Just a word for everyone re-sharing that striking and horrifying cover picture of Time magazine today. Do you see the famous Russian building which the White House is morphing into in that picture? The one that is also portrayed in my obligatory cover stock photo? The one everyone is calling “the Kremlin,” as in “Eerie Time picture shows The Kremlin taking over the White House?” IT ISN’T THE KREMLIN. This is the Kremlin: The picture is of Saint Basil’s Cathedral,... Read more
I took my daughter to play on the grassy hill by the abandoned school at the end of the street. She brought her bow and suction-tipped arrows, to practice her archery, and a plastic sword for “training.” She is always “training.” When the neighbor boys come over to play, she invites them to “train’ with her. She wants to be a ninja. The neighborhood was cooling off after a hot day. A light breeze bent the grass; starlings murmured... Read more
Last night when I went to bed, the White House was still claiming that the president had not breathed a word of classified information to the Russians last week. The whole story, they said, was wrong, and nothing of the sort occurred at all. I found a live stream of the news on CNN, where they were covering the Russia controversy. Everyone was covering the Russia controversy. Then I clicked on a link to a live stream of Fox News, where they... Read more
I didn't feel like I felt a mother ought. I didn't have the right number of children to earn any respect. Read more
Is anyone else nervous lately? I’ve been a little nervous lately. Alternately angry and nervous, actually, if I’m going to be brutally honest, and angry that I’m nervous all the time, and angry at the people who make me nervous. I wrote a whole post about all the people who are making me nervous the other day, and deleted it. There’s really no point in going into them for the hundredth time. I keep on trying to feel courageous and think... Read more
I wonder where the poor will migrate to if the middle-class Catholics manage to get their own way. Read more
Nixon was a crook. That cannot be disputed at this point. His scandalous conduct during his campaign for re-election gave the country a black eye. Time will tell if Trump is a crook. If he’s innocent, he’s certainly good at acting like he’s not. Either way, he’s giving the country a black eye. Today, after the firing of FBI director James Comey, everyone is drawing the obvious comparisons between President Nixon and President Trump, but let’s be honest with ourselves. The... Read more
I hardly know where to begin. I feel as though I had four or five blog topics picked out, but the news just keeps building up. Perhaps I’d better just go through my day yesterday in chronological order. It all started when I woke up, far too late, with my daughter demanding breakfast and my head in a fibro fog. I think I ended up serving her an ice cream cone. I checked the news, thinking it would be a steadying... Read more
The only thing worse than watching Tommy Wiseau’s heartbreaking work of staggering genius The Room, my husband says, is watching The Room while extremely hungover, which he did one miserable afternoon after a party in college. But there is something worse than watching The Room while hungover, and it’s reading Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option stone cold sober. It’s a truly baffling work, one part extended blog post, one part tone-deaf culture war manifesto, and all parts an embarrassing display... Read more
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What Would Benedict Do?
The combox is interesting lately. Oh, it’s always interesting. All three of the usual comment sections are interesting. I get comments here on the Disqus, on the Steel Magnificat Facebook page (give us a like!) and also on the Patheos Catholic Facebook page. I got called “mean-spirited” for telling people not to waste their money on Three Days of Darkness kits, which I expected. When I write a parody post there’s always that one guy who doesn’t know I’m writing... Read more