TTF Staff
TF Moderator Joseph Loconte has an op-ed with Nile Gardiner in the Boston Globe of 16 June 2005.
In “A new vision for human rights”, Loconte and Gardiner call for a fundamental reform of the U.N. human rights apparatus—or for its replacement if no reform can be made to happen.
Part of the problem is the structure of the UN itself—a body with no standards for membership that gives equal voice to dictatorships and democracies. Thus, states such as China, Zimbabwe, Saudi Arabia, and even Sudan serve as members in good standing on the commission. As Shashi Tharoor, UN undersecretary general for communications, explains it: ‘’You don’t advance human rights by preaching only to the converted.”
Therein lies the flawed idealism of the UN’s human-rights apparatus. The commitment to ‘’multiculturalism,” useful in other contexts, assaults the concept of moral norms enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It thus undercuts the goal of pressuring regimes to abandon policies of violence and terror.
Exploited by the unconverted, this ethos has brought disgrace upon the entire UN system. As Sean Penn quips to Nicole Kidman, who plays an idealistic UN translator in the movie ’The Interpreter: ‘’You’ve had a tough year, lady.” That’s putting it gently. Genocide in Sudan, unchecked violence in Congo, the widespread sexual abuse of refugees by UN peacekeepers, the epic oil-for-food scandal—all these failures owe a debt to the UN creed.
Sightings, Good and Evil, Religious Liberty, Thu 16 Jun 2005
“The message of the gospel is not a ‘spiritual’ thing, but good tidings applied to man’s entire existence. . . . The true New Testament expectation includes the new earth, and the present life is founded on and proceeds from this expectation. Only with an eye to God’s future can one understand the richness of life in the present.”
G. C. Berkouwer, The Return of Christ (1972)
China’s Olympics: The Earthquake Dividend
The Renaissance and Religious Toleration
Zimbabwe, the Scandal of Africa
Russert and the Crystal Ball Media
Dear Kid: Die Now. Thanks, The Planet
Invitation to the Classics: A Guide to Books You've Always Wanted to Read by Os Guinness and Louise Cowan, editors.
A paperback edition of our acclaimed guide to literature.
The Long Road to Forgiveness: “On June 8, 1972, I ran out from Cao Dai temple in my village, Trang Bang, South Vietnam; I saw an airplane getting lower and then four bombs falling down. I saw fire everywhere around me. Then I saw the fire over my body, especially on my left arm. My clothes had been burned off by fire. I was 9 years old but I still remember my thoughts at that moment: I would be ugly and people would treat me in a different way.” (Kim Phuc, NPR , 2008 07 01)
The Little Robot That Could: “Stanton: No, it always works backward. It’s more like, Wow, look what this sort of feels like. So you run with those things, because they’re very primal. In my mind they’re very much in the core of our storytelling. So much of the Old Testament is sort of built into our DNA. I’ve read other stories where you’ve talked about your Christian faith a bit. Can you tell me how your faith informs your creativity and your work? Stanton: They tell you that as a storyteller, it’s vital to just stick with and be honest with your values system. The last thing I want to do is go to a movie and feel like I’m being preached to or being told how to be, and I think it’s more honest—and you’re going to have more effect—to be truthful with the values of your characters, working off of your own values. That was the case with WALL•E. The greatest commandment is to love one another, and to me, that’s the ultimate purpose of living. So that was the perfect goal for the loneliest robot on earth, to learn the greatest commandment, to learn to love.” (Mark Moring interviewing Andrew Stanton, director of Pixar’s WALL-E, for Christianity Today , 2008 07 01)
Never Mind Machiavelli: ‘Of course, there was plenty of ambition. But with Washington, it was always tempered by a sense of honor. Where many of his more sophisticated contemporaries sought Machiavellian political guidance from “The Prince,” Washington looked to the Roman philosopher Seneca—not to find shortcuts to success but “to know how he should behave, and how other men had behaved in positions of power and times of stress.” (Aram Bakshian, Jr. on George Washington on Leadership by Richard Brookhiser in The Wall Street Journal , 2008 06 30)
A Stirring Defense of the Conversation: “The humanities are supposed to “give young people the opportunity and encouragement to put themselves—their values and commitments—into a critical perspective,” yet if the notion that class, race, and gender are absolutely determinative becomes an article of faith, then the very possibility of transcending one’s prejudices is ruled out.” (James Seaton, reviewing Education’s End: Why Our Colleges and Universities Have Given Up on the Meaning of Life by Anthony T. Kronman, in The University Bookman , 2008 06 30)
• Let My People Go, AIDS Profiteers (2008 06 30)
• Between Obedience and Obedience (2008 06 26)
• Why Me? The case against the sovereign self (2008 06 25)
• Cities for Living (2008 06 25)
• Theophobia (2008 06 20)
Leaf by Niggle by J. R. R. Tolkien, Foreword by Alonzo L. McDonald.
This charming and haunting story, which Tolkien used to demonstrate what he meant by the “mythopoeic” power of fairy-stories, addresses the question of life’s purpose and the legacy we leave behind us.
