MAILBAG PART II: Second and last in a series. In this episode: mysticism; body snatchers; DC; book recommendations; and a funny economist. Readers are in bold, I’m in plain text. Emails requiring a more complicated response will be dealt with separately… eventually. Christopher Jones: The claim that mysticism became “peripheral” to orthodox religion after the suppression of Gnosticism is more than “a bit odd”; it’s preposterous, and betrays total ignorance of what orthodox Christianity is all about. Your counter-examples from... Read more

“NOTHING BUTTERY” and much, much more–excellent post from Brink Lindsey on science and mysticism. Read more

Think of blogwatch days they were folly and fun They were good, they were young… Ted Barlow: What happened to those Masai who wanted to give us cows? Also, scroll down to his two posts on rent control; there have been more good comments since yesterblogwatch. Kausfiles: Everyone’s linking to his take on “Guilty Southern White Boys.” That’s because he’s right. Excellent quick post (and Clinton postscript), perhaps especially interesting to fans of Walker Percy. Amy Welborn: For a great... Read more

“Is ‘schmuck’ a Jewish word? I just wanted to say something Jewish to you.” –Lucie Arnaz (guess whose daughter she is), “The Jazz Singer” (1980) Read more

WHOA, THIS SUCKS. Read more

AN INTRIGUING LIBERTARIAN CANDIDATE FOR CONGRESS with a link-heavy website. I don’t get behind all her positions, but nonetheless the site is worth poking around on. Read more

“INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS”: I watched this last night at the American City Diner (great location, by the way–I’d been very apprehensive, figuring the place would be crowded, noisy, etc., but the movie deck was pleasant, people were few and quiet, and the food was quite good and fairly cheap–dinner and a movie for ten bucks is pretty awesome). The movie was brisk and tense, though not especially terrific. What interested me most was that I’d always heard IOTBS... Read more

ANTI-SLAVERY MARCH IN BOSTON: Oct. 5. Read about it here. I’ve written before on this site about my skepticism of the “slave redemption” tactic (buying slaves from their captors, then freeing them), but that skepticism makes me feel all the more obligated to point out good things like this march. Please consider what you can do to end contemporary slavery. Read more

MORE SAINTS: Lynn Gazis-Sax has a passel of fine posts looking at prayer to saints from a Quaker-raised-Episcopalian perspective. Good stuff. Just scroll, since there are several relevant posts. Read more

MAILBAG PART I: So I’ve been a complete, total, colossal shank about keeping up with my inbox. Here is the first installment of mail; the rest will come over the next couple days; apologies, etc. etc. I’m in plain text, readers are in bold, as always. In this episode: celebrity spies; lousy churches; war; bodily pleasures; the Special Ops Foundation; and saints. From Tepper, in re Spy Museum (see below, “Wilderness of Gift Shops”): You were pretty much dead on... Read more