“I want nothing but usefulness to God and my country” (Diaries, February 22, 1827) When the funeral procession of Lord Shaftesbury progressed through the streets of London toward Westminster Abbey on October 8, 1885, thousands of people lined the streets, bands gathered to play Christian hymns, and hundreds of banners were held high with Bible verses. Continue Reading… Read more at The Acton Institute
How Cars Can Keep Us Human
Truck drivers are cowboys. I work at a food warehouse. Truckers show up with 40,000 pounds of primal-cut beef, equivalent to maybe 50 head of cattle, driven from Nebraska, by a team of horses, bit, bridled, and reined by internal combustion. Continue Reading… Read more at The Acton Institute
Godard Is Dead. Is Cinema?
Jean-Luc Godard died on September 13, 2022, and the news in the world of cinema and culture was received as confirmation that cinema itself was dead. Godard had a remarkable influence on cinema in the ’60s, but his fame went beyond that. Continue Reading… Read more at The Acton Institute
The Anarchists Is a Case Study in the Decadence of Autonomy
I have a reasonably high tolerance for uncomfortable television and movies, maybe a higher tolerance than I should, but the first thing I would say about the HBO Max series The Anarchists is that it is not for the faint of heart. Continue Reading… Read more at The Acton Institute
The Inflation Reduction Act Won’t Reduce Inflation
President Biden has signed the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), his attempt at delivering on his campaign promises of new investments to combat climate change, improve healthcare, and impose “fair” corporate taxes. Continue Reading… Read more at The Acton Institute
A perilous point in Ukraine war, ending hypocrisy on Israel/Palestine and more
In the wake of continuing Ukrainian military gains in northeastern Ukraine, Russian President Putin gave a televised address on 21 September, the essence of which was succinctly described by Reuters: Putin on Wednesday ordered Russia’s first mobilisation since World War Two and backed a plan to annex swathes of Ukraine, warning Visit the Rideau Institute for the complete article
USC Squanders an Opportunity to Form Fraternities
Eight fraternities recently disaffiliated from the University of Southern California following the university’s response to allegations of horrible sexual assaults on campus in 2021. During the fall semester of 2021, there were several reports of girls being drugged and sexually assaulted at fraternity events. Continue Reading… Read more at The Acton Institute
Our Lady of the Artilects Makes AI Catholic Cool
The idea of personal identity and sentience in artificial intelligences (AI) is not exactly new territory for the science fiction genre: from Neuromancer to Westworld, writers frequently contemplate the ideas of agency and moral status in close-to-human, artificially engineered agents and environments. Continue Reading… Read more at The Acton Institute
Progressives Remember COVID but Refuse to Learn from It
There are three ways to look back at the first year of the COVID pandemic. The first is to learn from the whole experience. Recall the fear, pain, and misery brought on by lockdowns, mask mandates, and social distancing, as well as the deaths that could have been prevented but weren’t because of politics (think the nursing home debacles). Continue Reading… Read more at The Acton Institute
Unsustainable militarism, UN challenges and Patagonia’s astounding gift to Earth
RUSSIA, AMERICA, UKRAINE, AND ALL-DOMAIN OVERREACH We begin this week’s blog post with a commentary entitled Russia’s Underperforming Military (and Ours) (quincyinst.org, 13 September 2022), written by celebrated American historian, professor emeritus and retired career officer in the US Army Andrew Bacevich. He begins by summarizing the prevailing American explanation for Russian Visit the Rideau Institute for the complete article
Free Enterprise Is Saving African Lives
For years, Africa has dominated the podium in the “bad healthcare” Olympics. For reference, the average cost for an established patient and Medicare recipient to make one visit to a family practice in Pennsylvania (where I live) is approximately $88—the cost of less than a week’s worth of groceries. Continue Reading… Read more at The Acton Institute
The Manchurian Candidate Is a Neglected Masterpiece
In 1959, when Richard Condon published his political thriller The Manchurian Candidate, he took a topical idea and ran amok with it. The idea was that during the Korean War a platoon of GIs had been captured by the Chinese, brainwashed (“not just washed, but dry-cleaned”), and released back home to do the enemy’s bidding. Continue Reading… Read more at The Acton Institute
