One of my favorite saints and favorite popes, today we remember Pope St. Leo the Great, whose homily excerpts in the Divine Office never fail to stir me: For there are two loves from which proceed all wishes, as different in quality as they are different in their sources. For the reasonable soul, which cannot exist without love, is the lover either of God or the world. In the love of God there is no excess, but in the love... Read more
I like this piece by Tom Howard, a classics teacher who is looking at how modern students respond to Homer: But then we came to Homer. This old blind bard addresses himself to his poetic task with immense energy. And a reader does not get far into The Iliad before he finds himself hailed with the sheer zest with which Homer extols the magnificence, nobility, courage, and prowess of the heroes on both sides of that war. In the Greek... Read more
In my continuing quest to remain a dispassionate observer of Sarah Palin (even if it means I am forever to be misidentified as a “hater” by her base) I’m happy to acknowledge the former Governor’s extremely well-played strikeback at a reporter who clearly was so eager to attack her that he left himself wide open for her riposte. She quite deftly scored a “very palpable hit.” “So Palin was right once again, and once again a reporter winds up with... Read more
My Tuesday Column is up over at the home page. Call it my last bilious burp for election ’10. It occured to me that, unlike the last defeat the Democrats suffered, in 2004, this time they have not had to process their disappointment through internet apology sites and group therapy sessions, and I wondered why: Obviously, making international apologies is more glamorous than making domestic amends, but if GOP victories are the unmitigated catastrophes the Democrats and the press would... Read more
Fascinating stuff: Read more
I’ve had a few emails from people rolling their eyes at the “high drama” of Keith Olbermann’s suspension at MSNBC, which appears to have been a big nothing. He’ll be back on the air soon. A friend wondered if the whole thing was a publicity stunt. If it was, it sort of blew up in their faces, didn’t it? If they’d expected the rightwing punditry to engage in gleeful vindictiveness over his suspension, they had to be disappointed. Many on... Read more
Instapundit’s Glenn Reynolds has the read of the weekend or perhaps the whole week, in the Washington Examiner: With the election over, Republicans are arguing about whether they should address Democrats via compromise, or confrontation. Both have their places, but I have a different suggestion. Clarity. With the deficit and the debt ballooning, with the economy remaining in the tank, and with tough choices on the horizon, what Americans need more than anything is clarity about what those choices involve,... Read more
Take a moment to read Thomas L. McDonald’s insightful and humble piece on how he heard God speak to his heart and soul. There are Christians who seem to believe that God only speaks through words. This is a rather puzzling and limiting idea for a creator who gave us five senses plus an imagination and intellect. God spoke through Mozart and Bach, through Caravaggio and Monet, through Shakespeare and John Donne, through St. Thomas Aquinas and Pope John Paul... Read more
In my piece yesterday at Pajamas Media I wrote: . . .thrust-and-parry between a candidate and the media can both sharpen a candidate’s edge and enliven his footwork to his benefit; one smooth slice, well-timed, can topple both press and opponent, and linger in a voter’s memory as a satisfying match they want to see replayed . . . This is something Sarah Palin (and for that matter, the Tea Partiers) may wish to keep in mind for 2012. Palin... Read more
These great unwashed hillbillies, they’re pretty slick with teh sarcasm… President Obama explained us to us as follows: And so part of the reason that our politics seems so tough right now, and facts and science and argument does [sic] not seem to be winning the day all the time, is because we’re hard-wired not to always think clearly when we’re scared. And the country is scared, and they [sic] have good reason to be. (Just my unwashed observation: We... Read more
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