The race between Republican Rand Paul and Democrat Jack Conway for Jim Bunning’s old Kentucky Senate seat is getting slimy. In this latest episode, one of Conway’s supporters dressed up like a Rand Paul fan, slung a racist sign around his neck, and tried to circulate at a Paul rally. Happily, we live in the … Read more
What’s the right age for receiving the Sacraments of Initiation? Cardinal Antonio Cañizares, the prefect for the Congregation for Divine Worship, writes in L’Osservatore Romano that children should be allowed to receive the Eucharist “as soon as they are able”: Citing the 100th anniversary of Pope Pius X’s decree as a “providential occasion to remember … Read more
Politics Daily Andrew Cohen has an impressive bio: He’s chief legal analyst and legal editor for CBS News Radio, and he’s won the Edward R. Murrow Award twice. He writes for well-known magazines. Which is partly why it was strange that two weeks ago his Politics Daily column was a personal love letter. Apparently, Cohen … Read more
Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and I are both graduates of the same university, the University of Texas at Austin. When I told him this morning that the Longhorn football team was #4 in the preseason rankings, he said, “That’s good, it’s bad when they are too high.” Fayyad’s caution about his beloved Texas Longhorns is … Read more
I found a fascinating piece by a protestant minister’s wife at Musings of a Young Mom (via Danielle Bean’s shared items). She describes what happened when she and her young kids went to a playground and found an ultra-modestly-dressed Mennonite family there: A teenage girl followed a toddler around the park, both of them wearing … Read more
One of the best examples of the battle between personal freedom and government regulation is the raw dairy issue. More people are turning to raw dairy — often for health reasons — and because of this, we’re seeing more crackdowns by regulatory bodies. Just a few months ago, an Amish farmer not far from me … Read more
Steven Greydanus is at it again, coming up with millions of interesting cinematical posts that I wish I had thought of first (but never can.) This week, he’s been discussing The Best Family Films – sparked by a somewhat odd survey from the Radio Times (UK) — as well as the list’s flip-side: The greatest family film … Read more
The Latin Patriarch in Jerusalem is His Beatitude Fouad Twal. Don’t let his name or title intimidate you — the Patriarch is extremely kind and hospitable, making everyone comfortable from the moment he enters the room. Walking at his side is a parish priest, Rev. Firas Aridah, known by some Catholics in the United States … Read more
A few links to get the day started: Today is the 65th anniversary of the A-bomb drop on Hiroshima, and for the first time, America has sent an envoy to be part of the memorial services in Japan. Ambassador John Roos is attending to help advance the cause of nuclear disarmament: “For the sake of … Read more
Hebron is off the beaten track for most pilgrims, though it’s only 25 miles southwest of Jerusalem and the burial place of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Abraham’s wife, Sarah. For centuries, Hebron was a predominately Palestinian city with a small but distinguished Jewish community. Several notable commentaries on the Torah were written there. But the killing … Read more
A fascinating book review in The New Republic by Oren Harman tells the story of how the theory of infinity came to be — and how it was heavily influenced by the mysticism of Russian Orthodox monks on Mt. Athos. In 1913, the monks had been attacked and dispersed by the Russian Navy over their … Read more
According to Dahlia Lithwick at Slate, Judge Vaughn Walker’s decision to overturn California’s Proposition 8 will be difficult for the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse. That is because Walker appears to have written his opinion with one specific Supreme Court justice in mind: I count — in his opinion today — seven citations to Justice … Read more
Clergymen used to be a healthy and long-living bunch. But over the past few years, studies have shown that pastors are in worse health than other Americans. Their rates of obesity, hypertension, and depression are higher, and their life expectancy is lower. As The New York Times reports, experts don’t agree on any single explanation … Read more
How did I miss this? Jay Kennedy, an historian and philosopher of science at the University of Manchester, claims to have made an unusual discovery in the works of Plato. In short, he argues that the philosopher was a closet Pythagorean, and that he left numerous textual clues to that effect. [Kennedy] used a computer … Read more
Danny Seidemann is an Israeli attorney and the region’s leading expert on land and property rights. An immigrant to Israel as a young man and a committed Zionist, Seidemann insisted to me today that the only real pro-Israel position is one that fully supports a two-state solution to the conflict with Palestinians. “There is still … Read more
The latest issue of the New Yorker has an excellent piece on the current sorry state of end-of-life care in this country — and not because of politics, or insurance companies, or any of the usual culprits. Rather, Dr. Atul Gawande says that, however good modern medicine has become at prolonging life, we are more … Read more
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
Over at the National Catholic Register, Matt Warner looks at a study of how churches (of all denominations) and their members use social media. A few of the findings: 61% of churches use social media. 62% of churches post homilies/sermons to a website as text or audio (podcast). 28% of church pastors have a blog. … Read more
Distributism teaches that ownership of the means of production should be widespread (there’s got to be a way to say that without so many prepositional phrases!). In other words, it opposes our current form of capitalism (the means of production in the hands of very few; a near-oligarchy) and also opposes socialism (the means of … Read more
The Democrats don’t seem to have much of a strategy for winning the 2010 midterms, and the one approach they’ve been using isn’t working. The National Journal reports: Dems have tried repeatedly to tie the GOP to Bush’s economic policies, which remain highly unpopular. But so far, that hasn’t worked, according to officials at the … Read more