Much has been written in recent weeks about Live 8, a series of concerts that will take place on July 6 in London, Paris, Berlin, Rome and Philadelphia. The name refers not only to the original Live Aid concerts that took place in 1985, but is also a reference to the G8 meetings that will be taking place in Edinburgh, Scotland at the same time as the concerts. G8 organizers are planning for massive protests which have been urged on...

Power corrupts…and upsets babies. Just in case anyone missed (or didn’t miss) my posting last week, I was on vacation following the birth of my first child, a son, on May 30 (Memorial Day). Owen Flynn Ballor 9 lbs., 2 oz. 20.5 inches 5/30/05 10:10 pm ...

Google recently surpassed Time Warner as the world’s top media stock. Google provides services to about 19 million users per day. People go to Google to find things, participate in discussions via online forums, to check and send email, driving directions, and a host of other services. That is a lot of information about a lot of people…where does it all go? Apparently, Google keeps it all! What is the cost of this data collection? How much of our own...

The Roundtable on Religion & Social Policy interviewed Acton’s Karen Woods, director of the Center for Effective Compassion (CEC) this week. Woods spoke about the work of the CEC, including the Samaritan Award, and also gave her perspective on the federal Faith-Based and Community Initiative. She says in part, With welfare reform in ’96, and certainly the waivers that preceded that in certain states, there was a change in the way that we looked at social services. Suddenly, work was...

A Dove Foundation report released this week shows a link between family-friendly movies and profitability. es away from the Dove report with a sense that the movie industry is beginning to recognize a profit opportunity in producing more morally robust movies,” writes Rev. Robert A. Sirico. Read the full text here. The Dove Foundation report is available here (PDF). ...

The article I referenced a couple weeks ago about the trends in conservative think tanks and philanthropy noted that the first phase was ushered in by F. A. Hayek. In some ways, the arc that Piereson sketches follows a change in the relationship that Hayek observed between what he termed “academics” and “intellectuals.” In his 1949 essay, “The Intellectuals and Socialism,” (PDF) Hayek defines an intellectual in this way: The term intellectuals, however, does not at once convey a true...

In the spirit of C. S. Lewis’ classic The Abolition of Man ing available online, I pass along this story: Macho man is an endangered species…fashion industry insiders say. A study along these lines led by French marketing and style consultants Nelly Rodi was unveiled to Fashion Group International during a seminar Tuesday on future strategy for the fashion industry in Europe. Asks Pierre Francois Le Louet, the agency’s managing director, “We are watching the birth of a hybrid man....

Two years ago the Head Start battle focused on effectiveness: Were low e kids truly better prepared for starting school because they had participated in the program? No solid answers emerged, but like so many other Beltway debates, the substance issues abate once the funding crisis is passed. Now Head Start is the focus of yet another brouhaha. Legislation attached to H.R.2123 by Rep. John Boehner (R-OH) ensures faith-based organizations receiving federal Head Start early childhood program dollars are not...

This post at Davids Medienkritik, “Die Sueddeutsche Zeitung: One-Sided Attack Journalism as News,” gives us a perfect example of what can happen when the media es unmoored. And I’ll take it as a piece of concrete evidence supporting the conclusions of my earlier post today. ...

A website of some interest e to me today, Prayer Of Allegiance. Spurred on by the controversy surrounding the inclusion of the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance, the author of the prayer states, “While I am proud and privileged to be an American, my allegiance ultimately is to God — and it must run deeper than two symbolic words in a patriotic statement. That epiphany inspired me to write the Prayer of Allegiance.” This reminds me of...

Max Blumenthal has responded to an earlier post of mine, which criticized him for a misunderstanding of the nature of freedom. He states that my response “basically proves” his point re: clerical authoritarianism. He then goes on to ask what I mean by “theological relatives.” First I must apologize for using such an opaque phrase. Perhaps I could have said it better by stating that if Blumenthal’s idea of freedom were translated into theological terms, it would be a sort...

The American Bar Association (ABA) recently released a report detailing “Principles for Juries and Jury Trials” (PDF). Included in the report are some mendations that would allow jurors broader rights to discuss and take notes during the trial. The es in the wake of grave political controversy about the judicial system in general, with particular rows over judicial appointment and judicial activism. One case in particular has raised the ire of many, when earlier this year the jury sentence for...