I got to hear Rod Dreher and Ken Myers (of the Mars Hill Audio Journal) discuss the Benedict Option this weekend at the Tocqueville Forum. At least 200 people turned out, so, when it came time for questions, I wanted to make sure to ask something that would help us all do something in the near term (rather than rely on Rod to make another visit to draw us all together again). I asked both speakers what they would recommend... Read more
— 1 — I know, from personal experience, that the expression “It’s like riding a bike, one never forgets” is false, but I still really enjoyed seeing the design for a bike designed to go fast, flouting all the rules for road races. — 2 — And speaking of changing standards, Nautilus has a nice piece on the efforts to replace the Platonic Kilogram (it exists! it’s in Paris) with a benchmark for weight that doesn’t require a physical object. Some... Read more
I got to combine my love of musicals and math nerdery when I covered Hamilton‘s lyrical density for FiveThirtyEight this week. If “Hamilton” were sung at the pace of the other Broadway shows I looked at, it would take four to six hours (Miranda’s guestimate was off by half). At the slowest paces, “Hamilton” would only be an hour shorter than Elevator Repair Service’s seven-hour marathon play “Gatz” (in which the cast reads “The Great Gatsby” aloud in its entirety). That show... Read more
— 1 — A friend of mine is looking for good semi-pregnant Halloween costumes (she’s not big enough to go as a globe, as she hoped). I don’t have that much to suggest (maybe you all have ideas for her?) but I do have a roundup of excellent parent-baby costumes. My favorite is the child as Max from Where the Wild Things Are, and his mom as his boat! — 2 — Also in the domain of, um, expressive things to... Read more
Over at FiveThirtyEight, I’m covering the split between Pope Francis’s adamant opposition to the death penalty and American Catholics comfort with it: In a 2013 survey by the Pew Research Center, 55 percent of Americans said they supported the death penalty for people convicted of murder. Catholics were a little less likely than other Americans to express support: 51 percent endorsed it, while 41 percent were opposed. Catholics varied considerably on this issue by race. White, non-Hispanic Catholics were much more likely... Read more
The best part of the papal visit for me wasn’t the pope himself, but all the people he drew together in his wake. I’m at First Things today, talking about how to keep making connections to all the people who filled the streets, now that we can’t rely on one big event to introduce us to each other. The papal visit drew people out, and made it easy to disclose our faith to each other. It felt like a much more... Read more
Catherine Addington has a great piece up today at The American Conservative on the way Pope Francis spoke to American Catholics, and emphasized how our American identity can be a gift we bring to the church: In his remarks to Pope Francis at Independence Hall, Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia name-dropped Alexander Hamilton in praising the contributions of immigrants to the nation’s civic fabric. It may have been a coincidence that Hamilton was mentioned just as so many people are discovering his... Read more
I’ve got more popebloggery at FiveThirtyEight, this time, looking at Pope Francis’s guidance to his brother bishops on pastoral care, and how the demographics of American Catholicism make his call hard to live up to: In his final exhortation to his brother bishops in Washington, Pope Francis urged them to find ways to encourage the spiritual growth of priests, “lest they yield to the temptation to become notaries and bureaucrats, but instead reflect the motherhood of the church, which gives birth to... Read more
Over at FiveThirtyEight, I’ve rounded up Catholic nerds and data nerds to try to answer the question “How can you tell if Francis (or any other Pope) is a success?” I actually made a bet with a friend on the success of Francis’s papacy not long after he became pontiff (and the bet comes due in 2016); it was pretty hard to find something to measure. I promise you that what we went with wasn’t this, though: PEG: I think before you... Read more
When I was complaining about a plane delay on facebook, a friend of mine generously bought me a kindle copy of Margaret Drabble’s The Millstone, and told me that I might particularly enjoy it as a recovering Stoic and Kantian. She was right. I also liked how much it reminded me of Ben Hoffman’s recent post on “Werewolf Feelings” but let’s address Drabble first. Here’s a scene where the protagonist carefully doesn’t overreach with a lover. And even then, at that... Read more
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