Alasdair MacIntyre (1929-2025)

Tributes

• I Learned Virtue from Alasdair MacIntyre (1929–2025), by Wyatt Graham. The Gospel Coalition 05/26/25.
• Alasdair MacIntyre obituary The Guardian 05/25/25.
• Recognizing the Importance of MacIntyre, by John Haldane. First Things 05/23/25.
• In Memoriam: Alasdair MacIntyre, by Joseph R. Wood. The Catholic Thing 05/24/25.
• Alasdair MacIntyre’s Work of Mercy by Christopher Justin Brophy. The Lamp 05/23/25.
• Postliberalism’s Reluctant Godfather, by Nathan Pinkoski. Compact 05/23/25.
• Alasdair MacIntyre (1929-2025), by Russell Arben Fox. Front Porch Republic 05/23/25.
• Alasdair MacIntyre, renowned Catholic moral philosopher, dies at 96, by Kimberly Heatherington. National Catholic Reporter 05/23/25.
• Remembering Alasdair MacIntyre (1929-2025), by Christopher Kaczor. Word on Fire 05/22/25.
• Alasdair MacIntyre: de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. Collected conference / lecture videos.

MacIntyre Online

• The Perils of Revolutionary Aristotelianism, by John F. Doherty. The Public Discourse 05/05/25. "The fundamentally Marxist philosophy of Alasdair MacIntyre has less to teach conservatives than some have claimed."
• What Can the Right Learn from Karl Marx?, by Daniel Addison. The Public Discourse 12/15/24.
• The Left Should Take Alasdair MacIntyre Seriously, by Matt McManus. Jacobin 09/24. "Alasdair MacIntyre’s original critique of liberal modernity has won followers on the Left and the Right. His account of how capitalism has undermined the conditions of human flourishing deserves the serious attention of socialists."
• Alasdair MacIntyre's Adventures in Philosophy at Notre Dame, by Kenneth Sayre. Churchlife Journal 09/10/24.
• The Limits of Liberalism: A biography of Alasdair MacIntyre fails to illuminate, by Benjamin J.B. Lipscomb. Commonweal 02/12/23.
• Alasdair MacIntyre's Service to Theology, by Joshua Hothschild. Churchlife Journal 09/25/23.
• On Having Survived the Academic Moral Philosophy of the 20th Century, by Alisdair MacIntyre. Churchlife Journal 07/18/23.
• Liberalism's Two Sides: Alasdair MacIntyre and Richard Rorty’s lifelong argument, by George Scialabba. The Nation 05/23.
• The Oddity of God: A Preliminary Reflection on Alasdair MacIntyre’s Recent Comments, by John O'Callaghan. Churchlife Journal 12/08/22.
  • The Oddity of God, Part II: A Concluding Reflection on Alasdair MacIntyre’s Recent Comments, by John O'Callaghan. Churchlife Journal 12/13/22.
• This Christmas, Radical Christianity and Marxism Can Inspire Us to Build a Better World, by Matt McManus. Jacobin 12/25/22. "The conventional understanding of Marxism as doggedly anti-religious is wrong. In fact, as the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre argued, Christianity and Marxism have at times inspired in humanity a radical sense of hope to build a more just world."
• The Anti-Modern Marxism of Alasdair MacIntyre, by Samuel McIlhagga. Jacobin 11/09/22. "Over seven decades, the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre has advanced one of the most radical critiques of capitalist modernity. But in opposing modernity, he has denied a key insight of Marxism: socialism must develop, not reject, capitalism’s dynamism."
• MacIntyre's Flight from Politics, by Pierre Manent. Compact 11/02/22.
• Speaking with the Barbarians: Maritain, MacIntyre, and Christendom, by Anthony Barr. The Public Discourse 02/19/22.
• Alasdair MacIntyre on human dignity: Summary, analysis, and comments, by Edward Feser. Catholic World Report 11/26/21. "I strongly sympathize with MacIntyre’s general theme that the notion of human dignity is more problematic and less interesting than many contemporary Catholics suppose, but I’m not convinced by some of the specific points MacIntyre makes."
• ‘Dignity’ as Dangerous? Alasdair MacIntyre and ‘the Power of the Catholic Intellectual Ecosystem’, by Jonathan Liedl. National Catholic Register 11/19/21.
• The Fractured Metaphysics of Protests, by Alasdair Macintyre. Churchlife Journal 01/10/21.
• Revisiting Alasdair MacIntyre on Liberal Toleration, by Nathan Pinkoski. The Public Discourse 06/21/20.
• Alasdair MacIntyre: True friendships are rare, but possible, by Mary Farrow. Catholic News Agency 11/17/19.
• Christianity's Contribution to the History of Ethics, by Alasdair MacIntyre. Churchlife Journal 11/08/19.
• Marxism and Religion, by Alasdair Macintyre. Churchlife Journal 01/25/19.
• The Anti-Integralist Alasdair MacIntyre, by Caleb Bernacchio. Churchlife Journal 05/08/18.
• MacIntyre's Philosophy of Mercy's Clandestine Work in a Secular World, by Caleb Bernacchio. Churchlife Journal 02/13/18.
• Alasdair MacIntyre's Marxist Sweet Spot, by Timothy Fuller. Law & Liberty 09/11/17. Review of Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity: An Essay on Desire, Practical Reasoning, and Narrative.
• MacIntyre Against Morality, by John Haldane. First Things 05/01/17. Review of Ethics in the Conflicts of Modernity: An Essay on Desire, Practical Reasoning, and Narrative.
• Defending Alasdair MacIntyre’s Economics, by David Andreas. The Public Discourse 03/14/11. "Alasdair MacIntyre may be wrong about the details of finance, but he is right on the largest questions of political economy."
• MacIntyre on Money by John Cornwell. Prospect 10/20/10. "The influential moral philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre has long stood outside the mainstream. Has the financial crisis finally vindicated his critique of global capitalism?"
• The End of Education: The Fragmentation of the American University, by Alasdair MacIntyre. Commonweal 10/16/06.
• The Achievement of Alasdair Macintyre, by Edward T. Oakes. First Things 08/01/96.
• Review: Whose Justice? Which Rationality?, by Alasdair MacIntyre, by Richard J. Neuhaus. Commentary June 1988.
• Dr Küng’s Fiasco, by Alasdair MacIntyre. London Review of Books Vol. 3 No. 2 · 5 February 1981.
• Alasdair MacIntyre on the claims of philosophy, by Alasdair MacIntyre. London Review of Books Vol. 2 No. 11 · 5 June 1980.

