Avalanche or blogwatch I was a snowball in hell Avalanche or blogwatch A jailer trapped in his cell… Ted Barlow: How to thank those awesome Masai who sent us cows. The comments are also good. Dappled Things: Latins vs. litigiousness; Roman exceptions; a very good post on the Curia. And the Reformation Polka (which is not as much fun as the Masochism Tango, I regret to inform you). Brink Lindsey: Fathers and Sons; people need plants and pets (this, by... Read more

SO I WAS TALKING with a friend about this. She nodded. She had just one question: “Pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian?” I wasn’t sure what she thought the right answer was. “Pro-Israel, I think,” I said. That was the right answer. “…I’d actually been wondering what you were thinking about that,” I added. She paused. “Despair,” she said. Yeah. I have a whole tangle of thoughts about U.S. support of Israel, but it all ends in utter confusion and the sense that... Read more

MODERN LOVE: Something I’ve wondered for a couple years now: Why do different disciplines use the word “modern” to refer to such different eras? In history, as far as I can tell, modernity begins at the end of the Renaissance; but modern art starts much later. Philosophy generally uses the history definition, in my experience, or a definition in which modernity starts with the Enlightenment, or with Machiavelli; and then “postmodernity” kicks off with Nietzsche. I’d be interested in any... Read more

NEW CONTEST!!!: Probably very light blogging today, but I will post a lot of stuff on Monday–the death penalty, Israel/Palestine, anything else I can think of. For now, why don’t you all busy yourselves with a contest? The new one springs off of this much-blogged news item: The New York State Education Department’s decision to bowdlerize the literature they used on statewide exams. Your task is to “edit” famous works so as to make them acceptable to the Dept of... Read more

“I’m overwhelmed. You’re all such wonderful people. Everybody has my interests at heart. Everybody wants to take me to the cops.” –Pat O’Brien, “Crack-Up” Read more

CONTEST RESULTS!!!: Well, I got the best results for the farm-bill contest, so we’ll look at that last. First let’s turn our attention to the “When life gives you lemons…” contest. 3rd PLACE: Seth J. Farber: If you had two lemons in the Reagan Administration, you would use one to add to a school lunch program, so you could count it as both a garnish and a vegetable, and you would align the other with your star chart to determine... Read more

RIGHT-LEANING LEGAL EXPERTS: If you’re in the media and looking for a list of legal experts who slant “right” (whatever that means), this link might be useful to you. Read more

POLLUTED BY WOLVES: Those who know me well know that I love wolves. Other girls had horse phases; I had a wolf phase. Such a long and intense phase, in fact, that I will not be at all surprised if some relatives send me wolf paraphernalia this Christmas. I sold my copy of White Wolf: The Wolves of Ellesmere Island (yes, they’re gorgeous, but I wanted to buy more Dostoyevsky), and I think I gave my old stuffed lupine companion... Read more

POETRY WEDNESDAY: Because people end up memorizing random things. Here are all four of the poems I know by heart. All typed from memory, whence any errors. From A.E. Housman: I to my perils Of cheat and charmer Came clad in armor By stars divine. Hope lies to mortals And most believe her But man’s deceiver Was never mine. From William Blake (all the line breaks are probably wrong): O rose, thou art sick! The invisible worm who flies through... Read more

When you wake in the night, wipe the sweat from your forehead– Blogwatch Most Horrid! Ted Barlow: Excellent post on his trip to a gun show. Read the comments too. E-Pression: Higher quicker is better; and she’s cute when she’s angry. An important document ranking the dioceses according to ordinations per Catholic. (I.e. if you have 4 ordinations out of 10 Catholics you’d rank higher than a diocese with 8 ordinations and 40 Catholics.) Link via Amy Welborn, who also... Read more