The “Mosque at Ground Zero” controversy has been simmering (even boiling) for some time now, and a number of excellent (if a trifle vehement) points have been made in recent weeks, culminating in today’s decision to allow the project to move forward. This editorial from The Wall Street Journal’s Bill McGurn relates an interesting story about … Read more
As a highly-if-not-quite-exclusively visual person, this story from the University of Villanova really caught my attention: A team from Villanova University has made touring the Sistine Chapel a reality with just the simple click of a mouse. For the last two years, students and faculty from Villanova have been granted rare clearance to photograph some … Read more
I crave the indulgence of IC readers everywhere for what I am about to do, but I’ve been reading too much about the dangers of suppressing one’s anger to keep this bottled up any longer… As a fairly recent Wyomingite attracted to the state in no small part through the hope that “The Man” would be kept … Read more
From time to time, I like to think nostalgically back to those days when the “silly season” of political campaigning was actually just a season — rather than the year-round, “all-day/every-day” media construct we are plagued with nowadays. From time to time, I am also reminded that this “charming” nostalgia of mine is probably more … Read more
Like Steve, I can’t wait to start familiarizing myself with the new IC blogging interface. Maybe I should say “couldn’t wait.” I got about 37% through Brian’s exceedingly helpful “Blogging Tutorial” before striking out on my own. And striking out. I kept uploading pictures (I thought), and then being unable to find them. I think … Read more
Over at The Hermeneutic of Continuity — best “inside Catholic joke” blog name ever, by the way — Father Tim Finigan links to a very unusual Twitter account: @summatheologiae. The account’s author, whose project is described as “tweeting one article a day for your amusement and edification,” has quite a job on his hands. So far, there are … Read more
I’ve always been a sucker for those online IQ tests that ask you a bunch of fun, mostly visual/spacial questions, and then proclaim you a genius. (I’ve never enjoyed real IQ tests, though; they’re much more grudging in their endorsements.) This “Face Memory Test” from the “Science and Nature” portion of the BBC’s website has … Read more
The LA Times’ Jacket Copy blog — tagline “Books, Authors and All Things Bookish” — recently alerted me to one of the most enjoyable “quickie time-waster websites” I’ve found in quite some time: I Write Like. Based on “a Bayesian classifier” — the programming backbone for a number of ordinary, run-of-the-mill spam filters — the website is disarmingly … Read more
The Telegraph’s (UK) Damian Thompson is once again lamenting the seemingly tone-deaf Vatican PR “machine:” If I’d been put in charge of the Vatican press office with a specific brief to provide ammunition for the Church’s enemies, I don’t think I could have come up with anything better than this. Increase the penalties against abusers … Read more
Yesterday’s Las Vegas Review-Journal featured an unusual obituary for Mrs. Charlotte M. Tidwell McCourt, a long-time Nevada resident who passed away at the age of 84 following a long illness. The obituary itself is fairly pro forma, describing Mrs. McCourt’s life in terms that reveal her time here to have been both full and happy. But the … Read more
I can still vividly recall the first time I sat somewhat flippantly down to watch Akira Kurosawa’s Ran, only to discover myself mesmerized from the film’s very first scene. Its extraordinary colors, amazing visual (and acting) discipline, and strong, unsettling foreshadowing of the film’s tragic story all combined to make me instantly aware that I was about to … Read more
Despite the concerted efforts of both Laurance and Deal, I have remained iPad-less. It’s not that their praise was insufficiently encouraging; far from it. Laurance called it “the best invention since the printing press,” after all. But my innate cheapskatery (strengthened by the truly shocking amount of food my boys have been putting away of late) prevented me from … Read more
Every year, as the country works its way through the Dog Days of Summer, I find my attention drawn more and more inextricably to baseball. Perhaps it’s because early July is about the time the races really become interesting, or perhaps it’s connected to the weather. Maybe it’s just a fortuitous combination of an increased level of daylight in the summer evenings … Read more
Ionarts’ Charles Downey reminds his readers of one of the more interesting historical events being commemorated today: One hundred fifty years ago today — July 7, 1860 — Gustav Mahler was born in Kaliště, a Bohemian village in what is now the Czech Republic. Today we begin the projected Mahler anniversary year, which will extend until … Read more
This most recent press release from Relativity Media, as noted by /film’s Peter Sciretta, is a bit of a bombshell: Netflix, Inc. and Relativity Media, LLC today announced a long term agreement through which major theatrically released films owned by Relativity will be licensed directly and exclusively to Netflix for streaming to its subscribers during … Read more
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
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
Via Within the Crainium, a great little story on a clever solution devised by some Dutch architects to address the problem of traveling by car between China and Hong Kong: One of the most vexing aspects of traveling between mainland China and Hong Kong is the car travel: People in the former drive on the right … Read more
As my eldest son’s Little League season draws to a close here in town, this (somewhat tardy) story seems eerily relevant: In “Field of Dreams,” Kevin Costner’s character builds a baseball diamond out of a corn field after a voice tells him: “If you build it, he will come.” Well, now he can buy it and so … Read more
Over at the St. Austin Review’s “Ink Desk” blog, Richard Aleman has written a fascinating post on two areas about which I know nearly nothing yet which I find endlessly fascinating: the great Russian writer Aleksander Solzhenitsyn and the economic/social/geopolitical philosophy most widely known as distributism: …Solzhenitsyn, once crushed under the boot of massive centralized government, … Read more