Jean Bethke Elshtain (1941-2013)

Jean Bethke Elshtain -- Christian ethicist, political philosopher and public intellectual -- died on August 11th, 2013. I was acquainted with her work chiefly in connection with readings of the ethical debate over "just war" and Iraq, and prior to that, her numerous contributions to First Things (although she could by no means be confined to the "neocon" label given the diversity of her work, as evidenced by the numerous reflections on her passing).

I was pleasantly surprised to learn that she was received into the Catholic Church in her last years.

* * *

Jean Bethke Elshtain served as the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Social and Political Ethics, Divinity School, The University of Chicago, with appointments in Political Science and the Committee on International Relations.

She was a member of the Council of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Scholars Council of the Library of Congress, and the Board of the National Endowment for Democracy. In 2008 she was appointed to the President's Council on Bioethics by President George W. Bush.*

Among her published works are Public Man, Private Woman: Women in Social and Political Thought (1993); Meditations on Modern Political Thought; Women and War; Democracy on Trial (a New York Times' notable book for 1995); Real Politics: At the Center of Everyday Life; Augustine and the Limits of Politics; Who are We? Critical Reflections, Hopeful Possibilities (recipient of the Theologos Award for Best Academic Book 2000 by the Association of Theological Booksellers); Jane Addams and the Dream of American Democracy (honored by the Society of Midland Authors in 2002); Just War Against Terror: The Burden of American Power in a Violent World (named one of the best nonfiction books of 2003 by Publishers Weekly); and Sovereignty: God, State, and Self (her Gifford Lectures, published 2008).

A prolific writer, Elshtain authored more than six hundred essays to various journals (including First Things, Commonweal and The New Republic).

Observance of her passing

• Christian ethicist Jean Bethke Elshtain dies at 72, by Sarah Pulliam Bailey. Religion News Service. 8/14/13.
• Jean Bethke Elshtain, scholar of religion and political philosophy, 1941-2013, by Susie Allen. University of Chicago. 08/12/13.
• Jean Bethke Elshtain, a Political Scientist Unafraid to Talk God, Has Died, by Emma Green. The Atlantic 08/13/13.
• Jean Bethke Elshtain, American ethicist, political philosopher, and public intellectual, 1941-2013 Lumen Christi Institute for Catholic Thought. University of Chicago.

Further Reflections

• Jean Bethke Elshtain: In Memoriam, by Charles Matthewes. Political Theology Today 08/19/13.
• A Christian Realist, par Excellence, by Joseph Bottum. Weekly Standard Vol. 18, No. 47. 08/26/13.
• Jean Bethke Elshtain: Gifted Thinker and Courageous Woman, by Robert P. George. Public Discourse 08/15/13.
• Remembering Jean Bethke Elshtain, by Michael Sean Winters. National Catholic Reporter 08/14/13, reflecting on Elshtain's Augustine and the Limits of Politics.
• Thoughts on Elshtain by Russell Arbin Fox. Front Porch Republic 8/13/2013.
• Videos of Jean Bethke Elshtain compiled by Robert Christian. Millenial 08/13/13.
• Jean Bethke Elshtain, RIP, by R.R. Reno. First Things "First Thoughts" 08/12/13.
• A Reflection on Jean Elshtain, by Thomas Berg. Mirror of Justice 08/17/13.
• She Stood for the Quotidian: Jean Bethke Elshtain (1941 - 2013), by Marc Livecche. The Gospel Coalition 08/13/13.
• Remembering Jean, by Peter Steinfels. Commonweal 08/13/13.
• On Elshtain: "Moral Anthropology, Social Ontology, and Authentic Human Freedom", by Rick Garnett. Mirror of Justice 08/13/13.
• Jean Bethke Elshtain and "Legal Moralism", by Marc DeGirolami. Mirror of Justice 08/13/13.
• Jean Bethke Elshtain, by Matthew Boudway. Commonweal 08/12/13.

---

* In June 2009, President Barack Obama's administration informed members of the Council that their services were no longer needed. Through a spokesperson, Obama made clear that he intended to replace the committee with a body that "offers practical policy options" rather than philosophical guidance.

