Recently I sang the praises of Jack McDevitt’s “Alex Benedict” series, and a reader suggested that I try his earlier novel Ancient Shores. And I did; but I didn’t like it. I don’t usually write negative reviews; if I dislike it I ignore it. In this case I feel I have to, since it came up in the context of a largely positive review of some of McDevitt’s other book. Ancient Shores takes place “present day”, when a farmer in... Read more
We’re blogging through St. Thomas Aquinas’ Compendium Theologiae, sometimes called his Shorter Summa. Find the previous posts here. (In the previous two posts we looked at what it means for a thing to have an essence (what it is) as distinct from its accidents (the things by which it differs from other members of its species, starting with location); and also at what Thomas means by genus and species. You might want to go back and refresh your memory.) In any being, therefore,... Read more
Quill v0.2.0 has been released. Those interested can find it at GitHub. Read more
I first started praying the Liturgy of the Hours in the mid-winter of 2008, a few months after my reversion to Catholicism. At that time it was all exciting and new, and I looked forward to my prayer times every day; but that’s not why I adopted the Liturgy of the Hours as a personal devotion. And then, when I became a Lay Dominican, I necessarily embarked on a life of diligent prayer. Per the rule, I am to pray... Read more
I’m hoping to release version 0.2.0 of Quill sometime before the end of the three-day weekend. (N.B. My family might have other ideas.) A great deal has happened since I released version 0.1.0 of Quill one month ago. First, to recap. Quill is a project build system for the TCL/TK programming language. Quill will set up a project directory for you with all of the needful things (a code skeleton, a test suite skeleton, stub documents, and so forth). It... Read more
Kyle Cupp, one of our newer bloggers at the Catholic Channel, just gave us this post on the incomprehensibility of god: God is Not an Explanation. Now, he’s got a point. Pope Benedict in his Introduction to Christianity refers to God as the “Wholly Other”. We can’t really know God as He is in the fullness of divinity; the best we can do is rule out things that are obviously wrong. Consequently, when we seem to be saying something concrete... Read more
I was just listening to Pandora, and a song came on that I hadn’t heard or thought of in ages—but it grabbed me and took me back to that same golden summer afternoon I wrote about last week, the one I spent listening to the radio and reading the tales of H.P. Lovecraft. And I listened to it for a while and thought, “You know, I quite like this. It’s held up pretty well.” The song is called “Couldn’t Get... Read more
My friend Sam Rocha has just released a CD of what he calls Augustinian soul music: soul music based on the theology and writings of St. Augustine and especially on Augustine’s Confessions. The album is called “Late to Love“; click the link to hear the title track, which is my favorite on the album. You can give the whole thing a listen on SoundCloud for a limited time. Update: And if you want to buy it in MP3 form, you... Read more
Magrat put on her best dress, the green silk one that was unfortunately now a mass of creases. She took out a bundle of tissue paper and slowly unwrapped her occult jewelry; Magrat bought occult jewelry as a sort of distraction from being Magrat. She had three large boxes of the stuff and was still exactly the same person. — Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad With me, it’s computer and camera gear. And, yeah…still me, after all these years. Read more
Of a time and of a time there was a sword smith, renowned throughout the land; and that no mean backwater, but the land of the Great Sultan, for the smith dwelt in Damascus, city of steel. His blades were the equal of any in the land, for he knew well that to craft a blade both strong and durable it must be heated to white heat—and then quenched in the body of a fat slave. He had mastered this... Read more
Cry 'Woof'
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