MUG SHOTS: Come ‘n’ get your mugs! (and other gear.) We’ve got pro-life feminist mugs. We’ve got Ratzinger Fan Club mugs. We’ve got Yale Free Press mugs. Mugs mugs mugs! (For whatever reason, I’ve been seeing a lot of cool CafePress links lately. Hence this post. I do have some advice for CafePress users, though: Match the item to the message. For example, a BBQ apron with the words, “Abolish Abortion,” is freaky.) Read more

Blog Watch, where are you? Everybody’s eyes are closed I can’t see why I miss you so So Blog Watch, where are you? Ted Barlow: Iraq now vs. Vietnam then (good roundup post); Islamic banking restrictions, and how people get around them. E-Pression: Lots of good stuff, including a link to this pro-life Catholic feminist guy (who likes Artemisia Gentileschi!), and thoughts on parental divorce and religious conversion. Unqualified Offerings: Arguments for privatizing libraries. I spent a summer as a... Read more

“You have to listen! You have to listen to what the bees have to say!” –Angel Tompkins, “The Bees” Read more

MUST-READ POST on science and religion, from The Old Oligarch (a physics and philosophy major). It’s the second post on the page, in case Blogger links are screwy. Read more

WHAT I LEARNED LAST NIGHT: Jeeves shares the Rat’s love of Dostoyevsky “and the great Russians.” One presumes, however, that he does not share her taste in footwear. Read more

SUNDAY LITANY: Tom Kreitzberg writes: Catching up on my blogreading, I see you’ve recently read Dies Domini. We discussed this letter in my Lay Dominican chapter last summer, and I was moved to construct a “Litany of the Day of the Lord” from the words and phrases of the Pope. Re-reading it a year later, I think I’d drop the “First Day of that Cosmic Week” line (the phrase works in the letter but comes off a bit crystal-and-pantheism here),... Read more

“Let us eat, then we will transplant the brain.” –Dr. Frankenstein to assistant, “Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell” Read more

HEH! Read more

PRAYER TO SAINTS: Lynn Gazis-Sax asks a good question: “What does prayer to the saints add to your devotional life, that wouldn’t be supplied simply by prayer directly to God?” I think her summary of the theology behind prayer to saints is fine, so I’ll just address the experiential, “what does it feel like?” side. The veneration of saints has all kinds of salutary effects, especially on judgmental or impatient souls like mine–click here for a previous post on that... Read more

BIG BIG SPIDERS OF THE SILVER SCREEN. We seem to be on a spider kick over here. Oh, and here are four one-line reviews taken at random from this site (it doesn’t really matter what the movies are called, does it? Scroll down to “The Letter U” if you must know…): “A killer mutant cat that hides inside another cat.” “Another example why malaria, alcoholism, and dinosaurs don’t mix.” “Huge fish threatens a resort full of morons.” “I am firmly... Read more