If it’s Super Bowl season, it must be time to talk about what ads did — and didn’t — make the $3 million commercial cut. Last year, all the fuss was about the ad with Tim Tebow and his mom (which turned out to have such a gentle pro-life message as to be lost on … Read more
The pro-life group LiveAction released a video earlier this week where members posing as sex traffickers received advice on their “business” from a New Jersey Planned Parenthood clinic manager. Yesterday, the clinic fired that manager. Today, LiveAction released a second video that shows a similar scenario playing out in a Richmond, VA, clinic. LiveAction president … Read more
Yeah, that about sums it up: Hope any IC readers out there who got buried in this latest blizzard are keeping warm! And remember, when shoveling snow, lift from the knees. Or, you know, make your kids do it.
The protests in Egypt may continue unabated, but not everyone is so ready to see Hosni Mubarak removed from power. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, many of the nation’s minority Coptic Christians are concerned for their future in an unstable Egypt: Fear of what may follow the removal of Mr. Mubarak, … Read more
Many people have commented on the speed with which John Paul II seems to be progressing toward sainthood, with some raising questions about whether it’s appropriate. Over at the National Catholic Reporter, though, John Allen says that John Paul isn’t the first to travel quickly through the process — just ask St. Francis (18 months … Read more
Gerry Garibaldi, a teacher at an inner-city school in Connecticut, talks frankly in an article for the City Journal about why his kids are failing in school — and why the problem won’t be solved by more money: Thanks to the feds, urban schools like mine—already entitled to substantial federal largesse under Title I, which … Read more
Great news for the city of Baltimore: A federal judge has struck down a law that would require crisis pregnancy centers to post signs saying that they don’t provide abortions, or pay a fine. Steven Ertelt reports: Stephanie Rawlings-Blake, the former city council president who is now the mayor, sponsored the measure that the city council … Read more
Good morning! Time for a few Friday links to get the day rolling: Protests against the president in Egypt are heating up — and so is the pushback from the government and police. There are reports now of Internet and cell connections being cut off (social media sites being one of the only reliable ways … Read more
I’ve mentioned IC contributor Tony Esolen’s new book, Ten Ways to Destroy the Imagination of Your Child, here on the blog before, but with all the flap over Tiger Mothers in the past couple of weeks — as well as Elizabeth Scalia’s recent article on encouraging wonder, not just rote learning — I couldn’t pass … Read more
I wasn’t able to catch last night’s State of the Union address, so I’ve been poking around this morning to see what I missed. (I might start with reading the full text of the speech here. Apparently there was something about salmon…?) The Wall Street Journal sums up what I’ve been seeing in a lot … Read more
Over at First Things, Elizabeth Scalia has an interesting column on the dangers of valuing “credentials” over a curious mind: To become educated is a marvelous thing; to have the opportunity to study is a privilege too many take for granted. But have we become a society that places too much weight on the attainment … Read more
A little more than a week after three Anglican bishops were ordained as priests in the new ordinariate in England, Our Lady of Walsingham, another wave of converts is announced: Seven Anglican priests and 300 members of six congregations are to join a new section of the Catholic Church, the Catholic Diocese of Brentwood says. … Read more
Big news today in episcopal appointments: Bishop Robert Vasa of Baker, Oregon, has just been tapped as coadjutor bishop of Santa Rosa, California. According to Whispers in the Loggia, the current bishop of Santa Rosa, Bishop Daniel Walsh, will turn 73 in October, meaning that Bishop Vasa could be taking over the reins of the … Read more
Happy Friday morning! Just a few links to get the day started: “The Man Who Loved Women Too Much“: A profile of pro-life lawyer Harold Cassidy… in Mother Jones. The author clearly isn’t too keen on his position, but he seems to have at least a grudging respect for the man. The wild and wooly … Read more
I’m only just now reading through the full account of the charges being brought against Philadelphia abortionist Kermit Gosnell, who was arrested yesterday and charged with eight counts of murder. It is painful, stomach-churning stuff. As the district attorney’s office put it, “Pennsylvania is not a Third World country” — and yet this man was … Read more
You might have seen the New York Times article yesterday that made a serious claim about the Vatican’s response to the abuse scandal in Ireland — namely, according to its original title, that it “warned bishops not to report child abuse.” That incendiary title seems to have been changed today, but the charge is largely … Read more
Last year I blogged about the film Des Hommes et des Dieux, the story of the Trappist monks of Tibhirine who were murdered during the 1996 Algerian civil war. CNA now reports that one of the survivors of the attack on the monastery, Brother Jean Pierre Schumacher, gave an interview with the Spanish weekly Alfa … Read more
The author of a new book on Galileo claims that the scientist’s greatest contribution to theoretical physics came about, ironically enough, from thinking about the dimensions of Dante’s hell: In 1588, when Galileo was a 24-year-old unknown, a medical school dropout, he was invited to deliver a couple of lectures on Dante’s “Divine Comedy.” Many … Read more
Happy Friday! A few links to get the day started: It’s official: John Paul II will be beatified on May 1 this year, Divine Mercy Sunday. After an incident where the child of a lesbian couple was asked to withdraw from his Catholic school, the Archdiocese of Boston has issued a “no discrimination” policy in … Read more
A Catholic diocese in Australia is trying something new in its school classrooms: meditation time for students. Something tells me that Zoe’s “Tiger Mom” wouldn’t approve: If children are over-stimulated we rob them of something precious: being allowed to “just be” where children discover their own inner sense of who they are. Hijacked by a … Read more