The restricted Google search that I just did indicates it might be. I coined the term in today’s Real Clear Books update to describe Mitt Romney’s approach to healthcare. I couldn’t use “Romneycare,” obviously because a) it is the program that Romney passed while governor of Massachusetts but effectively no longer advocates; and b) it’s basically Obamacare. Read more
Those readers who have been praying to God about my recent heart troubles can now devote their efforts to some far more worthy cause. After several weeks worth of tests, doctors haven’t found any structural damage to it. The only odd thing they detected was a number of what are called “premature ventricular contractions.” It’s a new experience for me, but both my doctor and the Mayo Clinic website agree that these are well within the range of you’re-probably-not-going-to-die. I’ll... Read more
“When you look at a glass of water, do you see it as half-empty or half-full?” is a stupid question that only an optimist would pose. It’s a way of framing the optimist/pessimist divide as some sort of cosmetic preference rather than as the stark philosophical divide it actually is. The real question is, “Is it poisoned?” Read more
When I go to Mass and learn that the presider is an African — as in, a priest from Africa, usually in the US for studies of some sort — the automatic response is a broad, goofy ginger smile. I love African priests. They come from such a different cultural template than what Americans are used to — different stories, different taboos, different everything — that they can’t help but be interesting. People sometimes complain about their accents but the... Read more
Humor usually works at the moment of awkwardness. Read more
Historians, says Philip Jenkins in his latest Real Clear Religion column, are just now starting to understand with how evangelicalism remade itself in the 1970s. He argues the professors are doing a decent job “showing how Christian movements and leaders developed during these years” but they’re not seriously grappling with pop culture. That grappling is necessary, writes Jenkins, because “those groups faced a daunting challenge in reaching out to a non-believing audience that was at first deeply unsympathetic to the... Read more
To go by some responses to my latest American Spectator dispatch, you’d think I was calling for a new secular inquisition to purge all religion from politics. Thank God a good number of readers see that interpretation for the Guinness Book of World Records-winning stretch that it is. Like most Americans, I am comfortable with a good amount of religious influence on politics and occasional nods to God from the stump. What I object to is an absolute refusal to... Read more
You’ll end up misspelling all kinds of words. Read more
The old joke goes: What did the agnostic dyslexic insomniac do? Answer: He stayed up all night wondering if there really was a dog. Tonight, as with so many past nights, my brain is on fire. This makes sleep a problem. Before I reach for a stiff drink to put the fire out, it is perhaps worth spelling out why this is the case. The problem is, I have a huge pumpkin head that houses a large and unusually robust... Read more
Remember the other week when I wrote of my crushing defeat at the hands of a 12-year-old? Well, this just happened. On to 350, then 400. Read more
Jeremy Lott's Diary
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