We should be chanting, ‘Save our sanity’
Donald DeMarco emphasizes the importance of distinguishing what is real and what is nonsense regarding the politicized issues of the day.
Tasha made the right choice
Athlete missed '04 Olympics to have child The Beijing Olympiad has passed and left the world images of glory that will last for many years: Michael Phelps' eight gold medals, Jamaica's Usain Bolt setting records in the 100- and 200-metre dashes, the American basketball team gaining "redemption," the dazzling spectacle and gracious hospitality the Chinese provided. The Olympics, as the media inform [...]
Ubuntu: something our society needs
On June 17, 2008, the Boston Celtics broke their huddle with the chant “ubuntu,” just as they had before every game in their gruelling 116-game season. Then, they calmly walked out onto the parquet court of the New Boston Garden and won their 17th NBA championship, demolishing the Los Angeles Lakers by the eye-popping score of 131-92. It was, in the words of one [...]
Reason should not be jettisoned for ideology
Victor Borge tells the story of a friend whom he had not seen in 50 years who asked him, rather excitedly, “Was it you or your brother who passed away?” The captain of a four-engine plane alerted his passengers that one of the engines had conked out. He assured them forthwith that there was nothing to worry about, although flying time would [...]
Abortion, mental health, and feminism
Britain’s Royal College of Psychiatrists, in a statement released on March 14 urged that women should not be allowed to have abortions until they are counseled on the procedure’s risks to their mental health. The College recommended adding details about the risks of depression to abortion leaflets. “Consent cannot be informed,” it claimed, “without the provision of adequate and appropriate information.” More [...]
The crack of dawn
Baseball augurs the beginning of spring, but be careful in listening to the sports’ announcers. Donald Demarco considers the joys – some unintended – of baseball The truest harbinger of spring is not the appearance of crocuses or the arrival of swallows at Capistrano, but the reverberating crack of bat meeting ball. Winter was long and dreary. Her characteristic sounds – the [...]
Can real science survive in a post-Christian world?
Michael Polanyi changed his career path from science to philosophy so that, paradoxically, he could help protect science from being absorbed into a narrow ideology. In his 1962 Terry Lectures at Yale University, he recounted a conversation he had with Nikolai Bukhanin in 1935. At that time, Bukhanin, whom Lenin called the “Golden Boy” of the party, was a leading theoretician for [...]
Rescuing the moral environment
I have a friend in Quebec who wrote to Canada’s top environmental guru, David Suzuki, asking him to consider how the “moral environment” impacts on the “material environment,” a point that is missing from Suzuki’s voluminous statements about the environment. He received a terse response in which the celebrated doctor stated that he had neither time nor interest to pursue the matter. [...]
Robert Casey offered the hope that humility may save the world
St. Alphonsus Liguori makes the comment, in his b ook, The Incarnation, Birth and Infancy of Jesus Christ, that Jesus was born "in poor ragged clothes, in a stable lying on straw in a manger for animals," because "he came to destroy the pride which had been the cause of man's ruin." Pride is the most pernicious of the seven deadly sins. It directs [...]
‘Catholics for a Free Choice’ shenanigans
The spring 2007 issue of Conscience, the publication of a nefarious group of abortion promoters who call themselves, strangely enough, “Catholics for a Free Choice,” has announced its new president. Jon O’Brien, who worked as program manager at the International Planned Parenthood Federation’s European Bureau in London, replaces Frances Kissling. Kissling steps aside after spending 25 years at the helm of CFFC. [...]
Rhetoric without reason
Rhetoric is simply the art of persuasion. As Socrates discovered, however, to his great dismay, not all rhetoric is accompanied by knowledge. The sophists of his day made it incontrovertibly clear to him that their style of rhetoric required no knowledge whatsoever. And without knowledge, reason, not having anything to sink its teeth into, cannot operate. Socrates could not begin to understand [...]
The president’s proclamation for National Sanctity of Human Life Day
Jan. 21, the date that President George W. Bush chose for his fellow Americans to honour the sanctity of human life, is significant for two reasons. First, it falls on a Sunday, the Lord’s Day. Secondly, it is one day prior to the 34th anniversary of the infamous Roe v Wade decision that drove a sword into the nation’s commitment to the [...]
Human life must precede things
Jan. 21, the date that President George W. Bush chose for his fellow Americans to honour the sanctity of human life, is significant for two reasons. First, it falls on a Sunday, the Lord’s Day. Secondly, it is one day prior to the 34th anniversary of the infamous Roe v Wade decision that drove a sword into the nation’s commitment to the [...]
Universities clueless as to the essence of choice
Student governments at three Canadian schools of higher education – Carleton University, University of British Columbia at Okanagan and Capilano College in Vancouver – have voted to deny funding and services to any campus group that opposes abortion. Pro-life students are nonetheless obliged to provide financial support for all other student activities. One wonders how many more Canadian colleges and universities will [...]
Reason is the basis of morality
Freedom presents the chief problem in moral education I have been a teacher of ethics at several institutions of higher learning over the course of the past five decades. While I cannot assess the impact I have had on my students, I can easily assess the impact they have had on me. One problem, central and challenging, remains. It is, I would [...]