In Chapter 48 of his Holy Rule, Saint Benedict says “During this time of Lent each [monk or nun] is to receive a book from the library, and is to read the whole of it straight through. These books are to be distributed at the beginning of Lent.” The books an Abbot or Abbess might choose for the benefit of a particular monk or nun were not always religious; sometimes fiction or secular books were given, too, and so I’m... Read more
Attorney General Eric Holder has been hospitalized with symptoms of what could be a heart attack, or a panic attack. Stress is a killer and the whole nation is under stress right now, and that’s a thought I may consider and flesh out later, but for now, let’s whisper up a prayer for his good. I know, it’s not always easy to pray for someone toward whom you may not have warm feelings, but we are called to it, and... Read more
So, yesterday was a most interesting day. Having worked until the wee small hours of Tuesday morning, I decided to sleep in a bit and then do an hour on my bike before getting down to serious work. As I biked, I checked email and learned that there was a twitterconflagration in effect, concerning this piece at First Things. As our culture wars progress, we’re apparently supposed to stake out purist territory, declare “Here I stand, I can do no... Read more
Here we are, a bare week out of Lent, and the Christians are banging on one another, as we too often do, this time about whether or not Christ Jesus would bake a wedding cake for a same sex couple. It all started with Kirsten Powers, writing at USA Today, declaring that Christians wanted to go all Jim Crow against gay couples, and adding “Maybe they should just ask themselves, “What would Jesus do?” I think he’d bake the cake.”... Read more
Peter Venkman and Ray Stantz might have been the glamor boys of the Ghostbusters, but Egon Spengler was always my favorite. I loved Harold Ramis’ dry, geeky delivery, and admired the genius evident in so many of his films. So sorry to read that Ramis has died at age 69, after a long illness. There was a sweetness to Ramis’ stuff; his work was smart, insightful and if it could bite, there was an under-note of kindness to it. I’ve... Read more
::::UPDATE BREAKING:::: The FCC is “throwing in the towel on its plans, but…only sort of. The Federal Communications Commission has pulled the plug on its plan to conduct an intrusive probe of newsrooms as part of a “Critical Information Needs” survey of local media markets. However, a revised version of the survey could raise new concerns: that it will trade its now-kiboshed news questions for a demographic survey that might justify new race-based media ownership rulemaking. read it all. :::END... Read more
I had just finished watching this video, when Marcel LeJeune sent this post of his my way, calling the it “astounding.” It’s that and more. I will tell you this: I watched the whole thing, and was fascinated, and blown away, and — hard as this might be to believe — moved to copious tears. I have seen some Catholics on Facebook say they forward through the video, only watching the last 15 minutes or so, with Pope Francis. I... Read more
Now that one-or-two members of the mainstream press are bothering to notice the FCC preparing to question their editorial processes, Ed Morrissey is helping us all get a better take on what it will look like, with this analysis at Hot Air: It’s difficult to determine any other reason for the FCC to take an interest in editorial decisions unless it wants to intervene in that process. It’s not all that outrageous to believe that the only reason a federal... Read more
It’s only taken seven years, but a member of the mainstream media is finally asking “what are they thinking?” That would be the formerly “respectable” Howard Kurtz, the Columbia J-school grad who wrote for the Washington Post and worked for CNN and the Daily Beast, before he fell from grace and landed at Fox News, where he writes: What on earth is the FCC thinking? The last thing we need is the government mucking around with news content. The title... Read more
A few weeks ago I found myself in the middle of a dust-up on social media. A supposed “fan” of Pope Benedict made a remark that, in light of what I know of the Pope Emeritus from my reading, made no sense to me. So I asked this rather cranky anonymous entity about it, and there ensued a very strange conversation; the more I quoted Benedict to this person, the angrier he or she became with me. It was the... Read more
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