A little over a week ago, hockey player Sean Avery set off a tempest in a teapot by releasing a video spot in support of same-sex marriage (SSM). This was initially surprising to some observers, who only know Avery as one of the NHL’s biggest loudmouths and on-ice miscreants — though perhaps not to … Read more
Golf historians trace the invention of the great game’s basic concept to the mid-15th century, to the day when some self-flagellatory Scot, strolling the featureless wastes between pastures and the sea, came upon the deceptively simple idea of hitting a ball with a stick until it fell in a hole. On the second day … Read more
Eager not to miss any detail about the flaming ball of crazy that is Charlie Sheen, I recently spent a little time reading about his father, actor and TV-world president emeritus Martin Sheen. In some circles, you may know, Martin is recognized as one of Hollywood’s stalwart Catholics, having famously chosen his stage name after … Read more
Certainly one of the English language’s most charming grammatical dictums (okay, likely its only charming grammatical dictum) is this: “The male embraces the female.” For hundreds of years, the masculine pronoun did double duty, referring specifically to persons of the male sex and generally to persons of either sex. As such arrangements go, the “universal … Read more
I’m de-lurking, as the young people say today, to plug a video produced by my employer, TAN Books, in promotion of our title Hungry Souls, which relates accounts of and physical evidences left by apparitions of suffering souls in purgatory. (See the author’s Inside Catholic feature on Catholic parapsychology here.) As I hope the video … Read more
Weekly Standard writer Matt Labash takes to heart the dictum that to understand a man you must first walk a mile in his Birkenstocks–converting to liberalism and putting into practice the good advices of one Justin Krebs, as detailed in his book 538 Ways to Live Work and Play Like a Liberal. Labash starts out … Read more
So MLB commish Bud Selig isn’t going to overturn that call and give Armando Galarraga his perfect game. What do we think of this decision? Sports media opinions are varied, both from pundits and fans. Me? As a baseball fan, political conservative, and reflexive traditionalist… I’m torn right down the middle. Conservative arguments in favor … Read more
This sort of thing is usually Brian’s department, but I stumbled across this Youtube video, part of a long series from businessman and pop-economist Chris Martenson, and just had to share. First because it gives a little taste of how macroeconomics is darn near alchemy in its almost fanciful complexity. And secondly because of its … Read more
With the general direction of American politics trending towards more government control of ever-smaller areas of life, and with the citizenry’s ever-greater detachment from the exercise of said governance, it is rare and refreshing fruit when every now and then the people manage to strike a blow for some small freedom. I know, because I’ve … Read more
Margaret, over on on NRO’s Corner Maggie Gallagher says that Kagan will be the lynchpin for same-sex marriage in all 50 states: A vote for Elena Kagan is a vote for “marriage equality,” which features in two key cases that will shortly be before the Supreme Court: Perry v. Schwarzenegger, which arises out of California’s … Read more
Spring means baseball, and spring plus kids means Little League. And since I’m the kind of guy who presses down with his feet to counteract airplane turbulence, for me spring plus kids means coaching Little League. It’s now my fourth child going through the system, and the sixth or so bunch of kids I have … Read more
Rep. Bart Stupak’s stupaking on the health care reform bill has led Wall Street Journal columnist William McGurn to wonder if the pro-life Democratic politician, already an endangered species, has finally gone the way of the Dodo: By caving at the last hour, he discredited all who stood with him. (What does it say about … Read more
Now here’s a fascinating story. Catholic man meets Jewish girl. They marry. He converts to please her family. They have a daughter. They divorce. She gets custody. He returns to the practice of Catholicism, and takes the three-year-old daughter to be baptized without his ex-wife’s knowledge. Then a Chicago judge issues a restraining order forbidding … Read more
James H. at the Opinionated Catholic blog earlier this month had a friendly word of advice to Catholics who vocally oppose waterboarding and comparable forms of “enhanced interrogation”: stop acting like jerks. Without arguing pro- or con- (he seems to be wrestling with the question), James gives the Catholic anti-waterboarding crowd a “huge ol’ fat … Read more
The Senate’s health care reform bill is dead. So it goes. What next? Will Democrats attempt to pick off Olympia Snowe to restore their Senate supermajority? Unlikely, with moderate Dems uneasy and both liberals and moderates in the House spoiling for a fight. Will they go the “reconciliation route” and push through a scaled-down version … Read more
Two news tidbits for an overcast Friday: First, as everyone knows, my neighbors to the south in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are getting ready to vote on the Senate seat vacated by Ted Kennedy when he vacated the earth last August (they’ve been represented since by his temporary replacement Paul Kirk, whom state lawmakers appointed … Read more
It’s Christmas time again, and that means, among other things, that revelers around the world are quaffing nog, getting figgy with their pudding, and lifting their voices in song. “Christmas carols are the creed of Christendom,” wrote Frederick Wilhelmsen, and I don’t think he’s half wrong. It’s a pleasure to sing the ancient songs, as … Read more
Two years ago, the USCCB released a document of revised guidelines for liturgical music titled “Sing to the Mountains” — er, “Lord.” In its 88 mostly tepid pages are found a meditation on the scriptural and theological foundations for the use of music in worship, notes particular to the celebration of special rites within the … Read more
I was at the supermarket one Sunday after Mass when I saw them: African; first- and second-generation family, of the sort one sees even in New Hampshire sometimes. And I think they noticed me, too — for we were the only ones in the whole place wearing suits. My excuse for the suit was lector … Read more
In that passage from Orthodoxy so familiar that it is almost now cliché, G. K. Chesterton wrote that there are a thousand angles at which a man may fall but only one at which he stands. By this he argued for the unique, enduring character of orthodox Church doctrine, of the one, true, upstanding strand … Read more