Donald DeMarco
Written on 12 Nov, 2008 at 19:45 in
Columnist, Donald DeMarco | Author:
Commentary Donald DeMarco
Athlete missed '04 Olympics to have child
The Beijing Olympiad has passed and left the world images of glory that will last for many years: Michael Phelps' eight gold medals, Jamaica's Usain Bolt setting records in the 100- and 200-metre dashes, the American basketball team gaining "redemption," the dazzling spectacle and gracious hospitality the Chinese provided.... (Continue reading)
Written on 30 Aug, 2008 at 9:07 in
Columnist, Donald DeMarco | Author:
Commentary Donald DeMarco
On June 17, 2008, the Boston Celtics broke their huddle with the chant “ubuntu,” just as they had before every game in their gruelling 116-game season. Then, they calmly walked out onto the parquet court of the New Boston Garden and won their 17th NBA championship, demolishing the Los Angeles Lakers by the eye-popping score of 131-92. It was, in the words of one sports writer, a “parquet Picasso.” Ubuntu ... (Continue reading)
Written on 30 Jul, 2008 at 8:39 in
Columnist, Donald DeMarco | Author:
Commentary by Donald DeMarco
Victor Borge tells the story of a friend whom he had not seen in 50 years who asked him, rather excitedly, “Was it you or your brother who passed away?”
The captain of a four-engine plane alerted his passengers that one of the engines had conked out. He assured them forthwith that there was nothing to worry about, although flying ... (Continue reading)
Written on 23 Apr, 2008 at 14:30 in
Abortion, Columnist, Donald DeMarco, Society & Culture | Author:
Commentary Donald DeMarco Britain’s Royal College of Psychiatrists, in a statement released on March 14 urged that women should not be allowed to have abortions until they are counseled on the procedure’s risks to their mental health. The College recommended adding details about the risks of depression to abortion leaflets. “Consent cannot be informed,” it claimed, “without the provision of adequate and appropriate information.”
More than 90 per cent of ... (Continue reading)
Written on 23 Mar, 2008 at 12:16 in
Columnist, Donald DeMarco | Author:
Donald DeMarco Baseball augurs the beginning of spring,
but be careful in listening to the sports’ announcers.
Donald Demarco considers the joys – some unintended – of baseball
The truest harbinger of spring is not the appearance of crocuses or the arrival of swallows at Capistrano, but the reverberating crack of bat meeting ball.
Winter was ... (Continue reading)
Written on 17 Feb, 2008 at 12:01 in
Columnist, Donald DeMarco | Author:
Commentary Donald DeMarco Michael Polanyi changed his career path from science to philosophy so that, paradoxically, he could help protect science from being absorbed into a narrow ideology. In his 1962 Terry Lectures at Yale University, he recounted a conversation he had with Nikolai Bukhanin in 1935. At that time, Bukhanin, whom Lenin called the “Golden Boy” of the party, was a leading theoretician for the Communist party. When Polanyi asked him about ... (Continue reading)
Written on 30 Aug, 2007 at 13:38 in
Columnist, Donald DeMarco | Author:
Commentary Donald DeMarco The Interim St. Alphonsus Liguori makes the comment, in his b ook, The Incarnation, Birth and Infancy of Jesus Christ, that Jesus was born "in poor ragged clothes, in a stable lying on straw in a manger for animals," because "he came to destroy the pride which had been the cause of man's ruin."
Pride is the most pernicious of the seven deadly sins. It directs us to focus on what is peripheral and ignore what is central. It greatly impairs our ability to discern ... (Continue reading)
Written on 19 Jul, 2007 at 11:08 in
Donald DeMarco, Religion | Author:
Commentary Donald DeMarco The Interim
The spring 2007 issue of Conscience, the publication of a nefarious group of abortion promoters who call themselves, strangely enough, “Catholics for a Free Choice,” has announced its new president. Jon O’Brien, who worked as program manager at the International Planned Parenthood Federation’s European Bureau in London, replaces Frances Kissling.
Kissling steps aside after ... (Continue reading)
Written on 21 Apr, 2007 at 12:29 in
Columnist, Donald DeMarco | Author:
Commentary by Donald DeMarco The Interim
Rhetoric is simply the art of persuasion. As Socrates discovered, however, to his great dismay, not all rhetoric is accompanied by knowledge. The sophists of his day made it incontrovertibly clear to him that their style of rhetoric required no knowledge whatsoever. And without knowledge, reason, not having anything to sink its teeth into, cannot operate.
Socrates could not begin to understand how one person ... (Continue reading)
Written on 27 Feb, 2007 at 12:43 in
Columnist, Donald DeMarco | Author:
Commentary by Donald DeMarco The Interim Jan. 21, the date that President George W. Bush chose for his fellow Americans to honour the sanctity of human life, is significant for two reasons. First, it falls on a Sunday, the Lord’s Day. Secondly, it is one day prior to the 34th anniversary of the infamous Roe v Wade decision that drove a sword into the nation’s commitment to the sanctity of human life, leaving a wound that has ... (Continue reading)
Written on 27 Feb, 2007 at 12:41 in
Columnist, Donald DeMarco, Fetal Rights | Author:
Commentary by Donald DeMarco The Interim Jan. 21, the date that President George W. Bush chose for his fellow Americans to honour the sanctity of human life, is significant for two reasons. First, it falls on a Sunday, the Lord’s Day. Secondly, it is one day prior to the 34th anniversary of the infamous Roe v Wade decision that drove a sword into the nation’s commitment to the sanctity of human life, leaving a wound that has ... (Continue reading)
Written on 14 Jan, 2007 at 12:38 in
Columnist, Donald DeMarco | Author:
Commentary by Donald DeMarco
Student governments at three Canadian schools of higher education – Carleton University, University of British Columbia at Okanagan and Capilano College in Vancouver – have voted to deny funding and services to any campus group that opposes abortion. Pro-life students are nonetheless obliged to provide financial support for all other student activities. One wonders how many more Canadian colleges and universities will follow suit.... (Continue reading)
Written on 9 Sep, 2004 at 9:15 in
Columnist, Donald DeMarco, Society & Culture | Author:
Donald DeMarco
Freedom presents the chief problem in moral education
I have been a teacher of ethics at several institutions of higher learning over the course of the past five decades. While I cannot assess the impact I have had on my students, I can easily assess the impact they have had on me. One problem, central and challenging, remains. It is, I would say, the number one obstacle in getting anything of substance across to ... (Continue reading)
Written on 8 Aug, 2004 at 10:15 in
Abortion statistics, Columnist, Donald DeMarco | Author:
Donald DeMarco
Members of the pro-life movement are always eager to embrace encouraging news. A recent Gallup Youth Survey (Nov. 24, 2003), conducted through a scientific methodology to ensure a representative sample of the U.S. population, showed that 72 per cent of youth between 13 and 17 believe that abortion is morally wrong. An elated Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, said, "We're winning the struggle for hearts and minds. ... (Continue reading)
Written on 6 May, 2004 at 9:42 in
Columnist, Donald DeMarco, Politics | Author:
Donald DeMarco
Commentary by Donald DeMarco
The Interim
We like to think that scientists are people of unswerving integrity who report what they find without being unduly influenced by current fashions. Politicians, journalists, educators, religious leaders, businessmen, and sales personnel of every stripe may blow in the wind, but scientists, so we want to believe, are pillars of professional integrity. Unfortunately, though it should not be surprising, this is not the case.
Perhaps Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes ... (Continue reading)
