Before you get angry with America Online for the recent poor Internet connections, or the local phone company for busy lines, pause to consider that the main culprits for these annoying conditions may not reside in the concerned industries, but in government. The kind of bureaucratic mentality that created long lines at gas stations in the early `70s as a Read More ›
Here is a curious–yet somehow typical–story of Seattle’s civic spirit. Seven years ago, the area’s volunteer and professional arts enthusiasts staged a global, attention-grabbing cultural festival alongside the Goodwill Games of 1990. For several months before, during and after the athletic events, a series of highest quality arts performances and museum shows from many nations dazzled and enchanted audiences. If Read More ›
By the end of June, and perhaps as early as next Monday, the US Supreme Court is expected to issue its opinion on New York and Washington state laws that ban assisted suicide. While not as sweeping in its importance as Roe v. Wade in 1973, the imminent ruling could affect American culture profoundly. Meanwhile, the subject of assisted suicide Read More ›
This time the national passenger rail system, Amtrak, really is heading for a train wreck. So badly in debt is the public corporation that the General Accounting Office (GAO) and a host of other observers see it as functionally bankrupt. Congress and the Clinton Administration have been warned repeatedly of the need to plan ahead for the kind of privatization Read More ›
The following is edited from an address delivered on July 15, 1996 as part of the annual C. S. Lewis Institute at Seattle Pacific University. The author would like to thank Prof. Michael Macdonald for his encouragement and for inviting the author to present the lecture. During the summer of 1932, Oxford don C. S. Lewis traveled to Ireland to Read More ›
Americans have decided, if the polls are right, that the most important issue facing the country is campaign finance reform. But the polls probably are not right, reflecting, as they do, the media’s priorities and the lack of any military or economic bad news. This may be a case where the survey respondents are trying to guess the answer that Read More ›
A surprising best-seller on the Black History Month table at a downtown book store is Out of America, by Keith B. Richburg, until recently Africa bureau chief for the Washington Post. If you had to find adjectives for the author’s voice as it comes off the pages of this courageous and potentially controversial book, they might include “agonized” and “indignant.” Read More ›
As a product of the government schools and universities, I was always under the impression that the argument about design began with William Paley and ended with Charles Darwin. In fact, in keeping with my indoctrination about the warfare between science and religion, I was under the impression that design was strictly a religious issue and objective science, ala Darwin, Read More ›
Most futuristic novels seem out-of-date after a decade or two, but That Hideous Strength is more timely today than when the book was published in 1945. On the day I began to reread the book for this essay, the press reported that a British government agency called the Human Fertilization and Embryological Authority (HFEA) is sounding out public opinion about Read More ›