Blog - Page 221 of 318 - John H Armstrong

A Pop Culture Icon Turns 50

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:35-05:00August 23rd, 2008|Categories: Culture|

Madonna, the original material girl, turns 50 this month. She has successfully scandalized the Vatican, shocked nearly every moral value held by ordinary people, yet remade herself enough times to stay on the front edge of pop culture. She is, if anything at all, a master at marketing and image. And in an age of marketing and image she has made a ton of money in the process.

The tabloids love her. Was she involved with Alex Rodriguez of the New York Yankees? How true is her brother’s new tell-all book about her? My answer is: "Who cares?" But she just keeps on doing it. She kicked off a new tour in Wales this past week. A 55-year old mother of two told AP, "I just think she’s awesome." Apparently a lot of folks my age agree, as do a whole new younger generation. The same woman who I quoted above adds, "Here’s a woman that’s successful, takes care of herself, looks […]

Why We Should Lift the Ban on Drilling Now

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:35-05:00August 22nd, 2008|Categories: Current Affairs|

No issue has caught more voter interest in recent weeks than the question regarding offshore drilling. I wrote about it a few weeks ago and continue to reflect on it more today. I am no expert, as several reminded me, but I think I can follow an argument and read what the experts tell us. So here is my take, simple or otherwise.

Lifting the drilling ban on the outer-continental shelf is a no brainer really. Before we can create alternative fuels and new energy use products we must drill. This is not an either/or debate. But this is what many in Congress, led by Senator Reid and Congresswoman Pelosi, are telling us day after day. They blast away on oil companies making profits while the public suffers even more. Their view is to punish the profit-makers and manage our economy by a kind of redistribution of wealth and energy money. This approach will always fail.

We must do all […]

Vatican II and the Unity of the Whole Church

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:35-05:00August 21st, 2008|Categories: Unity of the Church|

It is a little known fact, at least among most ordinary Catholics and Protestants, that Vatican Council II answered the question "What is the church?" in a way that was revolutionary in many ways. De Ecclesia, the initially proposed response to this question, identified Christ with the Roman Catholic Church. Membership was thus based on acknowledging the authority of the Roman pontiff; the maximal extension of the infallible magisterium; and ecumenical minimalism. The drafters were clearly concerned to protect the old thinking, and saw the church as "deeply concerned about the question of authority." Regardless of what some modern Catholic apologetics groups now say, this draft was easily rejected. The reason? The historical context was not big enough. It was not big enough for a largely Western church that was now faced with the entire global situation.

Thus Sacrosanctum concilium (December 4, 1963) says in the very first sentence that it wants "to adapt more closely to the needs of our age […]

Alexander Solzhenitsyn's Great Challenge

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:36-05:00August 20th, 2008|Categories: America and Americanism|

When the recently-deceased Russian dissident, Alexandr Solzhenitsyn, gave his now famous address to Harvard thirty years ago this summer, he warned us that we should not buy into the belief that all nations longed for American style democracy. But this is precisely the thinking that is behind the philosophy promoted by President Bush at the present moment. It makes the late Solzhenitzyn look even more like a prophet when you read his words these thirty years later.

What Solzhenitsyn observed in the summer of 1978 was a "decline in courage" in America. He noted that this decline had impacted the West deeply. He believed that this had changed "the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society. . . . Should one point out that from ancient times decline in courage has been considered the beginning of the end?" We had turned the "pursuit of happiness" (which did not mean what we now think it means in […]

The Connection Between Medication and Counseling

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:36-05:00August 19th, 2008|Categories: Counseling|

In the common goodness and grace of God the twentieth century brought real advance in the area of psychiatry. New drugs were discovered and various schools of counseling were developed as knowledge increased regarding the human body and how the mind actually works. But a recent trend does not bode well for patients with psychotic and emotional needs. Health insurance plans show an increasing unwillingness to pay for real counseling. The result is that more psychiatrists are prescribing medications without therapy.