Ray Bradbury (1920-2012)

My father introduced us to C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien when we were young, reading a chapter a night. Ray Bradbury, on the other hand, was the first author of fantasy and science fiction that I discovered on my own, that I would search the library for and devour every book I could find as a teenager>, including Fahrenheit 451, followed by The Martian Chronicles, Something Wicked This Way Comes, and The Illustrated Man. I haven’t actually picked up these books in over 30 years, but I can describe them vividly. A week of rain, such as we've had lately, calls to mind "The Long Rain", a tale of stranded astronauts on Venus, driven to madness by a perpetual downpour. I recall the first time I read "A Sound of Thunder" in the basement of our house in Pittsburgh, PA -- a cautionary tale of dinosaurs, butterflies and time travel.

And on a comical note, Bradbury's short story ‘The Fire Balloons’ -- concerning a missionary expedition of priests to Mars, anticipating the conversion of the alien population, only to discover they had left their material bodies behind them in a gnostic bid for salvation —- provoked one of the earliest (of many) theological discussions I had with my father.

Rest in peace, Ray Bradbury. I look forward to the day when my sons learn to read, and I can share with them the wonders of your imagination.

Ray Bradbury, August 22, 1920 – June 5, 2012.

Ray Bradbury: Memories and Tributes

• Brought Mars to Earth With a Lyrical Mastery (The New York Times) Ray Bradbury, a master of science fiction whose imaginative and lyrical evocations of the future reflected both the optimism and the anxieties of his own postwar America, died on Tuesday in Los Angeles. He was 91.

• Ray Bradbury dies at 91; author lifted fantasy to literary heights, by Lynell George (Los Angeles Times). Ray Bradbury's more than 27 novels and 600 short stories helped give stylistic heft to fantasy and science fiction. In 'The Martian Chronicles' and other works, the L.A.-based Bradbury mixed small-town familiarity with otherworldly settings. [See also: Full Coverage: The Los Angeles Times on Ray Bradbury, one of their own).

• Photographs of Ray Bradbury - from The Washington Post and The Los Angeles Times)

• Ray Bradbury: Requiescat in Pace Don McLarey (The American Catholic) shares his favorite passage from Something Wicked.... "May God deal gently with his ink-stained soul."

• Ray Bradbury Loved Reagan, Called Clinton a 'Sh*thead' -- The author once declared all politicians to be fools, but had a soft spot for Ronald Reagan.

• Ray Bradbury, Enemy of the State, by Charles C. Johnson (Reason.com):

  Bradbury, who died this week at the age of 91, was a man of the right, a detail sadly airbrushed out of most obituaries this week. Like the best science fiction writers, he imagined worlds and realms outside the grasp of government, where the focus was always on the people that populated them, not on the gizmos in their pockets.

• Censoring Ray Bradbury, by David Boaz (Cato@Liberty):

  Like most libertarians — which in this case probably includes a lot of liberals and conservatives — I’m a great fan of the anti-censorship novel Fahrenheit 451. But a story that doesn’t get much attention — it’s not in the Times obituary — is how Fahrenheit 451 itself was censored by people who no doubt thought they had the best of intentions.

  When Bradbury discovered what had been done, he wrote this Coda to the 1979 Del Rey edition. It’s worth reading today. What he said then is still true: “There is more than one way to burn a book. And the world is full of people run­ning about with lit matches.”

• Ray Bradbury Reads Moving Poem on the Eve of NASA’s 1971 Mars Mission:

  On Nov. 12, 1971, on the eve of Mariner 9 going into orbit at Mars, Bradbury took part in a symposium at Caltech with Arthur C. Clarke, journalist Walter Sullivan, and scientists Carl Sagan and Bruce Murray. In this excerpt, Bradbury reads his poem, "If Only We Had Taller Been."

• The Nonagenarian Whiz Kid, by Stefan Kanfer (City Journal):

  I was astounded to learn, over the next several lunches and dinners, that the Los Angeleno had never learned to operate a car, and that the writer of so many intergalactic tales had never been on an airplane. For all the wildness of his imagination, Ray was still, at heart, a toothy, wide-eyed kid from Waukegan, Illinois.

  “Every single day I say ‘gee whiz’ about something,” he told me. “I wish everybody did. I guess I just never lost my sense of wonder. Never even misplaced it.” He agreed with every word of Chesterton’s line, “Personally, I know of nothing that is not a miracle.”

• Stephen King, Neil Gaiman, and Steven Spielberg Pay Tribute to Ray Bradbury (Fear.net); see also Neil Gaiman's remembrances for The Guardian:

  Last week, at dinner, a friend told me that when he was a boy of 11 or 12 he met Ray Bradbury. When Bradbury found out that he wanted to be a writer, he invited him to his office and spent half a day telling him the important stuff: if you want to be a writer, you have to write. Every day. Whether you feel like it or not. That you can't write one book and stop. That it's work, but the best kind of work. My friend grew up to be a writer, the kind who writes and supports himself through writing.

  Ray Bradbury was the kind of person who would give half a day to a kid who wanted to be a writer when he grew up. [...]

  Some authors I read and loved as a boy disappointed me as I aged. Bradbury never did. His horror stories remained as chilling, his dark fantasies as darkly fantastic, his science fiction (he never cared about the science, only about the people, which was why the stories worked so well) as much of an exploration of the sense of wonder, as they had when I was a child.

