if I had one. A reader writes: I’ll go back to grovelling in a moment, but a funny thing happened yesterday. As I was despairing your absence from the Dark Tower during your trip to Alaska, I was wondering what I was going to read while you were gone. The OBVIOUS answer is of course, more Mark Shea! How is it that the day you leave for Alaska, a copy of your book becomes available to me at the first... Read more

I think “two-faced” is way too harsh since it suggest deliberate deception or hypocrisy and I’m skeptical that this is really the case. Likewise, I think “ideology” is a poor choice of words here, precisely because I don’t think PIXAR is promoting ideology–and that the proof of this is precisely the fact that it makes films that seem not to be aware that they send messages which are not easily reconciled. I think the reason for that is that the... Read more

One of the things you notice as you survey the Christian world is that people can be grouped according to self-chosen societies such as Dominicans, Presbyterians, Jesuits, etc. But in another way, people who appear to have nothing in common and who are, in fact, mortal enemies can oddly resemble and even need each other. It’s something of a cliche to note that not a few involved in the Catholic apologetics community (particularly on line) could use an estrogen injection... Read more

This does not appear to be a joke. Read more

Youth are attracted to the heroic gesture as surely as iron is attracted to a magnet. Case in point, the delightful spectacle of a Young Bright daring the howling mob of crazed Ned Flanders to burn him out of his towering Laboratory of Reason and Science: The only true flames are those struck upon the torches of deluded mobs; packs of the faithful and the certain who seethe with those absurd myths. To defend against them, to erode those illusions,... Read more

We kill people as a “deterrent” by sealing the execution away from all eyes that might conceivably see and be deterred. We demand that the one person in our civilization vowed to “do no harm” be the killer. And we talk about doing it “humanely” while thinking up ways to inflict excruciating pain on the condemned. Of course, death penalty zealots, who don’t even want to pause in inflicting the death penalty when there’s a pretty good case that the... Read more

In honor of my sojourn in the Untamed Land of the North (and of my late minion, Chris Kinney of Anchorage, who thoughtfully distracted the two giant moose while I got my luggage and invaluable self to safety (hey! What are minions for?)), I would like to offer you this 1986 Soviet film based on Dr. Seuss’ Thidwick, the Big-Hearted Moose. It’s called “Welcome”. Chris did an outstanding job of organizing the Theology and Brew session at the Snow Goose... Read more

A reader writes: David Otteni is in Hospice care at Evergreen Hospital in Kirkland. He has a severe staph infection in his bloodstream, along with a stroke and an already weak heart following the aneurism surgery earlier this year. He has stopped all treatment (large, but pretty much ineffectual, doses of antibiotics, and kidney dialysis) and is just getting pain relief. He probably has anywhere from 1 to maybe 5 days left. I visited him on Saturday morning. Please pray... Read more

If you go here, you can help Pansy Moss, who is in desperate straits and can use all the help she and her seven kids can get. Please note that our mission as Catholics is not to adjudicate the sins of any party in this tragedy in our comboxes. When people issue a cry for help, our task is not to stand there taking sides, passing judgment, and ending up in a shouting match over which party is most to... Read more

I’m majorly swamped with a backlog of stuff to do after my sojourn among the moosen (one ox, two oxen. One moose, two moosen.) So, as a sop, here’s an oldie but goodie that Inside Catholic happened to run this weekend. Back later when I dig out from under. Read more