A recent study showed that in more than 14,000 sessions, the percentage of visits that involved actual therapy fell to 28.9% in 2005, down from 44.4% in 1996. The use of medication rose to 83.8% of all cases, up from the earlier number of 68.6%. Authors of a recent study based on these numbers suggest there is no hard evidence yet that this has harmed patients, but they are generally agreed that drugs and therapy should be kept together. The two […]

Seeing All the MLB Parks in My Lifetime

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:36-05:00August 18th, 2008|Categories: Baseball|

It is known to most of you that I really, really love baseball. This has not been a great season for my favorite team, the Atlanta Braves. Injuries and bad pitching, combined with very little depth, have all depleted this once great team and made them into an also-ran. But I am a real fan so I will stick with the Braves through the lean times if necessary. I did it for twenty-five years so I know how to suffer with a loser as well as enjoy the fruits of fourteen great winning seasons in a row.

I also enjoy the White Sox as my favorite AL team so the post-season is not beyond the realm of possibility for my teams this year since the Sox are still in first place. I do not think they have enough to go all the […]

A Great New Adaptation of Sense and Sensibility

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:36-05:00August 17th, 2008|Categories: Film|

Andrew Davies’ new three-part BBC version of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility is simply superb. As noted here over recent months, the BBC and Masterpiece Theater just keep producing some first-rate 19th century video presentations of great novels. (Davies also produced the most recent Pride and Prejudice series too.) This new version has succeeded admirably in my view.

The Dashwood sisters and their quests for marriage are both entertaining and insightful views of an earlier era, a time when women did not have anything remotely like equal rights. One can be grateful that this has changed since the era in which this story is situated. One sister, the elder Elinor, is wise and cautious, and considers that what she doesn’t have should not bring dissatisfaction. Her younger sister, Marianne, dives into an emotional attachment to a man who is most unsuited to her character, only to be crushed when she discovers who he really is. She is then ready for a relationship […]

Secular Humanists and Human Dignity

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:36-05:00August 16th, 2008|Categories: Ethics|

Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker wrote an article that appeared in May in the magazine, The New Republic (TNR). I often disagree with TNR but I generally find it stimulating and provocative reading from a moderate to left-leaning perspective. It is one of those magazines that is not so far from reality that it can’t still be genuinely worth reading. The current August 27 issue, for example, has an excellent article on Darfur and how it was allowed to happen. Conservatives desperately need the realism of this kind of journalism to challenge their comfortable categories about news.

Anyway, Professor Pinker assailed the 555-page report by the President’s Council on Bioethics issued earlier this year. He called it "The Stupidity of Dignity." (Lest someone think only conservatives can come up with titles like this please note the pejorative nature of Pinker’s title.)
Pinker called […]

Another Widely Reported Revival Down in Spiritual Disaster

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:36-05:00August 15th, 2008|Categories: Renewal|

Some time ago a “revival” in Lakeland, Florida, was widely reported, especially in charismatic circles. Friends told me that God was on the move and that this was real. I’ve heard this before. When this happens, as it does every few years in America, I generally say nothing but wait and know that time will likely prove things otherwise. I admit I am suspicious about most of these modern reports regarding revivals in America. This suspicion is not because I do not still believe in true revival. I wrote of the real thing in my own book, True Revival, more than seven years ago (copies are available though the book is out-of-print right now). My suspicion is rooted in the widely divergent claims often made in these outpourings, as well as in the people who lead these revivals. Their confidence, if you watch and listen carefully, is generally in themselves, not in the Lord God. There is just way too much "flesh" in all of this, something about which the older Pentecostals were so fearful. This is […]

Alexander Hamilton on Facing Danger

By John Armstrong|2021-07-02T06:21:36-05:00August 14th, 2008|Categories: America and Americanism|

As a nation, Alexander Hamilton was one of the more important of our founding fathers . He once said, "A nation which can prefer disgrace to danger is prepared for a master and deserves one."

I am not a conspiratorialist. I do not think, for example, that one election will forever alter our society. I also believe that cultures and people change slowly; they never remain the same over long periods of time, from generation to generation. They will face very defining moments, when either their better angels will prevail, or they will succumb to disgrace and weakness. If they do succumb, the result will be mastery by forces and peoples that bring down that civilization.

I believe our western civilization is faced with the portent of a long term mastery by forces of evil and destruction. I believe the Jihadists are serious and will not go away because of good will. This should have very little to do with […]