researchers discover that nastiness is bad for you. A climate steeped in contempt rather than politeness produces contemptuous people. This bulletin from the “Water Found to be Wet” department is only controversial when we are riled up by questions of corporate vs. individual guilt after something like a major crime or assassination and everybody feels like this is an attempt to impute the crime to themselves. When the waters are not roiled by such naked attempts to make political hay,... Read more

We’re living in a time of shift concerning the notion of free speech. That’s partly because the State is increasingly in bed with the wealthy and the powerful, who have no obligation to honor the Bill of Right since they are not state actors but private citizens and corporations. So, for instance, they can use their draconian power to crush free speech for the Manhattan Declaration. Then they can use it to promote mockery of the sacrament of reconciliation. The... Read more

Today, my shuffling lickspittles, I command you to take the Our Sunday Visitor Religion Quiz. That is all! Read more

about the Creed, Chosenness, Moms who force their little boys to cross-dress, and our Glorious Multicultural Adventure in Afghanistan. Back to scribblin’. More tomorrow! Read more

…about the conversion of Blessed John Henry Newman. Read more

I’m getting fretful emails wondering what’s wrong with my email addy. Not to worry, delete my old verizon address and replace it with chez.ami -at- frontier.com Read more

A reader writes: Here I come again, hat in hand (so to speak – I have never actually worn a hat :-)), asking for prayer for another of my five children. Our youngest and her husband are engaged in serious marriage struggles, planning on divorce – and their three-year-old the potential victim of all this (at least in my son and his wife’s marriage there is no child at stake). Our daughter has now, having separated from her husband, gone... Read more

(this excludes virtually all MSM reporters on religion) will not detect a lot of railing or cracking down in this, just Benedict’s typically lucid, gentle and beautiful clarity: 11…On the one hand, we do not want to die; above all, those who love us do not want us to die. Yet on the other hand, neither do we want to continue living indefinitely, nor was the earth created with that in view. So what do we really want? Our paradoxical... Read more

Just writing to share with you the very exciting news that we are inaugurating and entirely redesigned Dappled Things website. We are also celebrating our FIFTH ANNIVERSARY! We hope you’ll help us spread the word. The new site includes: • A feature article, story, or poem on the homepage that will be regularly updated;• Social media sharing tools, comment boxes, a search tool, a news section for quick updates, and (coming soon) an RSS feed;• A page with excellent resources... Read more

FAME! Here he is, saying “Happiness is…” We suspect he will reach the other levels of happiness, since he is one of the sweetest people on the planet. To find out more about how to be happy, check out Healing the Culture. Fr. Robert Spitzer, SJ, is one of my favorite priests in the universe. Read more