The State of First Things, January 2010

Next in a continuing series...

I. Must read articles

None

II. Flawed, but worth reading:

1) Glendon, "Cicero Superstar"
A nice little biography of Cicero which made me want to go back and read some more of his work. The lessons Glendon draws at the end of the article--what we should learn from Cicero--were a bit flat, though. She raised some interesting questions (Is the life of a political compatible with a satisfying private life?), but the article just lost steam after the biography ended.

2) Thomas, "The Killer Instinct"
A fun article about how little boys are different than little girls no matter how much the modern age wants to pretend otherwise. Boys like to play with guns and swords and if they don't have toy guns and swords, well, they will use their imaginations. Give a boy a stick and he has a sword or a light saber. Thomas has some interesting ideas on raising boys, but there wasn't anything in the article I found terribly different from other things I have read.

3) Goldman's review of Mitch Albom's latest book Have a Little Faith
Now I know I don't have to read Albom's book. But, the article makes it onto this list for two reasons:
a) The cover of First Things highlights this article with the title, "Mitch Albom is an Idiot." That is quite the change for First Things. Does it signal a more aggressive magazine?
b) Clara is always making fun of what I read. We read together at night a lot and she constantly makes fun of the books I am reading. So, when I was reading First Things one time and she started to laugh at me, I told her she should read the magazine. For reasons unexplained, she took the magazine and seeing the "Mitch Albom is an Idiot" headline on the cover, she read this review. She liked it. Now she doesn't make fun of me for reading First Things because she says the magazine is pretty good.

4) Hart's review of Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth
This has some nice reflections on Dawkins and Intelligent Design.