Hard as it is for me to believe, we are quickly approaching the first anniversary of my father’s death. He had struggled with kidney cancer for a number of years, and had in fact lived a relatively healthy and active life well beyond medical expectations. But as time went on, the disease gradually took its toll, and in September of 2004, my father passed away. I remember very clearly the day of his final trip home from the hospital, after...

Thomas Cloyd, 47, of Peoria, Ariz., and co-pilot Christopher Hughes, 44, of Leander, Texas, have been sentenced after a June 8 conviction for being drunk when they settled into the cockpit of a Phoenix-bound America West jetliner in 2002. The two were arrested before the plane took off just after it had pushed away from the gate. Circuit Judge David Young said he had no sympathy for Cloyd, and asked the pilots, “What were you thinking of?” Cloyd was sentenced...

The Interfaith Working Group on Trade and Investment, a Washington-based amalgam of left-liberal religious activists, has asked the U.S. Congress to reject ratification of the Central American Free Trade Agreement. Here’s a representative statement: “Religious leaders boldly stood with impoverished people and called today for sustainable development in Central America and respect for the integrity of Creation.” Some of our best friends are impoverished? In this group’s statements, there’s scarcely an intelligible economic thought to be found or, for that...

A week ago Stanley Fish, a law professor at Florida International University, wrote an op-ed in The New York Times about the principles of constitutional interpretation, especially as represented by Justice Antonin Scalia. Fish takes issue especially with the notion that the text can have meaning “as it exists apart from anyone’s intention.” Fish essentially denies that texts are things that can have meanings in themselves, and it amounts to a philosophical denial of realism. Part of Fish’s problem is...

There are so many things wrong with this news item from Canada, I hardly know where to begin. But I’ll make perhaps the most obvious point of contradiction. This guy is “worried that the separation between church and state is under threat,” so he wants to initiate state control over religion, especially “given the inertia of the Catholic Church.” I’m not at all familiar with Canadian law. Is there something in Canada similar to the American Establishment Clause? ...

The recent blogpost by my colleague Jordan Ballor discusses an op-ed written by law professor Stanley Fish. I am more familiar with Stanley Fish from his days as a literary theorist, and perhaps a quick review of a younger Fish will contribute to the conversation. Fish is known for, among other things, an idea of literary interpretation he called munities’ that suggests meaning is not found in the author, nor in the reader, but in munity in which the text...

The New York Times reports this morning that “leaders of four of the country’s largest labor unions announced on Sunday that they would boycott this week’s A.F.L.-C.I.O. convention, and officials from two of those unions, the service employees and the Teamsters, said the action was a prelude to their full withdrawal from the federation on Monday.” The withdrawal is the culmination of a period of dissatisfaction with the direction of big labor in the US. The leaders of the dissident...

Gregor Mendel, a monk and Abbot of Brünn, was born on this date in 1822. Mendel’s work opened up the promising and troubling field of genetics. He is often called “the father of genetics” for his study of the inheritance of traits in pea plants. For information about what might be identified as the contemporary offspring of Mendel’s work, see the Acton Environmental Newsletter on Genetically Modified Foods, including Rev. Michael Oluwatuyi’s “How Will We Feed Africa?” and my article,...

The last of many gems here: “Here’s Williams’ roadmap out of poverty: Complete high school; get a job, any kind of a job; get married before having children; and be a law-abiding citizen. Among both black and white Americans so described, the poverty rate is in the single digits.” — Walter Williams HT: The Anchoress ...

Mr. Phelps takes issue with my characterization of Stanley Fish’s position as amounting “to a philosophical denial of realism.” Let me first digress a bit and place ment within the larger context of my post. My identification of a position that “words and texts have no meaning in themselves” is really just an aside within the larger and more important question about what measure of authority authorial intent has in the interpretation of documents, specifically public documents like the Constitution....