  See also: "The Man Who Forgot Ray Bradbury", a short-story tribute to Ray Bradbury from Neil Gaiman.
• Thoughts on Ray Bradbury, by Orson Scott Card (National Review June 7, 2012). One master remembers another:

  You never had to stumble or pause when reading Bradbury. It wasn’t just the smoothness of his language — it was the way he used repetition, fragmentation, breathless run-on sentences to sweep you through the tale.

  His language made even the quotidian narrative sections emotional, so when the story reached for deeper feelings, they were within easy reach.

  Not long afterward, I turned to writing fiction, and as I made my first forays I had Ray Bradbury’s permission to use cadenced language, his example to prove that prose could sing.

  Bradbury never made you stop reading to notice how cleverly he wrote. On the contrary, his music held you inside the story, as if the words had come out of your own mind and heart.

• Sci-fi legend Ray Bradbury on God, 'monsters and angels', by Jon Blake (CNN.com):

  Bradbury, who turns 90 this month, says he will sometimes open one of his books late at night and cry out thanks to God.

  "I sit there and cry because I haven't done any of this," he told Sam Weller, his biographer and friend. "It's a God-given thing, and I'm so grateful, so, so grateful. The best description of my career as a writer is, 'At play in the fields of the Lord.'"

  [...]

  Bradbury's favorite book in the Bible is the Gospel of John, which is filled with references to love.

  "At the center of religion is love," Bradbury says from his home, which is painted dandelion yellow in honor of his favorite book, "Dandelion Wine."

  "I love you and I forgive you. I am like you and you are like me. I love all people. I love the world. I love creating. ... Everything in our life should be based on love."

• Ray Bradbury and the dime-at-a-time typewriter of 'Fahrenheit 451' (Los Angeles Times) the story of how Fahrenheit 451 came to be written is as infamous as Jack Keroac's 120 foot roll of teletype paper):

  . . . "I heard this typing," he explained. "I went down in the basement of the UCLA library and by God there was a room with 12 typewriters in it that you could rent for 10 cents a half-hour. And there were eight or nine students in there working away like crazy."

  So he went to the bank and returned with a bag of dimes. He plugged a dime into the machine, typed fast for 30 minutes, and then dropped another. When he took breaks, he went upstairs to the library, soaking in a book-loving ambience he was making forbidden in the fiction he was writing below. He took books off the shelves, finding quotes, then ran downstairs to write some more. Nine days -- and $9.80 in dimes later -- he'd written "Fahrenheit 451." Almost.

  What he'd finished there was "The Fireman," a short story published in Galaxy magazine in 1951. Later, he expanded the story into "Fahrenheit 451," which was published in paperback by Ballantine.

• Does Paper Really Burn at 451 Degrees Fahrenheit?, by Brian Palmer, Slate

• Ray Bradbury Movies: The Five Best Adaptations Based On The Author's Stories (Moviefone.com)

Charles Colson (1931-2012)

Remembrances

• "God's Man" by Emily Beltz (World Magazine)
• Evangelical Leader Chuck Colson Dead at 80 The infamous convicted Nixon adviser became famous for prison reform, evangelical-Catholic dialogue, and his Christian worldview. Christianity Today 4/21/12.
• The Legacy of Prisoner 23226 Twenty-six years after leaving prison, Charles Colson has become one of America's most significant social reformers. Christianity Today 07/09/01.
• Colson’s Life and Legacy, a National Review symposium. Cal Thomas, George Weigel, Bill Bennett, Charlotte Allen, Tony Perkins, and others remember Chuck Colson. 4/23/12.
• Charles Colson found freedom in prison, by Michael Gerson. Washington Post 4/22/12:

  Many wondered at Chuck’s sudden conversion to Christianity. He seemed to wonder at it himself. He spent each day that followed, for nearly 40 years, dazzled by his own implausible redemption. It is the reason he never hedged or hesitated in describing his relationship with Jesus Christ. Chuck was possessed, not by some cause, but by someone.

• Chuck Colson and American foreign policy, by Will Inboden. Foreign Policy 4/23/12:

  Colson emerged in the 1980s as a leading thinker on Christian participation in politics and policy. His 1989 book Kingdoms in Conflict sought to recover the Augustinian tradition and make it accessible to American evangelicals, who continued to be susceptible to erratic swings between pietistic withdrawal from the world and triumphalist political crusades. Instead Colson argued for a thoughtful participation in politics that sought to achieve proximate goods, while respecting pluralism and not conflating the earthly realm with the eternal realm. . . .

  Indeed, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the State Department offices of International Religious Freedom, Trafficking in Persons, Global Aids Coordinator, Special Envoy for Sudan, and North Korea Human Rights would not exist today without Colson's work in generating support for their creation.

• A Catholic Appreciation of Chuck Colson, Rev. Thomas G. Guarino. First Things "On The Square" 05/01/12.

Elsie A. Blosser (1926-2012)

As I packed to visit my in-laws this Saturday, knowing that she had been sick for a while, I had some kind of premonition -- a stronge sense that we would be hearing the news shortly. And it seems most fitting for her to pass on a glorious Easter morning -- knowing how much she loved Grandpa, trusting in the hope of the Resurrection, the thought of them reunited.

