Harvey Silverglate on the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) blog, The Torch, passes on one explanation for why college tuition costs have been increasing at double digit rates for years on end. He writes in part: Alan Charles Kors and I posited one answer to the seeming puzzle in our book The Shadow University. We noted the extraordinary increase in administrative staff on the student life side of colleges and universities. We attributed this in large measure to...

There’s an interesting discussion going on over at Mirror of Justice about Catholic Social Teaching and the Preferential Option for the Poor: here, and here. ...

Can the new Batman movie provide moral lessons on business ethics and philanthropy? Ben Sikma writes that the film affirms “the value of traditional institutions more generally, such as the family, rule of law, and private ownership of the means of production.” Read the full text here. ...

D. Eric Schansberg, an Acton adjunct scholar, takes a look at the Social Security system, and concludes that “policymakers should address the oppressive taxes that Social Security imposes on the working poor, its pathetic rate of return, and inequities in its payouts.” Read the full text here. ...

During last week’s Symposium, munication staff had the opportunity to interview two African religious leaders on a variety of issues facing their continent, including the $40 billion in debt relief proposed to the G8 nations. The Rt. Rev. Bernard Njoroge is bishop of the diocese of Nairobi in the Episcopal Church of Africa, and also a member of the Constitution of Kenya Review Commission. Chanshi Chanda is chairman of the Institute of Freedom for the Study of Human Dignity in...

From the press release: A new Web-based resource providing detailed information and evaluation of more than 200 nonprofit organizations in the United States is now available for use by charity managers, philanthropists and the public. The Samaritan Guide, developed by the Acton Institute’s Center for Effective Compassion, is a searchable posed of applicants for the annual Samaritan Award and has organized the directory according to location and area of service. The guide focuses exclusively on U.S. charities that accept little...

Madison, Wisconsin’s city council voted down a resolution that would have allowed an exemption from the public smoking ban for cigar bars. The ban goes into effect July 1. HT: Cigar Jack’s Cigar Blog ...

At today’s Get Fuzzy. ...

Rev. Richard Cizik of Virginia is being hailed as “in the vanguard of a striking new movement: evangelicals prodding President George W Bush to take action on global warming. And his stance cannot easily be dismissed as radical nonsense, as the Green cause is traditionally mocked by the Right. He is the Washington representative for the National Association of Evangelicals, America’s largest evangelical group. With 30 million members, the NAE is possibly the most powerful voting bloc in the country.”...

Samuel Gregg, director of Acton’s Center for Academic Research, wrote “One nation under God?” appearing in tomorrow’s The Tablet: To European eyes, America seems a remarkably united religious country. But the United States is as prey to disputes over secularism as other Western nations. ...

“Winning isn’t everything.” Whatever happened to this slice of wisdom? In Columbus, Ohio, a team of baseball players has been ejected from their league for being “too good”! (Read the story here). The parents of the teams being slaughtered by the better plained that losing was seriously detrimental to their kids’ self-esteem. Therefore, the league decided to reward the hard work of the winning team with expulsion. Winning isn’t everything, but apparently, losing is. What this league and the supporting...

The Detroit News included a statement from me, along with two of their Faith and Policy columnists, reacting to a Washington Post story by Alan Cooperman about cooperation between religious leaders from the political left and right. Here’s my bit: The Washington Post’s article about the prospects for rapprochement between religious conservatives and liberals gets to the heart of the “cold war” that has existed between these groups for so long. The historic intractability of both sides has led to...