“The issue is not whether to engage with figures like Piker; it’s how to do so in a way that’s genuinely informative.”
@yair-rosenberg.bsky.social
www.theatlantic.com/politics/202...
“For the low, low price of a first-class ticket to Budapest and an earnest crowd of listening students, many conservative academics would write breathless articles in praise of Hungary that would make a right-wing Walter Duranty blush”
“When Vice President JD Vance was campaigning for Viktor Orbán earlier this month, he was also campaigning to preserve the Hungarian funding for the New Right organizations that would support his own future political ambitions”
Makes sense of that grotesque debacle
providencemag.com/2026/04/the-...
“Fighing for justice—suffering and dying so that a bestial barbarism may not rule over the earth—they know…that they may count upon the help of God. They do not say: our cause is divine, our cause is the cause of God, we are the soldiers of God.”
Maritain, 1939
Such a weird waste of energy
@warontherocks.bsky.social
“War exacts a toll so severe that only the clearest and most necessary purposes can justify it. If…Iran is still in the fight and still able to exact major military and economic costs, then it is fair to ask what purpose this war truly serves.”
warontherocks.com/tactical-suc...
Shocked to see Michael Hobbes misrepresenting the piece of writing he’s sneering at.
Cardinal Cupich: "We're dehumanizing the victims of war by turning the suffering of people & killing of children & our own soldiers into entertainment. To splice together movie cuts w/ actual bombings & targeting of people for purposes of entertainment is sickening. This is not who we are."
I greatly value civility. I do have a strong bias toward engagement even with those you find morally troubling. (Admittedly on top of that Piker seems like he adds very little of substance, but there are many such cases)
“Conversation is not a reward to be bestowed on those with whom we agree; it’s a necessary habit in a democracy”
@ezraklein.bsky.social
www.nytimes.com/2026/04/12/o...
"In most instances examined by The Times, the intended target of a strike was not clear. In some cases, schools and health care facilities ... were directly hit."
www.nytimes.com/interactive/...
When the Pope suggests we should worship the Prince of Peace, rather than Mars and Mammon.
“When a sitting president says that an entire civilization will probably die, he has done something morally serious regardless of whether he intends to follow through. He has normalized genocidal rhetoric as a negotiating tool”
firstthings.com/when-rhetori...
www.aei.org/military-ous...
RSVP to attend on Monday, April 13 at 12:30 pm EDT online via livestream: bit.ly/IranWarCST #IranWarCST @sohrabahmari.bsky.social @philklay.bsky.social @krocinstitute.bsky.social
But your flag decal won't get you
Into Heaven any more.
They're already overcrowded
From your dirty little war.
Promotional graphic for an online Public Dialogue titled “‘War is Back in Vogue’: Iran and Catholic Teachings on a Moral Foreign Policy” on 4/13 at 12:30 p.m. EDT online via livestream. Participants include Sohrab Ahmari (UnHerd), Phil Klay (Veteran and Author), Mary Ellen O’Connell (University of Notre Dame), and Elisabetta Piqué (Vatican and War Correspondent).
Hear reflections from Sohrab Ahmari, Phil Klay, Mary Ellen O’Connell, and Elisabetta Piqué at the Public Dialogue “War is Back in Vogue: Iran and Catholic Social Teachings on a Moral Foreign Policy” on Monday, April 13 at 12:30 pm EDT online via livestream. RSVP: bit.ly/IranWarCST #IranWarCST
That book is unbelievably good, and I think about that passage on Holy Saturday
“It was not the face of a god reclaiming his suspended immortality, but the face of a man who until a moment ago had been thoroughly and horribly dead, and still had the smell of death in his clothes and the terror of death in his mind.”
—Stegner, Crossing to Safety
Again, in spite of that, we call this Friday good.
www.davidgorman.com/4quartets/2-...
All senior officers serve at the pleasure of the President. Firing lots of them is a bad idea both because it squanders talent and causes the public to view our military as partisan.
Next week: "The State and the Soldier: A Conversation with the Author" with @kschake.bsky.social
RSVP here ⤵️
cisac.fsi.stanford.edu/events/state...
Vanity Sounds the Horn and Ignorance Unleashes the Hounds Overconfidence, Rashness and Desire
—15th century Netherlandish tapestry
Awards! Celebrations! Live performances!
Can't make it to Town Hall in NYC for the PEN America Literary Awards Ceremony?
Join us for the livestream — 7:30pm ET tonight, March 31!
Full details: pen.org/event/2026-pen-america-l... #PENLitAwards
My son’s math homework cutting deep.
Just went to my high school (Regis High School) to debate whether the war in Iran was a just war under Catholic teaching.
My old high school debating coach, Eric DiMichele, moderated, and the kids had fantastic questions.
"What this war exposes, then, is a failure not only of strategy but of literacy."