RIP, Grandma Elsie. I will never forget your gentle spirit, your love of nature (the hummingbirds in the garden in particular), and of course your faithful holiday baking of your 'monster cookies' for your grandchildren.

Elsie Arlene Blosser was born April 6, 1922 in rural Parnell, Iowa the daughter of Albert and Leah (Yoder) Zook. She received her Bachelors Degree from Goshen College and received her Masters Degree from the University of Iowa. She taught second grade at Elkhart City Schools in Elkhart, Indiana for 9 years, and then moved to Iowa City where she taught preschool for seven years. She then moved to Wellman where she taught Kindergarten from 1964-1984 at Wellman Elementary. She was a member of the Wellman Mennonite Church where she taught Sunday School and Bible School, she served as Sunday School Superintendent and served on many committees.

On August 7, 1984 she was united in marriage to Eugene Blosser in Wellman. They traveled from coast to coast in the Untied States, they also visited Germany, China and Japan. Elsie volunteered at the Crowded Closet and delivered meals to the homebound. Elsie died on Sunday, April 8, 2012 at Parkview Manor in Wellman at the age of 90 years. Elsie is survived by a step son - Phil Blosser of Michigan; two step daughters - Rachel Derstine of Schwenksville, PA; Meiko Blosser of Seattle, WA; four nephews - Mel Bender of Kalona; Carl Bender of Wellman; Loran Bender of Cedar Rapids; Doug Bender of Willard, MO; and three nieces - Pat Bender of Iowa City; Rita Watkins of Arvada, CO; and Jane Clark of Iowa.

Elsie was preceded in death by her parents, her husband Eugene; two brothers Allen and Floyd Zook; and a sister Velma Bender. Funeral Services will be held at 10:00 a.m. on Wednesday, April 11, 2012, at the Wellman Mennonite Church in Wellman. Pastor Nathan Ramer will officiate. Burial will be in the West Union Cemetery.

Vaclav Havel 1936-2011

• Vaclav Havel, Former Czech President, Dies at 75 New York Times
• Vaclav Havel, dissident playwright and former Czech president, dies Washington Post)
• World reacts to death of Vaclav Havel (CBS News)
• Confronting Truth: Václav Havel’s courage National Review Symposium. National Review Online gathers experts to discuss the impact of his life on history and the lessons he taught about protest and leadership.
• Keep on Rockin' in the Free World: How the Velvet Underground and Václav Havel built a blueprint for toppling totalitarians and other censors Reason.com
• Havel, Kafka and Us, by Michael Ledeen.
• "Forgetting We Are Not God", by Vaclav Havel. First Things March 1995.
• Reading List: Havel and Beyond, by David Remnick. (New Yorker):

  "In the spirit of the season, and in honor of Vaclav Havel, what follows is a top-ten list, the first entry being Havel’s greatest hits, and the rest books and writers whom Havel admired—contemporaries or near contemporaries who lived in the same region and under similar regimes. They, like Havel, are men and women who lived, and wrote, within the truth."

Christopher Hitchens, 1949-2011

• Polemicist Who Slashed All, Freely, Dies at 62, by William Grimes. New York Times
• In Memoriam, my courageous brother Christopher, 1949-2011, by Peter Hitchens.
• Postscript: Christopher Hitchens, 1949-2011, by Christopher Buckley. The New Yorker 12/16/11.
• On the Death of Christopher Hitchens: 1949-2011. R.I.P., by Ron Radosh.
• "Goodbye, Mr. Hitchens", by Victor Davis Hanson. National Review 01/03/12.
• Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011) by Edward Feser.
• Photos: In Memoriam of Christopher Hitchens, 1949–2011 Beginning with his roiling soixante-huitard days—picketing and protesting; joining up with the Labour Club at Oxford—to his raucous and even law-breaking assignments for this magazine, Christopher Hitchens’s life in photographs is a freewheeling and spirited adventure. From Hitch, we would expect no less.
• R.I.P. Christopher Hitchens, by James Martin, SJ. America
• "Trial of the Will", by Christopher Hitchens. Vanity Fair January 2012.

R.I.P. Steve Jobs - 1955-2011

R. Luke Dubois of the PolyTechnic Institute of New York University has noted the irony of the public outpouring of grief among liberals for Steve Jobs, the one CEO curiously exempt as a target of ongoing protests at Wall Street: "On one side, people are railing against corporate greed, and they’re doing it on iPads from a company that trades at $400 per share" -- oblivious to, or perhaps in spite of, to his dark side.

He was, undoubtedly, a genius and a visionary. As the Independent notes

The late Steve Jobs revolutionised no fewer than six different industries: personal computers, mobile phones, music publishing, animated films, digital publishing and tablet computing. So while the word innovation is overused nowadays, there is no one about whom it can be more aptly deployed than the founder of Apple.

When Mr Jobs died on Wednesday he had some 313 patents to his name. Among them were point-and-click mouse techniques and the technology behind touch-sensitive screens. His iMac computer pioneered the intuitive approach, technology that was ready to use straight from the box. His iPod did not just change music on the move; with iTunes and download sales, it turned the whole music industry on its head. His iPhone defined the concept of the smartphone. And his ultra-thin MacBook Air and then his iPad brought an everyday portability to computing with devices that were thin, lightweight and easy to carry.

