According to Kenneth Vogel at Politico, the fundraising powerhouse Tea Party Express may actually be a front for a Republican PAC. While others have said as much, the point was reinforced when Politico obtained an internal proposal from GOP media firm Russo Marsh & Rogers — the operation behind the “Express” — that appears to … Read more
On Good Friday, I received this e-mail from a reader in France: Your article about the shroud of Turin makes me almost hysteric, I was almost dying of laughter. Thank you for this high piece of burlesque. Nowadays, everyone and his dog knows that the shroud was created in 1347, simply in applying the shroud … Read more
On April 14, 1906, some clever San Franciscan strapped a movie camera to the front platform of a cable car, and recorded the vehicle’s slow climb up Market Street. The footage is remarkable — one commenter wrote that watching the film is like looking through the window of a time machine. But it’s even more … Read more
Maybe I have a sick sense of humor, but I got a laugh out of this one: According to the UK’s Telegraph, a desperate man in Sweden called a suicide crisis hotline to get some help. The Lutheran priest on the other end fell asleep and began snoring while the poor guy was talking. Happily, … Read more
I was inclined to be kindly disposed toward the incoming archbishop of Los Angeles. Archbishop Jose Gomez faces a thankless task, taking over a church that has just suffered a major persecution — one conducted by his predecessor in office. Whatever the legal cloud following him up from Texas, Archbishop Gomez was formed for the … Read more
I recently stumbled across a most interesting piece from a website called PopMatters that occasionally happens across my radar. The article, entitled “Mental Machine Music: The Musical Mind in the Digital Age,” is a bit long, but the questions is raises have been haunting me for some time now: I want to discern how, precisely, … Read more
to find that, when otters paint, they paint like otters: Kind of reminds me of homeschool. Everything reminds me of homeschool.
This is a neat story: The remains of a soldier killed at Pearl Harbor are finally going home after having been unidentifiable for 68 years. The family was able to help experts positively identify the body by providing a DNA sample for comparison . . . from the letters he had mailed home to his … Read more
The nation of Poland is still in shock over the plane crash that killed 97 people, including President Lech Kaczynski, first lady Maria Kaczynska, the national bank president, the deputy foreign minister, the head of the National Security Office, the deputy Parliament speaker, the Olympic Committee head, two presidential aides, several priests, and 17 … Read more
I’ve been an ardent and loyal fan of Tiger Woods since the beginning of his historic career. I’ve defended many of his outbursts as behavior he would one day leave behind. Well, if he were going to leave it behind, it would have been at the 2010 Masters, where he returned to golf after a … Read more
I’ve been an ardent and loyal fan of Tiger Woods since the beginning of his historic career. I’ve defended many of his outbursts as behavior he would one day leave behind. Well, if he were going to leave it behind, it would have been at the 2010 Masters, where he returned to golf after a … Read more
I’ve been an ardent and loyal fan of Tiger Woods since the beginning of his historic career. I’ve defended many of his outbursts as behavior he would one day leave behind. Well, if he were going to leave it behind, it would have been at the 2010 Masters, where he returned to golf after a … Read more
Benedict has been a great pope. His Regensburg Lecture will be admired for centuries. His encylicals, though dense, are profound and illuminating. And he is arguably the world leader in helping rid an institution of child sexual abuse. That said, all popes are fallible. Even Peter denied Christ three times. In the case of Benedict, … Read more
I haven’t taken a poll, but I think I’m the only blogger on this team who bought too many eggs for Easter and too much matzo for Passover. This sounds like a job for . . . matzo brei! This is a lovely, easy recipe for a tasty little dish suitable for breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack, dessert, or … Read more
Science is mankind’s great success story since the Renaissance. Only the most obdurate Luddite can regret the computer chip, the Hubble telescope, and the heart bypass. But these material triumphs have come at a philosophical cost. The scientific method has been so successful in its own sphere that many intelligent people think it the only … Read more
Here are two items I’d like to bring to your attention: This is the third day of a novena for Pope Benedict initiated by the Knights of Columbus. It began on Divine Mercy Sunday and ends on Monday, April 19, the fifth anniversary of the pope’s election. It’s not too late to join in — … Read more
Mark Chaves of the National Congregations Study has put together an interesting graph demonstrating the ways that different religious groups engage in politics. The numbers may surprise you. Chaves breaks down the results: First, notwithstanding extensive media coverage of political mobilization within conservative churches, conservative white Protestant churches do not stand out in their level … Read more
If you’re like me, every time some Web site’s security protocol forces you to use numbers in your password, you fantasize about reaching through the screen and throttling the site administrator. Well, we apparently have the right idea (not about the throttling). According to the Boston Globe, a new study — the first of its … Read more
As the Mysterious Get Benedict Society campaign to destroy Pope Benedict XVI continues shooting itself in the foot with various false starts, half-baked stories, and tales told by mainstream media idiots, the thing that continues to impress me is the sheer self-contradictory irony of the thing. It’s really quite crushing. We are instructed … Read more
Ross Douthat’s column in this Sunday’s New York Times is definitely a thought-provoking one. He notes that, whereas Pope Benedict is repeatedly pummeled by the press, John Paul II was generally well-liked, or at least respected — but that doesn’t mean that he was necessarily the better pope: The last pope was a great man, … Read more