Writing at Catholic Advocate, Matt Smith suggests, “One Document Elena Kagan Might Want to Re-Read This Weekend.” Commenting on Kagan’s promise to Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) that she would take another look at the “The Federalist Papers,” Smith writes, The Federalist Papers were written after the Constitutional Convention as part of what today would be … Read more
Year: 2010
Elena Kagan’s Homework for the Holidays
Writing at Catholic Advocate, Matt Smith suggests, “One Document Elena Kagan Might Want to Re-Read This Weekend.” Commenting on Kagan’s promise to Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) that she would take another look at the “The Federalist Papers,” Smith writes, The Federalist Papers were written after the Constitutional Convention as part of what today would be … Read more
Dual Citizenship
This weekend, we Americans celebrate 234 years of national independence. For most of that time, we rejoiced that two broad oceans protected us from foreign wars and enemies. No more: The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, removed forever any doubt on that score. What is the appropriate response? To that question there is … Read more
How much stupidity and how many lies can you stuff into a single press release? Jon O’Brien, president of Catholics for Choice, has raised the bar in both categories with the following statement from today. I have bolded both the stupidity and the lies and added a few comments in [CAPS]. Do you think O’Brien … Read more
How Much Stupidity Can You Put In A Press Release?
How much stupidity and how many lies can you stuff into a single press release? Jon O’Brien, president of Catholics for Choice, has raised the bar in both categories with the following statement from today. I have bolded both the stupidity and the lies and added a few comments in [CAPS]. Do you think O’Brien … Read more
Blogosphere reactions to the New York Times piece
When I saw Laurie Goodstein and David Halbfinger’s 4,000-word article on Pope Benedict and the sex-abuse scandal in the New York Times this morning, I knew it would be a big story — but I didn’t have the time then to do anything other than link to it in my morning round-up. Since then, others … Read more
Chosen Child
My mother did not, to my knowledge, abort any of her children. I do, however, distinctly recall a miscarriage she suffered when I was twelve years old, which caused her great emotional and physical pain. I understood, from my adolescent perspective, that what was lost was somehow precious to her. As another of her children, … Read more
Taking Our Greatest Gifts for Granted
Bishop Thomas Tobin of Rhode Island, probably most familiar to InsideCatholic readers for his dust-up with Rep. Patrick Kennedy last November, has recently turned his attention to matters of considerably less interest to the national media — but one of even more gravity and importance to us Catholics: the Eucharist. …as Catholics we have the … Read more
Friday with Wendell Berry
This excerpt comes from Berry’s essay “The Body and The Earth” in his collection The Art of the Commonplace: It is therefore absurd to approach the subject of health piecemeal with a departmentalized band of specialists. A medical doctor uninterested in nutrition, in agriculture, in the wholesomeness of mind and spirit is as absurd as … Read more
Friday Free-for-All
A few links to start the day: Get ready: The New York Times has another lengthy article this morning looking at Cardinal Ratzinger’s time as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith — “Amid Church Abuse Scandal, an Office that Failed to Act” — claiming that he actually had the authority to … Read more
Loss of Language, Loss of Thought
Loss of language among the younger population — that is to say, the ability to formulate and enunciate properly constructed sentences that reflect clear thought — is growing at a staggering rate in the United States. Even among students whose academic aptitude is well above the national average, my years as an undergraduate business professor … Read more
Life Is a Carousel
Yesterday’s architectural/engineering discovery was amusing, but seemed to have a bit of actual value attached to it. Today’s is a bit harder to countenance: The Everingham Rotating House is situated approximately 40 kilometres from Wingham NSW, in the hinterland of the Manning Valley on the Nowendoc River, comprising pristine rapids and deep water with mountains … Read more
The Real Killer in ‘Psycho’
For those of you you haven’t seen Psycho and don’t know the secret of the Bates Motel… well, for one, I hope you’ll rectify that immediately. Also, you might want to skip the rest of this post. The rest of you know who killed Janet Leigh in that infamous shower scene, right? Well, turns out … Read more
Tolkien’s Catholic Imagination
Even among fantasy devotees who recognize Tolkien as the father of the modern genre, few realize that Tolkien insisted that The Lord of the Rings is “a fundamentally religious and Catholic work.” This probably comes as a surprise to most Catholics as well. Readers of The Lord of the Rings are unlikely to find … Read more
Jan’s Story and Barry’s Choice
This heartbreaking CBS report of a woman suffering from early onset Alzheimer’s has been making the rounds the past couple of days. It follows the story of Jan Chorlton, an energetic news reporter who was diagnosed with the disease at the young age of 55. Now, at 60, she lives in an assisted living facility, … Read more
Ode to Canada
Today is Canada Day — and I’m in Canada waving around a maple leaf with a bunch of other Canucks (and a few Americans). Celebrations here are similar to Independence Day in the U.S. — flags, speeches, cook outs, fireworks, parades. Americans enjoy putting Canada down (when they think of Canada at all) because they … Read more
The Anti-Federalists, the Oil Spill, and the Catholic Church
There are lessons of wisdom to be found in every folly, however painful the extraction. The ongoing, almost comic bungling efforts and non-efforts of the federal government dealing with the oil spill in the gulf is no exception. The most important political lesson is both conservative and Catholic. The conservative lesson? When dealing with a … Read more
Is it just me, or have there been more blown officiating calls this year than any other year? I mean, not just minor infractions, but big-gun, game changing, career impacting judgments of idiocy. Just off the top of my head: Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers had his perfect game go up in flames when umpire Jim … Read more
You’re blind, ump
Is it just me, or have there been more blown officiating calls this year than any other year? I mean, not just minor infractions, but big-gun, game changing, career impacting judgments of idiocy. Just off the top of my head: Armando Galarraga of the Detroit Tigers had his perfect game go up in flames when umpire Jim … Read more
Are Apologies A Sign of Weakness?
This summer my son Chippy and I have been watching the John Ford/John Wayne westerns. So far we have screened “Stagecoach,” “Fort Apache,” and “She Wore A Yellow Ribbon.” “Stagecoach” is easily the best of the three, possessing a nearly perfect screenplay and memorable characters, major and minor. “Fort Apache” is marred, I think, by … Read more