Related

• Apple’s Visionary Redefined Digital Age New York Times October 5, 2011.
• Steve Jobs: The Secular Prophet, by Andy Crouch. Wall Street Journal October 8, 2011. Steve Jobs turned Eve's apple, the symbol of fallen humankind, into a religious icon for true believers in technology. But can salvation be downloaded?
• Lastly, a bit of humor: Actor Noah Wyle ("ER") on playing Steve Jobs (CNN Money October 7, 2011) in 1999's television drama, "Pirates of Silicon Valley".
• Yes, Steve Jobs, R.I.P., was an innovating genius. But..., by Carl Olson (Ignatius Insight). October 11, 2011.

Ralph McInerny (1929-2010)

Dr. Ralph McInerny died on Friday, at the age of 80. Zenit reports:

Ralph McInerny was a professor of philosophy and the Michael P. Grace Professor of Medieval Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

He held degrees from St. Paul Seminary, University of Minnesota and Laval University, and had taught at the University of Notre Dame since 1955. He directed the Jacques Maritain Center from 1979 to 2006.

He was an acknowledged expert on the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas, and a prolific author. He penned over two dozen scholarly books, many more scholarly essays, and over 80 novels.

He wrote the popular book series Father Dowling Mysteries, which became a successful television program starring Tom Bosley and Tracy Nelson. ...

In 1982, he co-founded Crisis Magazine with Michael Novak. The publication is now known as InsideCatholic.

In 2006, he published his autobiography titled I Alone Have Escaped to Tell You: My Life And Pastimes.

Perhaps it is fitting, that he should pass one day after the feast of St. Thomas Aquinas.

• Remembering Ralph McInerny, by Treant Beattie. National Catholic Register 01/30/14. Philosophy professor and famed writer Ralph McInerny died four years ago on Jan. 29. His intellectual legacy, however, has not died; in fact, according to his brother Dennis, it has barely begun to be made manifest.
• "The Writing Life" an autobiographical essay. First Things March 2006.
• Curriculum Vitae
• Via Joseph Bottum, memories of Dr. Christopher Kaczor at Loyola Marymount, one of his many students and a tribute from Thomas S. Hibbs of Baylor University.
• Ralph McInerny (1929-2010) - Tributes from Robert Royal, Michael Novak, Bruce Fingerhut and John O’Callaghan of The Catholic Thing. February 1, 2010.
• In Memoriam: Ralph McInerny (1929–2010), by Fr. Joseph W. Koterski, S. J. First Principles February 1, 2010.
• Thoughts About Ralph McInerny: "A Man of Wit, Wisdom and Achievement", by Steven A. Long. Zenit. February 2, 2010.
• Sketches of Ralph, by Hadley Arkes. The Catholic Thing February 2, 2010.
• Ralph McInerny, philosopher and author NewScotsman.com. February 2, 2010.
• What McInerny saw in Thomas, by Joseph Upton. First Things' "On The Square" February 6, 20010.
• "Death of a Storyteller", by Tom Hoopes. National Catholic Register February 8, 20010.
• Ralph McInerny, 1929-2010, by Joseph Bottum. Weekly Standard February 15, 2010.
• And What's More . . . A recollection by Christopher Kaczor ’94MMS, ’96Ph.D. (Notre Dame Magazine Winter 2010-11).

Irving Kristol, 1920-2009

And so we lose another giant. A self-identified liberal "mugged by reality", Irving Kristol, commonly heralded as the godfather of 'neo'-conservatism, has died. Hillel Italie gives an account of his life for RealClearPolitics.com:

A Trotskyist in the 1930s, Kristol would soon sour on socialism, break from liberalism after the rise of the New Left in the 1960s and in the 1970s commit the unthinkable — support the Republican Party, once as "foreign to me as attending a Catholic Mass."

He was a New York intellectual who left home, first politically, then physically, moving to Washington in 1988. ... his turn to the right joined by countless others, including such future GOP Cabinet officials as Jeane Kirkpatrick and William Bennett and another neoconservative founder, Norman Podhoretz.

"The influence of Irving Kristol's ideas has been one of the most important factors in reshaping the American climate of opinion over the past 40 years," Podhoretz said.

Among the host of publications he is credited as founding and/or editing was Commentary magazine (from 1947 to 1952); The Public Interest (from 1965 to 2002) and The National Interest from 1985 to 2002.

Kristol's life, along with that of his fellow "New York intellectuals" Irving Howe, Daniel Bell, and Nathan Glazer, was the subject of the 1998 documentary, "Arguing the World". In July 2002 he was awarded the Medal of Freedom by President George W. Bush, the highest civilian honor in the United States.

Jeffrey Stark - a 2,996 Tribute

Jeffrey Stark was a firefighter stationed with Engine Co. 230 of the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, NY. He was last seen at Broadway and Vesey, moving toward the Twin Towers with his fellow firefighters.

An account of that fateful day is given by Tom Braumuller for the Fort Monmouth Fire & Emergency Services:

[“Johnny G”. Guarino] and his crew had just returned from another call when someone yelled out to turn on the TV. They saw what everyone in the nation was watching – a tower on fire. They ran to the roof to see how bad it was when the call came in to respond.

Guarino’s crew mounted Engine 230 and headed for the bridges over to Manhattan. They had to take alternate routes because roads were being shut down quickly.

