Special Features

The Baxter Affair (1996-97). Still worth reading is Scott Moore's insightful assessment of the original situation.

First Things "The End of Democracy?" Symposium (1996)

And now for my children -- I will add Peter, now a high school junior, in due time: (Updated 7/07/2008)
David Freddoso, Journalist (Notre Dame, 1999)

My son David wrote for local Notre Dame publications before his graduation in May 1999. He then graduated from Columbia's Pulitzer School of Journalism, worked a year for a Brooklyn paper, three years as a Capitol Hill reporter for Human Events, and then three years as the senior political reporter for Robert Novak's Evans-Novak Political Report. (Growing up with me as a father helped prepare him for the grumpy demeanor of the Prince of Darkness.) He is now working for National Review Online and so you will be able to keep up with him there. (He is a frequent contributor to The Corner, too.)

Dave was also the ghostwriter of a political book that came out in 2007, but of course I cannot tell you which one. (No, not Novak's.) :-)

Among David's claims to fame -- the sort that he takes merciless kidding from his friends about -- is that in 2002 one of his articles was used by Tim Russert to trap then Sen. Tom Daschle on Meet the Press. It was a thing of beauty, even though Russert didn't mention David by name. Also -- don't tell my academic colleagues! -- during the 2004 presidential election campaign, a piece by David about John Kerry's 2002 plan for Iraq was read word-for-word by Rush Limbaugh (including many accurate pronunications of the name "David Freddoso") on his nationally syndicated radio show.

During this hot political season, David has made an appearance on C-Span's American Journal along with several appearances on CNN and a bevy of radio appearances on various talk shows, including those of William Bennett (Morning in America), Michael Graham (Boston), Drew Mariani (Relevant Radio, Chicago), Kirby Wilbur (Seattle), etc.

You can check out David's work for NRO here. There is also a book in the offing.

Katrina (Katie) Freddoso, Utterly Dependable Organizer and Audio Specialist (Notre Dame, 2002)

Oh, have I told you about my daughter Katie? A 2002 Notre Dame graduate, she had a couple of publishing jobs in Boston and then served for two years as assistant to the director (David Solomon) of the Notre Dame Center for Ethics and Culture before doing a six-month course in radio/audio documentary journalism at the Salt Institute in Portland, Me. Check out one of her pieces of audio journalism here. In her youth Katie also did some good investigative reporting for the Scholastic, a Notre Dame student publication, including a couple of award-winning pieces.

After a brief stint working for Audiofile Magazine, the leading source of reviews of audio books in the nation, she completed (as a private contractor) Phase 1 of an oral history project for the Notre Dame Alumni Association. Phase 1 consisted of a five-month drive around the contintental USA doing over 100 interviews with interesting Notre Dame alumni and alumnae. She was back in Portland at the beginning of Phase 2 (transcribing, editing, producing 3-5 minute audio snippets of the interviews, etc.). There is now a webpage devoted to her project, with audio links and interview transcriptions, and an article on her trip in the Summer 2008 issue of Notre Dame Magazine. Katie has just moved (perhaps permanently) to Washington, DC, where she will continue to work on the project.

Recently, Katie was delighted to hear that an award-winning radio producer was looking for "a philosophy major who knows Pro Tools." I now use that line when parents ask me what their sons and daughters "can do with a philosophy degree."

Michael Freddoso, Middle School Math Teacher (Notre Dame, 2006)

And then there's Michael, the sort of kid who reads analytic philosophy on the side and buys National Geographic Magazine at airports. (We found out about the latter when his credit card company called, wondering whether he was the one spending the money at Nashville airport.) After a brief stint in Washington with his older brother, he currently lives in Austin, not too far from Jacqueline, and this past summer participated in the Texas Teaching Fellows program. He is now teaching middle school (more specifically, sixth grade) math in Austin. This should be interesting. Mike is a lot like my brother Tony, who is now himself a middle school English teacher after many years as a salesman. Both were a bit -- how shall I put it? -- untamed in their youth. :-)

In addition, Mike teaches the Kaplan GRE-preparation course and is, as you can see (and to the great delight of his parents), on the verge of steady-income-ville!

Stephen Freddoso (Notre Dame, expected 2009)

Stephen is currently a senior philosophy major at Notre Dame and has managed to put together as interesting a curriculum as any of the kids ever. He had a fabled Notre Dame teacher, Fr. Bill Miscamble, for the mandatory university seminar in his very first semester as a freshman, and it's been clear sailing ever since. And because he got up early a couple of mornings -- no mean feat for this kid -- he is one of only a handful of non-seniors who got to take Alasdair MacIntyre's course. Last semester it was a heavy dose of Dante, Kant, and Hegel. Sounds like the prelude to intellectual indigestion. The fall semester, however, is filled with Aristotle and St. Thomas and Reformation history and good stuff like that.

Stephen had been dreaming about spending a summer in St. Petersburg, sipping vodka and engaging in deep conversations, a dream he had hoped to fulfill in 2008. However, the "Doestevsky phase" seems now to be a thing of the past. But what does the future hold? Stay tuned.