This is one of those announcements I have been waiting to make for a good long while, and I am very excited to know that today is the day! Ladies and Gentlemen, it is my distinct pleasure to tell you that as of today Simcha Fisher (Somechop to her friends) will be joining the gang here at Patheos, and the gang could not be happier! Yes, that photo says “don’t get all artsy about it, just take the picture” and... Read more
Well, this is interesting. A few months ago, there were whispers that CBS News was becoming, shall we say “testy”? Let’s settle on “testy” with its award-winning, intrepid journalist, Sharyl Attkisson, because…well…she just wouldn’t leave stories alone. First it was the Fast and Furious “non-story” — nothing to see there! Then it was Benghazi — where no one knew anything, no photos from the situation room were available, some stupid video caused death and mayhem, um, scratch that, but what... Read more
I’ve talked about Helen Smith’s book Men on Strike a few times between here and First Things, (most fully here), and now I have a beautiful, pristine hard-cover copy that I can give away, today! To enter, just leave a comment below, saying “YES!” (and use you know, your real email address when you sign in to disqus, so I can get in touch with you), and before bedtime tonight I will put all of the names into a hat,... Read more
A mad, splendid story, from a time when a little madness was a magnificent thing: ANY reasonable observer might have thought Bill Millin was unarmed as he jumped off the landing ramp at Sword Beach, in Normandy, on June 6th 1944. Unlike his colleagues, the pale 21-year-old held no rifle in his hands. Of course, in full Highland rig as he was, he had his trusty skean dhu, his little dirk, tucked in his right sock. But that was soon... Read more
In Part I of my interview with Mother Dolores Hart, she shared an insight that struck me as being profoundly important to our understanding of the vagaries of love: “all love relationships don’t end at the altar”. What is love but a means to an end, the end being to become for each other a model of God? Not an idol, nor an icon/image but a model that helps us to know more fully the depths the Creator’s love for... Read more
She looks so sweet, doesn’t she? Smart, and nice and soft-spoken. And I’ve met Kathryn Lopez and she really is all of those things, plus she is a completely down-to-earth, authentic sort who would “give you the shirt off her back”, as the saying goes, if she can help you out. So, when someone like this says, “how about I interview you, regarding your book” you think, “well, this will be lovely; a piece of cake! I’ll have a gentle... Read more
As a rule, when it comes to interviewing celebrities, Tony Rossi is our go-to guy, around here. Last week, though, he could not work into his schedule an opportunity to talk to Mother Dolores Hart, the actress-turned-Benedictine-nun who was the subject of last year’s documentary, “God is the Bigger Elvis”, and this year’s best-seller, The Ear of the Heart. Mother Dolores is currently missing her cloister while she makes a major promotional tour in support of the book, and I... Read more
Tony Rossi has a terrific post up, today revisiting a great film for Father’s Day. My husband and I stopped exchanging gifts a long time ago, but he really loved Frequency, and he’s been working hard and getting sick; vegging out before a favorite movie is one of his recouping methods, so I think I’ll get it for him. If you’re also looking for something “small” to give on Father’s Day, you can’t go wrong with one of these books... Read more
“Very soon you’ll be able to boil your mother in oil on the Pont Royal–and nobody will blink an eye. What is being done to you is only a pale shadow of what is being planned for the repression of persons and the suppression of debate. The new propaganda chiefs will make Goebbels look like a schoolboy amateur. . . . If it means sweeping the streets with tanks twice a day we’ll do it. If it means pre-dawn raids... Read more
Part of my morning ritual involves logging into Twitter to see what people are talking about — to get a sense of the mood of things. Today, the mood was unnervingly manic and whirling; it gave me a sense of vertigo — really of chaos. There are simply so many scandals, so many stories, so many concerns, solutions, opinions. People railing on the scandalous garbage leaking out of the State Department. The submerged Benghazi story. The getting-lost NSA story; the... Read more
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