A FORMER MILITARY INTERROGATOR UNEARTHS THE ERRORS AND FEAR-MONGERING IN MARC THIESSEN’S “COURTING DISASTER.” While many of Thiessen’s opinions are appalling from a moral perspective (he justifies torture and abuse through the religious writings of St. Thomas Aquinas), the book is comprised of errors, omissions, and a whopping dose of fear-mongering. I’ll concentrate here on his worst misstatements and why his conclusions ultimately make us less safe. read it here probably via The Agitator Read more

HE LOVED SOMEBODY BUT IT WASN’T ME: A bit more on whether there are secular reasons. This post is fairly tentative. Camassia replies to me and Fish and Steven Smith here. I will concur in part and dissent in part! First, Fish and Smith are both using a philosophically sketchy definition of “religion.” They seem to be influenced by the (Rawlsian??? is he to blame for this??) notion that all “comprehensive doctrines” are suspect in the public sphere. They’re also... Read more

STILL PREFERRING THE TINSEL: I recently finished Melinda Selmys’s Sexual Authenticity: An Intimate Reflection on Homosexuality and Catholicism. (Insert “sounds like a Heideggerian lingerie ad” joke here….) I wish I could recommend the book, because it does grapple with some concepts close to my heart–I was really excited to see that later chapter headings included “Beauty” and “Vocation.” But this book did not work for me, at all. I’m not going to do a real review, but I do want... Read more

THE FACE OF ANOTHER: Not quite a review of That Face, playing at the Studio Theater through March 14. (YOU CAN STILL SEE “IN THE RED AND BROWN WATER,” PEOPLE. IT’S PLAYING THROUGH MARCH 7. GO SEE IT NOW.) This is just a slightly scrubbed version of what I sent Ratty after I saw the play…. Audience comments afterward included “intense” and “interesting,” so… yeah! It really was not what I was expecting. It’s the debut of a like 19-y.o.... Read more

They sentenced me to twenty years of blogwatchFor trying to change the system from within… Camassia: More on The Last Station. MarriageDebate is just a cornucopia, people. “Are Sperm Donors Really Anonymous Anymore?”; “Would Your Boyfriend Be Pleased By Your Surprise Fetus?”; Can a court tell a parent what religion his child will be?; Catholic girls (and Canadian schoolteachers) gone wild; Yale administration promotes sincerist sex; and whether major economic shifts are leading women to redefine “marriage material.” And much,... Read more

“HEARTBREAK HILL”: Subscribers to the American Conservative can get my new column here (PDF)–it’s about Capitol Hill. Read more

“TOLSTOY DIES, GOES TO AMERICA“: I review The Last Station at Inside Catholic. Read more

TRYING HARD TO BECOME WHATEVER THEY ARE: Over the weekend I watched “Transgeneration,” a Sundance Channel/LOGO documentary series following four transgendered college students (well, one is a grad student) over the course of a year. I’d been putting this off a) because I have an aversion to this exact kind of self-voyeurizing, reality-TV documentary (it’s related to my disapproval of biographies) and b) I thought it might be depressing. But in the event, the kids were so captivating that it... Read more

“SET THE CONTROLS FOR THE HEART OF THE SUN“: Sean Collins’s picks for the 15 greatest science-fiction-based pop/rock songs. Awesome. I gave up pop music for Lent (I usually do this) so I will have to play the clips in Eastertide. [EDITED: Oh wait! Sunday is still a feast day! Excelsior.] But you can play them now! These aren’t the songs I would choose, necessarily, but the only really obvious absence (to me) is Janelle Monae. More on her soon. Read more

I’M DANCING AS FANCY AS I CAN: I really loved the movie of The Business of Fancydancing. I mean, I loved it more than I loved The Toughest Indian in the World; I loved it more than any description could really justify, I think maybe. One big part of my love was the star: Evan Adams. He’s got a cocky, vulnerable, punchy grace. If you like Robert Downey Jr. but thought, “What if he were brown?” then I think this... Read more