July 27, 2015

Do you refuse to read Orson Scott Card but not Marion Zimmer Bradley? Then you’re a damn hypocrite. And you have terrible taste in literature. Orson Scott Card is a very nice guy and a talented writer who has never hurt a fly. Unfortunately, he has an opinion you don’t like, you poor baby. Marion Zimmer Bradley was a monster. No, that’s not hyperbole: she was an actual monster in human skin. This is a woman who tied her daughter to... Read more

July 24, 2015

A burnt scroll discovered inside in the synagogue at Ein Gedi, Israel can finally be read thanks to new technology. At first considered a lost cause because it was both wrapped and burnt, University of Kentucky Professor Brent Seales were able to digitally “unwrap” it to reveal the oldest lines of Leviticus (Lev 1:1-8) discovered since the Dead Sea Scrolls. The combination of high-resolution scanning and the team’s “unwrapping” software made the discovery possible. The scroll was discovered in 1970 at an excavation... Read more

July 23, 2015

Must be a day that ends in a Y. Sally Kohn is some kind of CNN host, I guess. (I don’t have cable, so I’m going by the first couple inches of a Google search, which is as much as I care about Sally Kohn.) I assume she’s just another Sean Hannity: people paid to say provocatively stupid things in order to attract viewers so their corporate masters can sell more deodorant and cars. I tend to think people who get their... Read more

July 23, 2015

Mark Shea and I spent an informative hour on the radio with Fr. Driscoll, author of Demons, Deliverance, Discernment : Separating Fact from Fiction about the Spirit World. Check it out: Read more

July 22, 2015

You may be surprised. While there are certainly stories about knights who drowned in shallow water because they couldn’t stand up in armor, that wasn’t the norm. Read more

July 16, 2015

NEWS ANCHOR: Coming up, we have an interview with an eyewitness who drove by the site where four Marines were murdered in Tennessee. She thinks she may have seen a car displaying a Confederate flag in the parking lot. [pause] NEWS ANCHOR: Wait, this just in: Police have identified the shooter. His name is Muhamm- [stops abruptly, listens to earpiece, nods] NEWS ANCHOR: And now we go to breaking news. Caitlyn Jenner has just chosen a brand of depilatory. Phil? What... Read more

July 16, 2015

It’s county fair season here the wild parts of America, which means farm animals, tractor pulls, goat races, games, fair food, rides, and good old American small town entertainment. My wife and daughter are active in 4H, and they’re helping staff the poultry tent this week, as they do every year. My daughter wouldn’t miss one minute of it. All of the animal tents are run by 4H, which is for kids 18 years old and under who love, raise, care... Read more

July 16, 2015

This is the kind of discovery literary scholars dream of but never hope to find: a cache of notations in the handwriting of Charles Dickens that reveals lost works by major authors. Bookseller Jeremy Parrott ordered a bound collection of All the Year Round, a publication edited by Charles Dickens, from an online book dealer. The listing didn’t mention any annotations, but when Parrott began looking at the volumes he realized that not only was he holding the set that... Read more

July 14, 2015

The figures of Jefferson Davis, Robert E. Lee, and Stonewall Jackson carved into the face of Georgia’s Stone Mountain form the largest bas-relief in the world. That they also depict three men who took up arms against their nation and helped plunge this country into its bloodiest period in history, all in the name of a vile institution that even a moral idiot could see needed to end, is one of those disturbing and uncomfortable facts of history. But it is a... Read more

July 13, 2015

Last week, a group of Russian and Israeli history buffs and reenactors staged the Battle of Hattin, in which Saladin routed the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem near the same extinct volcano in Israel where the original battle was fought July 3rd and 4th, 1187. Replete with swords, shields and body armor, the group marched 27 kilometers (17 miles) this weekend while re-enacting one of the most significant battles of the Middle Ages. The level of detail went down to the use... Read more


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