We’re preparing for yet another houseload of company tomorrow, over here (marry into an Italian family, and this never ends…) but I just did a quick look around and found that the Dominican Nuns at Summit are now offering their hand-saving creme-inna-jar. This is fabulous. Especially in winter, the nuns hand creme is an every-day-must-use around here. Do check it out. Their gift shoppe page seems to be having a problem, though…hopefully that will be cleared up quickly. No, FTC,... Read more
Given the dishonest, troubling and bizarre move by this administration to define journalism by who does or does not make them uncomfortable, and to actively work to shut down those outfits they don’t like, I heartily recommend that you pick up a copy of Terry Pratchett’s novel The Truth. The Truth is yet another excellent entry into Pratchett’s marvelously wrought, satirical Discworld; we meet William de Worde, a fellow who manages to reluctantly invent journalism when he encounters some dwarfs... Read more
Via Brutally Honest, who finds the best videos. Read more
I watched this video just before turning in last night, and awoke with it still in my head: For those who are unfamiliar with the story of Jillette and Bible, you can come up to speed here; Jillette movingly describing his encounter with an Evangelical Christian fan who loved him enough to give him a Bible. Although he is a professed atheist, Jillette understood and appreciated what the fan had done. In both videos, Jillette’s willingness to be naked in... Read more
Because she makes some really egregious mistakes over there at MSNBC (one of the White House Designated “Real” News Channels), so I want to know. I mean, during the summer, Brewer did some primo race-baiting as she (and others at White-House-Approved-and Met-With) MSNBC went out of their way to hide the race of a videotaped, gun-carrying tea-partier (ahem, he was African American) in order to suggest that the rally attendees were all a bunch of ignorant white racists who were... Read more
Ah, we’re coming up on that time of the year again, when I start hawking the wares and various gift ideas and products offered by religious and charitable organizations. (Full disclosure: these Norbertine Sisters of Tehachapi, CA don’t know me from Adam, and this post generates no monetary kickbacks or material compensation of any kind, to me. ) How boring that thanks to this incredibly intrusive government, I’m going to have to keep writing that. Anyhow…you’ll note the Dominican Nuns... Read more
For a Benedictine, I do seem to write an awful lot about Dominicans and particularly about St. Catherine of Siena. Kind of odd, don’t you think? My latest on the Unforgettable Catherine can be found on the First Things Home Page today, a review of Edmund G. Gardner’s The Road to Siena; The Essential Biography of St. Catherine, and I think you’ll enjoy it. Please check it out and I’ll be back with a round up of Catholic/Anglican reactions and... Read more
As I and others guessed yesterday, the announcements coming out of Rome and London today are big but not all that surprising. Damian Thompson has the first threadbare report: The Vatican has announced that Pope Benedict is setting up special provision for Anglicans, including married clergy, who want to convert to Rome together, preserving aspects of Anglican liturgy. They will be given their own pastoral supervision, according to this press release from the Vatican: “In this Apostolic Constitution the Holy... Read more
So, the big news ’round these parts, since I returned from my little getaway is that Gateway Pundit has joined the roster of First Things Blogs! I don’t know any blogger who is more prolific, more passionate and more hard-working than Jim -and he keeps a busy eye on foreign news, too- so this is going to be a boon to the First Things site, and to First Things readers. More coming up about that in a bit, but first... Read more
First the atheists began an ad campaign in London, and now atheists are getting ready to advertise that they are “Good without God”. Starting next Monday, a coalition of local groups will run a monthlong advertising campaign in a dozen Manhattan subway stations with the slogan “A Million New Yorkers Are Good Without God. Are You?” The posters also advertise the Web site BigAppleCoR.org, which provides a listing of local groups affiliated with the Coalition of Reason, the umbrella organization... Read more
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