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
Last week, New American reported on a recent study by the National Home Education Research Institute (NHERI) that shows there are now over two million children being home-schooled in the United States. Michael Smith, president of the Home School Legal Defense Association, points out that thirty years ago, there were only about 20,000. Since there … Read more
This piece by Joe Carter at First Things prompted me to think about hillbillies. It cites some studies in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology which found “that atheists and agnostics report anger toward God either in the past or anger focused on a hypothetical image of what they imagine God must be like.” … Read more
No matter how far and how superlatively the folks at Pixar push the computerization envelope, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to get over my obsession with hand-drawn animation. I can’t quite quantify/describe the difference, but I sure can “feel” it. Ryan Woodward’s “Thought of You” is the latest example over which I have … Read more
The Japanese are in the mist of a serious population decline, with one estimate claiming the citizenry shrank by 75,000 in 2009, an increase of almost 150% from the year prior. As the Japan Times noted in a 2010 editorial: The National Institute of Population and Social Security Research estimates that Japan’s population will dip … Read more
I don’t know if you’ve seen this story out of Queensland, Australia, but it’s about a 13-year-old hero named Jordan Rice. With flood waters about to wash them away, Jordan was stuck in a car with his mother and 10-year-old brother: Warren McErlean, a passerby who tried desperately to save the family when their white … 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
The miracle of a French nun’s recovery from Parkinsons through the intercession of Pope John Paul II has been confirmed by the Vatican’s Congregation for the Causes of Saints. Now it must be approved by a commission of bishops and cardinals before a date is set for beatification. But Catherine Pepinster at the Guardian wonders … Read more
From Tom Woods, Jr.’s introduction to ISI’s new book of essays, Back on the Road to Serfdom: The Resurgence of Statism: When we argue that the winds are blowing in the direction of an ever-larger role of the state in American life, we must be careful not to imply that prior to 2007-8 a broad … Read more
One of the things that has always fascinated me about “fly-on-the-wall-style” documentaries and their creators is the constant push and pull between their efforts to “just observe” and the unavoidable (and undeniable) impact a camera has on nearly every human being that has ever been the subject of a documentary film. (Exhibit A: the Maysles … Read more
Halfway through this Wall Street Journal article, I thought the author, Amy Chua, might be writing tongue-in-cheek. But the Yale Law professor and author isn’t joking. Titled “Why Chinese Mothers Are Superior,” Chua compares the parenting styles of what she loosely calls “Chinese” mothers with that of “Western” mothers, arguing that the former produces the … Read more
Some discouraging news: After more than 20 years of a slow but steady decline in both the rate and number of abortions performed in the U.S., the Guttmacher Institute is reporting a slight increase in its latest survey. The increase was just 1%, to 19.6 abortions per 1,000 women of child-bearing age in 2008, from … Read more
On Sunday, as he baptized 21 infants in the Sistine Chapel, Pope Benedict XVI encouraged parents to give their children Christian names. He said this was “an unequivocal sign that the Holy Spirit gives a rebirth to people in the womb of the Church.” The Italian media then warned parents about not using names from … Read more
In today’s Los Angeles Times, Skeptic editor Michael Shermer brings some sanity to coverage of both the shootings in Tuscon and the well-reported fish and bird deaths around the country: We live in a causal universe, so all effects do have causes, but before we turn to grand, overarching causal theories such as political rhetoric or … Read more
Pope Benedict addressed a gathering of diplomats to the Holy See yesterday, urging them to encourage religious freedom in their home countries: The Pope asked the representatives of 178 countries, as well as of the Palestine Liberation Organisation, the European Community and the Knights of Malta, to examine how well their own countries respected the … Read more
I was pretty swamped this past week, so I missed Joseph Susanka’s Patheos column on Yojiro Takita’s Oscar-winning 2008 film, Departures. If you haven’t seen the movie, Joseph’s column will make you regret your sad mistake. It tells the story of young Daigo Kobayashi, an aspiring concert cellist, who finds himself forced to return to … Read more
The shooting in Tucson over the weekend that has left six people dead, including a small child, and several others fighting for their lives is the kind of thing that can make you lose faith in humanity. Almost as discouraging has been the rush in some quarters to assign blame to various political groups for … Read more
A government study shows that fluoride levels in water and common dental hygiene products are too high. Two out of five adolescents have tooth streaking or spottiness due to excessive fluoride, and in some cases teeth can become pitted. One study mentioned in the Los Angeles Times found that prolonged exposure to fluoride “can increase … Read more
My kids really love the full-color Manga Messiah series. There’s the original book; about the life of Jesus; Manga Metamorphosis (about Acts of the Apostles); Manga Mutiny (about Genesis and Exodus); and Manga Melech (from Joshua to King David). They’re all on Amazon.com for about $10 each. My kids read and re-read these to the … Read more