EXCELLENT GLENN REYNOLDS COLUMN on “a pack, not a herd” and an “American Dunkirk” (an inspiring story I had never heard before). Read more

POETRY WEDNESDAY: From Elizabeth Bishop, “Insomnia”: The moon in the bureau mirror looks out a million miles (and perhaps with pride, at herself, but she never, never smiles) [clipped] Read more

“She is a pulverizing crucible of fulfillment.” –Narrator, “Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens” Read more

I don’t go out much at night. I don’t go out much at all. Did you think you were the only one who was watching for a blog… Stuart Buck: So those Volokhs think they’re so smart, with their three kinds of judicial activism? I’ll show them! I’ve got SEVEN!!! (A useful post.) E-Pression: Suggest a book for someone considering entering the Catholic Church. C’mon, help a mantis out. Charles Murtaugh: Yeah, yeah, lots of people write about sin and... Read more

“LET’S GET MARRIED”: PBS’s “Frontline” series looks at the marriage movement. Nov. 14, 9 PM. Read more

MARXISTS’ APARTMENT A MICROCOSM OF WHY MARXISM DOESN’T WORK. The Onion. Which also features a Supreme Court-related article that is a) hilarious, and b) not appropriate on a family website, so be forewarned. Read more

USE YOUR ALLUSION: Catholicism, as well as being a very sensual religion, is a very allusive religion. All kinds of seemingly disparate stories or figures or images “rhyme” and are used to refer to one another and illuminate one another’s meanings. Thus baptismal fonts are often carved with scenes like Noah’s ark or the crossing of the Red Sea. The Old Testament scenes generally illustrate some truth about God’s work in the world, as well as showing the continuity between... Read more

MY LEAST FAVORITE PHRASE: “The abortion issue.” I don’t know exactly why, but this particular phrase always feels, to me, as if the speaker were annoyed that he even had to talk about this distasteful, best-left-unsaid, you’ll-never-convince-Those-People, why-can’t-we-all-just-get-along albatross. It feels distanced, as if abortion is best understood as a “wedge issue” or a polling question rather than a decision by a woman (with varying levels of “help” from family and friends) to take her unborn child’s life. So whoopee,... Read more

“This is the most fantastic story I’ve ever heard!” “And every word of it’s true, too.” “That’s the fantastic part of it!” –“Plan 9 from Outer Space” Read more

DOES THIS MEAN I HAVE TO ADD HANNAH ARENDT TO THE READING LIST??: From Oxblog: “The present is the position in which the individual uses the materials of the past to shape his own future. This is exactly what Arendt means to convey in the Preface to Between Past and Future when she uses the Kafka parable to talk about man as standing in a discontinuity, with an antagonist from behind (the past) pushing him forward and an antagonist in... Read more