It’s true, Francis really is — as long as you understand that, as a Catholic, it is our duty and responsibility to read the words of the Holy Father only after they’ve been run through the MSM juicer a couple of times. JoAnna Wahlund handily shreds “oh Lord, why are we being tormented by this dreadful, careless, foolish pope?” crowd as they rend their garments over what they see reported on MSNBC: “Pope Reiterates 2,000-year-old Teaching of the Church” doesn’t... Read more
A photographer and historian superimposes crime and accident photos from New York’s past onto the same scene from the present day. Amazing: See more from the series at fstoppers. Read more
Oopsie, that title was just a placeholder. Pushed “publish” before I thought of something better. Oh well, it’ll do. Read more
Just heard the most fascinating short interview on NPR’s Morning Edition. Anya von Bremzen grew up in Soviet Russia, where she shared a huge warehouse apartment with eighteen other families. Behind each door there’s a comedy, a tragedy, alcoholism. You know, there were lunatic old ladies. Next to us there was the family of a black marketeer, an underground millionaire, who ate unspeakable delicacies. And everyone came together in the kitchen. The kitchen was like the public square of... Read more
NBC did a story on married priests, and included comments by Mark Shea. Looks like they actually did some research, and tried to present a balanced picture. They tried to answer the question: what would happen if the Catholic Church (by which they mean the Western rite — and no, I never get it straight if I’m supposed to say “Latin” or “Roman” or “Western” or what. You know who I mean) dropped the celibacy requirement for priests? Wouldn’t that... Read more
We recently rewatched Goodfellas, and, what can I say? We’re older and fatter, so what we took away from it was: we have to make those meatballs. We are having family over tomorrow, and are making a quadruple recipe. They are the meatballs of happiness and delight. You must make them now. Here is the recipe. You can thank me later when you recover from your meat delight coma. Read more
Op ed in the NYT saying what I’ve been saying since forever: Gosheroodie, have you noticed that the history of man is, overall, the history of increasing productivity? And who figured out how to increase productivity? Individual people — you know, part of the population. Someone’s gotta be having the babies. We all need it. Spend less time and effort sterilizing poor people, and spend more time and effort figuring out how to help everyone live well. There really is... Read more
Oops, just realized I have a second article in the latest edition of Catholic Digest. Do get your hands on this one if you can! The strength and clarity of the people I interviewed is just astonishing. I wish I had had enough space to include all of what they had to say about making end-of-life decisions for the people they love. I wrote about the experience of tackling this harrowing subject in a post called “Bright Wings.” I’m just going... Read more
Many thanks to Kiernan O’Connor of the Donor Motivation Program of Houston for a great interview. It incorporates advice that will be equally useful for large investors and for widow’s mite types, and also includes some investing tips. I don’t think the article is available online yet at Catholic Digest, but I did want to highlight a few of the charities that I recommended in the article: Save a Family Plan A top notch international NGO run by Catholics, serving... Read more
.. . . as my son used to say repeatedly as he launched himself off the couch repeatedly. But this really is: They’ve discovered that a common kind of insect hops with the aid of gears: There was a tiny row of bumps on the inside of each leg where it met the insect’s body. The bumps looked just like the teeth of gears. And when the planthopper jumped, they acted like gears too — as teeth meshed, the legs... Read more
I Have to Sit Down
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