Culture Briefs

Pagan Dark Age

“Pope Benedict XVI … will prove a devastating foe to a misnamed Enlightenment culture that has long eyed the Church as the only institution left to neutralize through ’liberal reforms.’ The power of his election can be measured in the escalating hysteria in the wake of it: Like clockwork, the elite’s fake love and interest in the Church after John Paul II’s death has reverted to real hate now they know it’s hopeless to try and steer it. One thing animates the hate: The new pope’s unwillingness to substitute the ever-changing tenets of modern liberalism for the timeless teachings of Jesus Christ.

“In every age, but particularly in modern times, a worldly elite … clangs the gates of hell against the Church, demanding that the Church serve the false philosophies and desires of sinful men instead of the changeless will of Jesus Christ. But the gates of hell have not prevailed. …

“Pope Benedict XVI … faces a Dark Age of Western paganism that now goes by the name of modern liberalism, and he will use a lucid orthodoxy to drive out its many shadows.”

— George Neumayr, writing on “God Is My Pilot,” Wednesday in the American Spectator Online at www.spectator.org

Obsolete studies

“Black-studies programs at many public universities are having trouble attracting students and are suffering from budget cuts that have whittled down their faculty ranks. Meanwhile, classes with African-American perspectives are cropping up in departments like history, women’s studies, and English, diluting the need, some say, for separate black-studies departments. …

“To stay alive, black-studies departments at many public universities are scrambling to reinvent themselves. …

“Some black professors outside the discipline, however, question whether it is worth the effort, and whether black-studies programs have simply grown obsolete. Established in part as a symbolic gesture of academe’s commitment to diversity, the programs may have run their course, as multiculturalism and diversity have become concerns throughout higher education. ’These programs may have been a victim of their own success,’ says Carol M. Swain, a professor of political science and law at Vanderbilt University. ’Other departments now see the need to teach these courses, and we need to assess whether the need today for black-studies programs just isn’t as great.’ ”

— Robin Wilson, writing on “Past Their Prime?, in the April 22 issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education

The wrong place

“The call came Sunday morning while I waited on a Brooklyn subway platform. I was late to meet a friend for brunch at the trendy cafe where I had last dined with my 28-year-old friend Marla Ruzicka. … It was my mother. ’Marla’s been killed,’ she said. …

“In the end, it seems she was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Traveling on one of the most dangerous roads in Baghdad, a 6-mile stretch leading to the airport, it appears a suicide bomber infiltrated a security convoy that just happened to be passing Marla’s car. …

“Marla transformed herself into one of the savviest human rights advocates in the world, a woman who had dreams of establishing a civilian casualty desk at the State Department someday.

“But on that trajectory, more than any other humanitarian worker, Marla took unprecedented risks to help the men, women and children trapped in the crossfire of the U.S. military bombing campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

— Jennifer Abrahamson, writing on “Marla Ruzicka,” Tuesday in Slate at www.slate.com