MORE MLK/AFFIRMATIVE ACTION: In comments here. I got no comment (as it were). The comments there are sputtering in and out of existence, so if you don’t see ’em when you click the link, try again in an hour or so. Read more

MORE NUNS: Excellent post from Amy Welborn, reflecting on a book she’s just read about the Sisters of Mercy. Read more

NUN SURVEY: You may have seen this story, “Nuns as sexual victims get little notice.” Yesterday Amy Welborn linked to a letter to the editor pointing out some of the survey’s flaws: “The data from which Smith draws his conclusions are based on a select group. Less than one-quarter of the orders (123 out of 538) agreed to participate in the survey, and of those that did agree, less than half of their members (1,164 out of 2,500) responded to... Read more

TOP TEN OVERLOOKED CATHOLIC NEWS STORIES OF 2002. Fascinating stuff. It’s from the Nat. Cath. Reporter, so I grumbled a bit at the slant of the story, but this is well worth your time. Via Dappled Things, I think; link will decay–so click today! Read more

THE BLOG ROLLS EVER ON AND ON… I’ve freshened the blogroll a bit. Read more

CASSIUS: Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face? BRUTUS: No, Cassius, for the eye sees not itself But by reflection, by some other things. —Julius Caesar, I.ii.51-3. (That is a real quotation from Julius Caesar. Here, a quotation from Julius Caesar has been replaced by dark, sparkling Folger’s crystals. Can you tell the difference? –What is the sound of one ax grinding?–Ed.) Read more

BOOKSTORES–INDEPENDENT AND CHAIN–FASCINATING STUFF. The comments here are super-engaging. (Oh, and the post ain’t bad!) Read more

SANTA: THE FINAL CONFLICT. I’ve gotten a surprising amount of mail on this. Let me first state the position I’ve come to so far, and then I’ll print some mail, and conclude with an email from Lynn Gazis-Sax with which I basically agree. First, parenting is in large part a matter of intuition–an art, not a science. Since Santa Claus is the kind of practice that can be performed and read in lots of different ways, some good, some bad,... Read more

Sales men Conventioneers Some rock stars With tambourines Short skirts And skinny legs Selling blogwatch And real estate… Amptoons: Points out that MLK supported affirmative action. There’s a bit of back and forth between us in his comments box, but on the historical question he’s right. I think there are ways of understanding affirmative action that are consistent with King’s famous “content of our character” phrasing, as I said here, but there’s also an obvious (SEE BELOW…) reading in which... Read more

I would post a quote from my current reading here, but it’s Timon of Athens, which–despite some interesting Hamlet-like obsessions with honesty/feigning/women’s chastity–is basically an excuse for Shakespeare to write pages and pages and pages of insults. So, here’s a Shakespearean insult generator. …Ooh, here’s one with a different shtik–words from Shakespeare rather than entire insults. Still tons of fun. Read more