When they finally arrived, the crew of six (Lt. Brian Ahearn, Fire Fighter (FF) Ed White, FF Gene Whelan, FF Jeff Stark, FF Frank Bonomo, and FF Mike Carlo) dismounted and ran into the towers.

Guarino had to stay with the engine. A police officer told Guarino to move his engine up because other crews were arriving. He moved the engine up about two blocks and when he came back his crew was gone. Along with the towers.

Dianne O'Donnell chronicled his life for the Staten Island Advance (September 11, 2001):

When he graduated from the Fire Academy in May 1999, Mr. Stark joined his two brothers, John and Joseph, as a proud member of the New York City Fire Department.

His first assignment was to Engine Co. 230, where he worked for a year before being reassigned to Engine Co. 160, Concord.

When he was transferred to Ladder Co. 33 in the Bronx, Mr. Stark worked side by side with his older brother, John, a captain of Engine Co. 75 in the same firehouse. His final assignment saw him return to his first engine company in Brooklyn. ...

Prior to becoming a firefighter, Mr. Stark had worked for several years for PaineWebber, Manhattan.

He attended Niagara University, Lewiston, N.Y., and transferred to St. John's University, Grymes Hill, where he graduated with a bachelor of arts degree. He was a graduate of Monsignor Farrell High School.

Stark left behind Katharine Suarez, his girlfriend of five years. "He was everything," said Ms. Suarez. "He spent four of those five years helping me through law school. He was my support system. He was behind me 100 percent."

According to the New York Times:

He went hunting and fly fishing, he golfed and did carpentry — some activities with distinction, others with good humor. Relatively new to the department, and with two older brothers already there, he had some catching up to do, so he was always trying to hone his skills. Fires made him nervous but what he really dreaded, he told his girlfriend, was making mistakes in front of the other firefighters at Engine Company 230 in Brooklyn. ...

He drove [Katherine Suarez] home every night from law school; took her food when she was studying; dropped off her laundry and picked it up; made three trips to the paint store without complaining when she changed her mind about the kitchen color; went out at 4 a.m. on a New Year's Eve looking for Band Aids for her nasty cut; researched recipes to entice her to eat her broccoli.

He was 30, he looked after his widowed mother, Rosemary, in Staten Island, and he had a quiet, unassuming way about him. And a startling, melodic, high-pitched laugh.

• Guest Book for Jeffrey Stark @ Legacy.com.

This post is part of the Project 2,996 Tribute. Prior contributions to this project were Yvonne Bonomo and Jennieann Maffeo:

9/11/09 will mark 8 years since the attacks of World Trade Center I and II, The Pentagon, Shanksville, American Airlines Flights 11 & 77, and United Airlines Flight 93 & 175.

On that day 2,996 people were ripped from their lives. But as the media and society tend to do, they have focused on the killers. We’ve all learned more about them than we wanted to. On that day many of us made a pledge to never forget what happened.

We keep this promise by learning about and remembering the lives of the fallen.

Neda Agha-Soltan: “The Voice of Iran”

• In a Death Seen Around the World, a Symbol of Iranian Protests, by Nazila Fathi (New York Times):

  Only scraps of information are known about Ms. Agha-Soltan. Her friends and relatives were mostly afraid to speak, and the government broke up public attempts to mourn her. She studied philosophy and took underground singing lessons — women are barred from singing publicly in Iran. Her name means voice in Persian, and many are now calling her the voice of Iran.

  Her fiancé, Caspian Makan, contributed to a Persian Wikipedia entry. He said she never supported any particular presidential candidate. “She wanted freedom, freedom for everybody,” the entry read.

• Family, friends mourn Neda Agha-Soltan, Iranian woman whose death was caught on video, by Borzou Daragahi (Los Angeles Times). Neda Agha-Soltan, 26, 'was a beam of light' and not an activist, friends say. The video footage of her bleeding to death on the street has turned her into an international symbol of the protest movement.

• In Iran, One Woman's Death May Have Many Consequences, by Robin Wright. (Time) - Neda is already being hailed as a martyr, a second important concept in Shi'ism. With the reported deaths of 19 people on June 20, martyrdom provides a potent force that could further deepen public anger at Iran's regime.

On the protests in Iran, see also From Tehran's Streets: Hope and Rage - A Photo essay from LIFE Magazine. (NOTE: The Tehran-based photojournalist who made these pictures is now missing).

"Never to be forgotten or denied" - Fr. Desbois' "Holocaust of Bullets"

Holocaust toll will rise even higher, says priest on trail of Nazi mass-killers - Motivated by the memory of his own father, a French soldier deported to the Ukraine by the Nazis, Father Patrick Desbois is investigating accounts of World War II massacres (and unearthing mass graves). From The Times' Roger Boyes:

At present, Paul Shapiro, of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum — which has been co-operating in Father Desbois’s body hunt — reckons that 1.5 million Jews were murdered by the Germans, their allies and collaborators in the towns and villages of Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and other former Soviet republics.

As Hitler’s armies pressed into Russia, the Einsatzgruppen — Operational Groups — rounded up the Jews, forced them to dig pits, strip and lie in the mud until they were shot.

Hundreds and thousands were killed even before German bureaucrats met in 1942 at the Wannsee Conference to work out the logistics of systematically murdering European Jewry and before the concentration camps were slaughtering their inmates. Father Desbois calls it “the Holocaust by bullets”.

