Bill 201 proposes to, among other items, make it illegal [...]
Arthur Schopenhauer: The Life and Thought of Philosophy’s Greatest Pessimist David Bather Woods (Chicago, $39, 294 pages) Arthur Schopenhauer has been described as a miserable philosopher who saw human life swing between pain and boredom, suffering that is relieved only partially through aesthetic contemplation and the renunciation of desire: “the world and life can afford us no true satisfaction.” The only antidote [...]
Sarah Stilton, Review: The Dignity of Dependence: A Feminist Manifesto by Leah Libresco Sargeant (Notre Dame University Press, $37.95, 219 pages) Leah Libresco Sargeant, an author and speaker, provocatively argues in her brief The Dignity of Dependence: A Feminist that it is not women who form families by choosing marriage and motherhood that betray the sisterhood, but rather radical feminists who ignore or hide [...]
Paul Tuns: On May 1, Campaign Life Coalition organized demonstrations at 49 locations in nine provinces outside the constituency offices of Liberal MPs to encourage the elected representatives to put pressure on senators to defeat or amend Bill C-9. Bill C-9, the Combatting Hate Act, is a government bill that, if passed, will amend the Criminal [...]
Digital Currency or Digital Control: Decoding CBDC and the Future of Money Nicholas Anthony (Cato Institute, $21.95, 160 pages) Version 1.0.0 Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) are being researched and developed by central banks and policymakers, and author Nicholas Anthony warns it is nothing less than “an attempt to reinvent money as we know it.” CBDCs are inspired by cryptocurrencies [...]
Paul Tuns: James (Jim) Hughes, national president of Campaign Life Coalition, died on May 18 at the age of 82. Hughes became involved in the pro-life movement in the 1970s after seeing a Toronto Right to Life presentation at the Canadian National Exhibition. After a conversation with his wife, Virginia, they agreed that he would give up his successful career in business [...]
On May 18th, Canadian pro-lifers lost a champion whose legacy is difficult to overstate. Jim Hughes was more than a leader, a founder, and an activist: he was, for decades, the face of the pro-life movement in Canada. When the media wanted to know the reaction to an event affecting the unborn, they did not call the Catholic Chancery, they called Jim [...]
Pro-lifers dodge a Molotov cocktail at Portugal’s March for Life On March 21, thousands of people marched in Lisbon and a number of other cities around Portugal. The Portuguese Federation for Life stressed the focus of the March was on “the dignity of all human beings for life from the moment of conception until natural death, and for families.” The March was [...]
Donald DeMarco: When Dante entered the vestibule of Hell, he witnessed the dreary souls “who lived without blame, and without praise; but were for themselves.” These were the apathetic souls whom both Heaven and Hell rejected. Dante was struck by sheer number of these lost souls. “So long a train of people,” he said to Virgil, his guide, “that I should never [...]