LIVES OF THE SAINTS: So in order to understand how Christians should approach the use of force, as I said, I think theology and tradition must be relied on since Scripture is not transparent. And in looking at tradition, one of the absolute best places to go is the lives of the saints, which are like a treasury of more wisdom and truth than a hundred libraries of theological treatises. I don’t know what the role of saints and martyrs... Read more

SO TODAY KIND OF GOT AWAY FROM ME, and after tomorrow at 5 p.m. I will not be posting ANYTHING until next Thursday. But I do have some cool stuff stored up for tomorrow–pacifism and celibacy (this time I mean it…), Shakespeare and rock’n’roll conservatism, sex and/or fun, and something I think you’ll really, really like, but that is a secret for now. And I will do the whole vast-camel-of-blogging thing while traveling (New Haven then New York then Boston... Read more

“You’re not very tall are you?” “Well, I, uh, I try to be.” –Martha Vickers and Humphrey Bogart, “The Big Sleep” Read more

RUSSO will get on my case for this, but the other night I caught a snippet of “Star Trek: The Next Generation,” and it reminded me yet again that the only real Star Trek is the one with Kirk & crew. The moment that summed up the boring, Eurocrat-ness of it all? This fiery exchange (they’re talking about whether they should release a weird, genetically-altered 12-year-old from cryonic suspension, not that it matters; Picard is anti-thawing, the lady doctor is... Read more

STRAIGHT SURVIVORS ARE PROTESTING JULY 18. Link via The Agitator; click here to learn what a “Straight survivor” is, if you haven’t been following this. Read more

I NOTE that although I said (or strongly implied) that I did not write “a long post about [surrogate motherhood], with much quoting of Maggie Gallagher and such,” in fact I did write a long (long, long, long post a-winding) post about etc. Apologies. The Rat will know which dead famous dude (Pascal??) apologized for writing such a long letter, saying that he had not had time to make it shorter. Meanwhile, why not enter my contests? Read more

THE BEAUTY MYTH: A while ago, I skimmed Naomi Wolf’s well-known book. Wasn’t super impressed with it. I assume some of the stats that have been attacked by Wolf-detractors are bogus (e.g. how many women die of anorexia in the USA per year). Haven’t really looked into it. But I do think the language of “the beauty myth” might be useful. Not as an attack on female beauty or beautification techniques. Most women are beautiful most of the time; and... Read more

QUESTIONS ON SURROGATE MOTHERHOOD: I thought about writing a long post about this, with much quoting of Maggie Gallagher and such, but I don’t have time for more than some scattered thoughts. How is surrogate motherhood better than infidelity? A man is using a woman for pleasure–in this case, the pleasure of children, not the pleasure of sex. But sex and reproduction can’t be so easily unhooked. The Church identifies a unitive and a reproductive purpose for sex–it unites two... Read more

USES OF THE POSE: Was thinking more about the Twain/Borges post below, and realized that I’d overlooked one of the major benefits of the human love of poses. A pose can be a stance we take on while we’re trying to work out the kinks in a worldview. We often intuit some kind of connection between seemingly disparate* positions–especially in the realm of aesthetics. Political and philosophical movements often have some style of art associated with them–socialist realism, romanticism, the... Read more

POETRY WEDNESDAY: The Oligarch contributes; De Feo protests too much. And what about me? I give you Seamus Heaney, “The Skunk“: [clipped] Read more