Time is of the essence. According to Fr. Desbois, “The witnesses who I am talking to were children at the time and are now very old indeed. So far I have talked to 950.” The eyewitness accounts are harrowing:

One of his interviewees was Petrivna, a Ukrainian woman, in the village of Ternivka. The Jews, she said, were gathered in the centre of the village and taken to a large pit on the fringes of the community.

They were told to lie down, 20 at a time, and shot in the back of the head. “It’s not easy to walk on bodies,” Petrivna told the priest.

“Very calmly I asked her: ‘You had to walk on the bodies of the people who were shot?’ She replied: ‘Yes, I had to pack them down . . . after every volley of shots. We were three Ukrainian girls who, in our bare feet, had to pack them down, the bodies of the Jews, and throw a fine layer of sand on top of them so that other Jews could lay down’.”

Fr. Desbois' published his efforts in the book The Holocaust by Bullets: A Priest's Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews (MacMillan, 2008).

SYNOPSIS: In this heart-wrenching book, Father Patrick Desbois documents the daunting task of identifying and examining all the sites where Jews were exterminated by Nazi mobile units in the Ukraine in WWII. Using innovative methodology, interviews, and ballistic evidence, he has determined the location of many mass gravesites with the goal of providing proper burials for the victims of the forgotten Ukrainian Holocaust. Compiling new archival material and many eye-witness accounts, Desbois has put together the first definitive account of one of history's bloodiest chapters.

See also:

• "Father Patrick Desbois: A Priest on a Holocaust Mission", by Michael Kaminer. The Forward August 26, 2009. Updated
• How Father Desbois Became a Holocaust Memory Keeper (Wall Street Journal January 23, 2009)
• Interview with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

* * *

Sadly, it was only this past week that an annual poll of Jewish-Arab relations, conducted by Haifa University's Professor Sami Samuha, revealed that "some 40.5 percent of Israeli Arabs believe the Holocaust never occurred," and denial of the Holocaust has become more prevalent in recent years.

* * *

Departing from Ben Gurion airport in Israel last week, Pope Benedict XVI reflected on his visit of Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial:

The ceremony at the Presidential Palace was followed by one of the most solemn moments of my stay in Israel – my visit to the Holocaust Memorial at Yad Vashem, where I paid my respects to the victims of the Shoah. There also I met some of the survivors. Those deeply moving encounters brought back memories of my visit three years ago to the death camp at Auschwitz, where so many Jews - mothers, fathers, husbands, wives, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters, friends - were brutally exterminated under a godless regime that propagated an ideology of anti-Semitism and hatred. That appalling chapter of history must never be forgotten or denied. On the contrary, those dark memories should strengthen our determination to draw closer to one another as branches of the same olive tree, nourished from the same roots and united in brotherly love.

An Easter Rescue for Captain Richard Phillips

On this Easter, I would like to join in a commendation of Captain Richard Phillips -- profiled here in the New York Times.

According to Reuters, when the U.S. Cargo ship Maersk Alabama was attacked by Somalian pirates on Wednesday, Captain Phillips told his crew to lock themselves in the cabin and offered his own life in exchange for their safety. The crew having disabled and regained control of the ship, the pirates resorted to holding the captain hostage in the lifeboat, negotiating for his release:

[Maersk Line Limited President and CEO John] Reinhart said the 19-member crew was challenged with the order to leave the captain behind and head for safe harbor in Mombasa, Kenya, where they arrived Saturday night.

"But as mariners, they took the order to preserve the ship and they knew the Navy would preserve their captain, so they did that tough choice and they took the ship away," he said. "When I look at it, I think Richard has exhibited the true spirit of an American."

Captain Philips was in turn liberated by snipers of the United States Navy on Easter Sunday. Three pirates were killed and the fourth captured during the rescue:

Captain Phillips was pulled out of the water — details were not clear on whether he had jumped in — and was transported to the Bainbridge, where sailors delivered him a note from his wife, Andrea.

“Your family is saving a chocolate Easter egg for you,” she wrote, according to Vice Admiral Gortney. “Unless your son eats it first.”

According to John Reinhart, the Maersk Line president and chief executive, Mr. Phillips told him by telephone: “I’m just the byline. The real heroes are the Navy, the Seals, those who have brought me home.” President Obama, making his first comments on the situation, praised Mr. Phillips’s “selfless concern for his crew,” who had been freed when the captain let pirates take him off his cargo ship. “His courage is a model for all Americans,” Mr. Obama said.

News of Phillips' rescue is of particular relief to his wife, Andrea, and members of St. Thomas Church in Underhill, Vermont:

Drawing a parallel between the resurrection of Jesus Christ and Phillips' predicament, the church pastor told about 170 congregants that just as Christ triumphed over evil after being crucified, Phillips was attempting to triumph over the evil of his captors.

"Evil and death and sin do not have the final say," Danielson said. "That is the essential message of Easter. Love and life, goodness and life, they always are the true realities. The world of terror and war and greed, the world of pirates and criminals large and small who prey on individuals, whole nations and regions of the world, they are the ones on the wrong side of history."

• Daring rescue of ship's captain leaves Vermont parish overjoyed, by Chaz Muth. Catholic News Service. April 13, 2009.