— 1 — Here’s the most fun you’ll have since slime molds mapped your public transit. Scientists are using ants to model stampedes and other chaotic ways humans move around. It turns out that ants (and probably also people) exit more quickly and safely when the doors are partially obstructed. If an exit is partially blocked, people tend to wind up in more of a queueing pattern than when they all rush a wide open door in unison. — 2... Read more
In 2014, I’m reading and blogging through Pope Francis/Cardinal Bergoglio’s Open Mind, Faithful Heart: Reflections on Following Jesus. Every Monday, I’ll be writing about the next meditation in the book, so you’re welcome to peruse them all and/or read along. I’m pulling out a longer quote from Open Mind, Faithful Heart this week because I at least should probably hang this one over my bed or something. In our sinful human heart, as well as in our mysterious clinging to the realm that Paul... Read more
At The American Conservative today, I’m discussing a new method of recording oral histories that would let museum curators tweak the words and even the facial expressions of the interviewee long after they have died. For now, the goal is to make oral histories responsive and interactive–giving viewers the chance to ask the hologram questions and have a computer pick the right clip on the fly, so it feels like a conversation. The pilot test is being done with Pinchas Gutter,... Read more
Patheos is celebrating it’s fifth birthday this week, and they’ve asked us bloggers to reflect a little on our time here and to share a little list of recommended posts. It so happens, when I was poking back in my archive, that I noticed that my blog is about a month away from it’s four year anniversary, since I started it during the summer before my senior year of college. I’ve done the math, and it looks like I’ve racked up... Read more
I find today’s Mass readings particularly wonderful, for reasons that I think are plenty enjoyable for non-Christians, too. In this selection of Luke’s Gospel, we hear about the experience of two of the disciples who are travelling on the way to Emmaus. They are joined by a third traveler, who seems ignorant of the recent death of Jesus in Jerusalem. The two disciples explain what has happened, including the rumors that their teacher’s body is missing. And then… And he... Read more
This month, the saint I drew from Jen Fulwiler’s Saint Generatorisn’t actually a saint at all yet. I pulled out Blessed Bernard Scammacca. He turned out not to have a wikipedia page, but, when I went a-googling, I found this in a compendium of lives of Dominican saints: Bernard Scammacca was born of a noble family at Catania in Sicily. His youth was spent in sinful disorders, but a wound which he received in one of his legs proved the... Read more
— 1 — I’m on tenterhooks waiting to get my copy of Andre the Giant: Life and Legend, which I preordered immediately after reading this review of the graphic novel. CA: The way you draw him, the thing that I really notice is that you’re always doing these close-ups of his hands, either contrasting with other people or just with the tiny little neck of a beer bottle poking out from his fist. BB: That was the thing. I watched a lot... Read more
Ross Douthat and PEG have been having a back and forth over the possibility of communion for divorced and remarried Catholics (part 1, part 2, part 3), and my attention was caught by Douthat’s discussion of the “firm resolve” to turn from sin required to make a good confession and return to communion. He writes: To use a higher-stakes version of the professional case Gobry references — if you work at a job that by its nature requires grave sin... Read more
My most recent pieces for The American Conservative are about bargains that are questionably made and broken, and one of them is out of this world. First up, a kind of rigged deal that has probably affected every reader of this blog, followed by boycotts you may have participated in, and, finally, a disputed deal that justified the photo from space above. General Mills and Consumers’ Contracting Access to Courts In films, signing a contract is a considered, deliberate affair.... Read more
In 2014, I’m reading and blogging through Pope Francis/Cardinal Bergoglio’s Open Mind, Faithful Heart: Reflections on Following Jesus. Every Monday, I’ll be writing about the next meditation in the book, so you’re welcome to peruse them all and/or read along. In this week’s chapter of Open Mind, Faithful Heart, Pope Francis is discussing the promise of Christ’s return and the good fruits of its uncertain timing. Let’s recap that part of Christian thinking briefly using Handel’s Messiah: While we are waiting, Pope Francis exhorts us... Read more
Unequally Yoked
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In