“A class of conservatives has arisen, again largely made up of young people, who are pro-life but who also support same-sex marriage. Some members of this cohort even argue that pro-lifers specifically, for reasons strategic and principled, ought to support same-sex marriage. The claim implicit in this activism is that the unmooring of marriage from its original meaning and purpose will have no effect — or will have even a positive effect — on our ability to build a culture... Read more
Erick Erickson, whose ridiculous statement that “life doesn’t deal you cards” I examined in Who Really Fails at Life, turns out to be the founder of an influential conservative website call RedState, and as I’ll write in another post, more thoughtful than his comment on the Rush Limbaugh show suggests. He turns out also to be a serious Christian whose Christianity alienates some of his supporters because it requires for him political commitments they don’t like. And good for him. Beginning... Read more
“Seriously, look. I don’t mean to be ugly with you people. . . . If you’re a 30-something-year-old person and you’re making minimum wage you probably failed at life. It is not that life dealt you a bad hand. Life does not deal you cards! It’s that you failed at life.” This is someone named Erick Erickson speaking as the guest host of Rush Limbaugh’s radio program, and speaking in an imitation Limbaugh way. Mediaite describes him as “a conservative blogger and author”... Read more
Our old dog eats deer poop. The neighborhood cats stalk, torture, and kill our chipmunks. The spider whose web I see in front of my window stings the butterfly caught in his web, wraps it with silk, and later comes back to eat it alive. Your knee hurts. Your eyes begin to go. Cancer cells eat up the body of your closest friend. The earth shifts suddenly, and flattens part of a crowded island, and thousands and thousands die. There’s... Read more
Ricky Gervais’ tweeted comment seemed kind of obvious: “Celebrities, make it harder for hackers to get nude pics of you from your computer by not putting nude pics of yourself on your computer.” Leaving the pictures in an insecure place as computers are is like leaving your wallet overnight on a bench in a city park. The thief is not excused by the carelessness, but the careless person is not blameless. According to the media news site Mediaite, lots of... Read more
My first article for Ethika Politika, on whose board I’m now serving: Jeremiah and the Enlightened Racist. It begins: “The problem,” writes Nicholas Kristof, “is not so much overt racists. Rather, the larger problem is a broad swath of people who consider themselves enlightened, who intellectually believe in racial equality, who deplore discrimination, yet who harbor unconscious attitudes that result in discriminatory policies and behavior.” This problem seems obvious to me, but many people among those who consider themselves enlightened... Read more
A few quotes of use to the student from A. G. Sertillanges’ The Intellectual Life. Sertillanges was a French Dominican, and therefore a Thomist, and clearly a wise man to boot. The book appeared in 1934 when he was 70 after a long and very distinguished academic career. Though aimed mainly at philosophy and theology students, and though a little dry in places, the book is a wonderful book about intellectual work, mixing reflections on the moral and spiritual life of the intellectual with... Read more
As an unidentified writer titled the story from the Oxford University news and events page that an old tree Tolkien liked has to be cut down. Oxford University’s Botanic Garden is planning a send-off for the iconic black pine known as ‘Tolkien’s tree’, which needs to be removed from the Garden after two limbs fell from the tree on Saturday. The tree, a Pinus nigra, was a favourite of J R R Tolkien during his time in Oxford and some... Read more
From Dorothy Sayers’ essay Why Work?, her explanation of the way Christians ought to choose people for the jobs they need to have done: When my play The Zeal of Thy House was produced in London, a dear old pious lady was much struck by the beauty of the four great archangels who stood throughout the play in their heavy, gold robes, eleven feet high from wingtip to sandaltip. She asked with great innocence whether I selected the actors who played the... Read more
An entertaining telling of the story of the Exodus, using songs from Les Miserables, by the a capella group The Maccabeats from Yeshiva University in New York. They are very good and have done a lot of songs, usually adapting popular songs for their purposes. Their music ranges from the overtly religious, like Miracle (on Hanukkah) and The Purim Song (the feast celebrating the story of the Jews’ deliverance told in Esther), to lighter things like Smart Ways to Live, a cute take on the... Read more
David Mills
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