POETRY WEDNESDAY: Also found in the Bloom children’s anthology. From Lewis Carroll, “The Mad Gardener’s Song”: He thought he saw an Elephant, That practised on a fife: He looked again, and found it was A letter from his wife. ‘At length I realise,’ he said, The bitterness of Life!’ [rest clipped] Read more

I JUST DISCOVERED… Ideofact. Neato-keen historical blog, lots of stuff about Mongols at the moment. Off to freshen the blogroll. Via Kesher Talk, which I should also blogroll. Read more

FIFTEEN TO LIFE: 15 WAYS TO FIX THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM. My new Crisis piece is out–and you can’t read it online! Hie ye to the newsstand, bookstore, or (if you subscribe) mailbox. There’s lots of other good stuff in this issue, including Russell Shaw’s “Ignoring the Obvious: The Unreality of American Catholicism,” Brian Saint-Paul’s painstaking but visibly frustrated response to Michael Rose of Goodbye! Good Men fame/notoriety (disclaimer: I haven’t read Goodbye! Good Men. Pieces like Saint-Paul’s–there are quite... Read more

THE WORLD WON’T LISTEN: I can’t say I really understand the enthusiasm for international courts and international governing bodies as such. I mean, I can see how these things could be useful for certain limited purposes, but I find the standard objection to the UN and similar bodies–this isn’t the united nations, it’s the united governments, and when many of those governments are repressive it becomes the united dictators–pretty compelling. I also expect that the farther removed a policymaker is... Read more

FANTASTIC COLUMN by Matt Welch. Mainstream newspapers court the rich and reject anything that smacks of “fun”; a cascade of new tabloids are pouring in to fill the gap. Read more

“…[S]o long as we are buried in the wretchedness of our earthly nature these streams of ours will never disengage themselves from the slough of cowardice, pusillanimity and fear. We shall always be glancing around and saying: ‘Are people looking at me or not?’ ‘If I take a certain path shall I come to any harm?’ ‘Dare I begin such and such a task?’ ‘Is it pride that is impelling me to do so?’ ‘Can anyone as wretched as I... Read more

THIS IS AWESOME. Via Electrolite. Read now. Read more

CHOOSING THE ARENA: When I was confirmed in the Catholic Church, there were lots of things in Church teaching that I struggled with. And that’s true today, too. The Magisterium surprises, guides, and provokes my intellect (that’s one of the points I make in my most recent column for the Register), but on some issues it also baffles or frustrates me. And so I sympathize with people who want to get everything nailed down (so to speak…) before committing to... Read more

DAVID, PAUL, DISMAS: A while ago, I blogged this excellent piece from the most recent First Things. It’s called “The Virtue of Hate,” and it argues that unlike Christians, Jews have no obligation to forgive those who perpetrate the most heinous crimes against them, and are fully justified in praying for their enemies’ eternal destruction–in Cynthia Ozick’s words, “Sooner a fly to God than he.” The essay evoked sharp reactions from many Jews. Judith Weiss of Kesher Talk hooked me... Read more

INNERCHANGE: If you were a prisoner, would you like a key to your cell, a private bathroom, free phone calls (a huge deal in prison, as you might imagine), the right to live in an “honor” wing, and access to a big-screen TV? You could get this stuff–in Iowa’s Newton Correctional Facility. But you’d also have to “immerse” yourself in Bible study and live “under the guidance of Christian staff.” Because the only program that comes with those perks is... Read more