It’s called Steadishots.org: A Tribute and Study of Steadicam Operators and Their Work, which pretty much says it all. OK, maybe I should clarify a bit: it could easily become my favorite website, with a little work. Right now, the list of shots is much too short for someone as obsessed with the Steadicam and its … Read more
Of course, you can go home again; it’s just not the same. I recently returned to the scenes of my boyhood in South Minneapolis, drove along the parkway to Minnehaha Falls, past the house my grandfather built from which I set off to kindergarten at John Ericson School. Above the falls — I once wrote … Read more
I have sad news to report: The great Catholic philosopher and writer Ralph McInerny passed away this morning. He was just shy of his 81st birthday. While Ralph may be best remembered in general circles as the author of the popular Father Dowling mystery series, he has a special significance to the staff and friends … Read more
Catholic News Service reports that Pope Benedict has asked marriage tribunals not to grant annulments too easily. “We run the risk of falling into an anthropological pessimism which, in the light of today’s cultural situation, considers it almost impossible to marry,” the pope said in a speech Jan. 29 to members of the Tribunal of … Read more
This month I will focus on contemporary music, by which I mean music of the 20th and 21st centuries. Music from this period has been my preoccupation: When discussions began about the possible content of my Morley Institute book, Surprised by Beauty (2002), it turned out that the majority of my columns from the … Read more
This is absolutely fantastic: BBC journalist and humorist Charlie Brooker pulls back the curtain on television journalism, revealing the pattern all network reporters follow in their own recorded segments. Have a look and you’ll never watch a news broadcast the same way again. (There is a small bit of profanity.)
Good morning! A few links to start your day: Well that didn’t take long: With CBS having already accepted Tim Tebow’s pro-life ad to run during the Super Bowl, a gay dating Web site has also submitted an ad for consideration. But as all the spots are already filled for next Sunday, it largely looks … Read more
Yesterday was the feast day of St. Thomas Aquinas, whose name I took on the day I was received into the Catholic Church almost 26 years ago. It’s hard for me to speak of the Angelic Doctor without gushing — I feel as if I know him personally, I have spent so many hours … Read more
It is not always easy to live under Islamic rule, or even under Islamic “influence.” Yet we share a planet, and with no other habitable planets within easy journey, we must find ways to get along. Consider for a moment: There are more than a million Arab Muslims in Israel. There are zero Jews in … Read more
This FOX News story on the Freedom from Religion Foundation’s strident objections to the upcoming USPS stamp commemorating Mother Teresa — (courtesy of Mere Comments) — is fascinating to me. An atheist organization is blasting the U.S. Postal Service for its plan to honor Mother Teresa with a commemorative stamp, saying it violates postal regulations … Read more
A very different set of photos from the ones I posted this morning: The images accompanying this New York Times article about the children of Haiti will break your heart. From the story: Not long after 14-year-old Daphne Joseph escaped her collapsed house on the day of the earthquake, she boarded a crowded jitney with … Read more
This has not been a good week for the University of Chicago. One of its prize manuscripts — the Archaic Mark, a magnificent copy of Mark’s Gospel thought to have been from the 14th century — was just proven a forgery. The ongoing debate as to the codex’s authenticity re-ignited in 2006 with its … Read more
Radley Balko links to an incredible Flickr set of images where modern-day scenes are overlapped with older photographs to give a seamless impression of different moments in time. Some have a great ghostly quality: While others give a startling look at just how quickly landscapes change, as in this shot of Dubai: … Read more
This has not been a good week for the University of Chicago. One of its prize manuscripts — the Archaic Mark, a magnificent copy of Mark’s Gospel thought to have been from the 14th century — was just proven a forgery. The ongoing debate as to the codex’s authenticity re-ignited in 2006 with its … Read more
President Barack Obama gave his first State of the Union address last night. With his popularity in a steady decline over the past six months, Obama needed his speech to rekindle the enthusiasm for his leadership that elected him in the first place. Thus far, there is no evidence to suggest he was successful. If … Read more
…the largest and most important and best parts of my youth I spent in Traunstein, which very much reflects the influence of Salzburg. You might say that there Mozart thoroughly penetrated our souls, and his music still touches me very deeply, because it is so luminous and yet at the same time so deep. His … Read more
In the 1930s, a young Catholic professor at Oxford University began writing stories to read his children at Christmastime. They were tales full of well-known magical creatures — elves, dwarfs, knights, wizards, witches — but what made them unique was a race of his own imagining: the noble, plump little halflings he called “hobbits.” The … Read more
Most of the Christians I know chose to ignore Pat Robertson’s recent comments about Haiti’s ‘pact with the devil’ causing the earthquake. But who would have thought Robertson’s biggest defender would be British atheist Richard Dawkins? In fact, Roberston’s comments gave Dawkins yet another reason to share his contempt for Christians… this time, in the … Read more
In a piece that could easily have lampooned several putatively educational cable stations, the fine humorists at The Onion are reporting this morning that the “Science Channel Refuses to Dumb Down Science Any Further.” “Look, we’ve tried, we really have, but it’s simply not possible to set the bar any lower,” said a visibly … Read more
Hoo boy. This story is just tailor-made for breathless secular reporting: Monsignor Slawomir Oder, the “postulator” for Pope John Paul II’s cause for sainthood, has published a book titled Why He’s a Saint that claims, among other things, that the former pope practiced self-flagellation: In the book, Oder wrote that John Paul frequently denied himself … Read more
