I spent yesterday in New York for a day of Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network-related meetings. It was a beautiful nearly autumn-feeling day, one with that slight chill in the air that suggests that the summer season is ending. Sharing some photos from the day’s travels that I snapped, starting from the Flatiron to…
Month: August 2017
Being minimally conscious
Dr. Joseph J. Fins writes about our habit of segregating patients who are minimally conscious from receiving meaningful rehabilitation, and the scandal that is our mis-diagnosis rate for patients like Terri Schiavo, wherein patients are classified as functionally brain-dead when in fact more than 40 percent are likely conscious: Maggie was found to be in…
‘Big plans’
I met Wesley J. Smith at 30th Street Station the other day for his visit as the Terri Schiavo Life & Hope Network’s newest board member. As I walked into 30th Street as his train was arriving from Alexandria, I noticed Penn State World Campus’s monumental ad. I found it to be both touching and…
Domestic militaries
Sen. Rand Paul writes on a practice that’s as problematic as civil asset forfeiture, which is the problem of creating military-style forces out of local law enforcement: Speaking to the Fraternal Order of Police in Tennessee this morning, Attorney General Jeff Sessions formally announced that the Trump administration will restart giving surplus military weapons and equipment…
Sister Cities Park
Center City District redeveloped the old concrete Sister Cities Plaza into the incredible Sister Cities Park five or so years ago. This is a tiny little park on the edge of Logan Circle, right in front of the Cathedral Basilica of Sts. Peter and Paul. I can look out onto Sister Cities Park from the…
Tappan Zee Bridge
I snapped a photo of the New York Times in Starbucks yesterday because the news of the new Tappan Zee Bridge, just north of New York City, caught my attention: Its opening comes at a time of skyrocketing construction costs, diminished resources devoted to infrastructure, and deteriorating subways and airports in New York. “We built…
Afghanistan
We’re living through a time when serious political breakthroughs in America seem to require a sort of civic/political suicide. In order to have a serious debate about encryption as a means to preserve Fourth Amendment Constitutional protections, and in order to expose the government’s abuse of the public trust, Edward Snowden has functionally had to…
Better college football playoffs
Penn State kicks off its season against Akron in State College next Saturday; I’m debating whether to head to the game. In the meantime, I wanted to highlight Urban Meyer’s recent off-the-cuff comment to ESPN’s Chris Low: We started down the path toward a better college championship model when the bowl championship series was replaced…
Money and belief
A worthwhile conversation with Philip Goodchild (author of Capitalism and Religion and Theology of Money) on economics and money, and what these things mean in a world where trust in the objective value of money seems perilous. He asks: “What can we put our faith in that gives us confidence in one another?” “People talk…
Men without work
Brian Rottkamp writes on Nicholas Eberstadt’s latest book “Men Without Work: America’s Invisible Crisis”: For centuries, philosophers, theologians, and social scientists have contemplated the distinction between leisure (the basis of culture as per Josef Pieper) and idleness as defined by the cardinal sin of acedia. Modernity tends to blur the difference between spending time in…