Lots of talk recently about Shirley Sherrod, the USDA employee who was fired yesterday after a video clip was released that purported to demonstrate her “reverse racism” in a speech she gave to an NAACP meeting. Andrew Breitbart, who released the tape, essentially said that the NAACP “started it” with their accusations of racism against … Read more
For someone always interested in the issues of religion and morality in comic books, today’s visit to the comic book news websites was a definite payday. First up is a self-contained graphic novel just released earlier this month, Ghostopolis, by Doug TenNapel. He’s the writer/artist who wrote some of my favorite Christian comics, including Earthboy Jacobus, … 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
Today, Patheos launches a week-long symposium on the “Future of Catholicism.” Numerous articles have been posted by various Catholic thinkers and writers, including Deacon Greg Kandra, Fr. James Martin, S.J., Thomas Peters, James Hitchcock, Barbara Nicolosi — and, coming later this week, the IC blog’s own Joseph Susanka. If I have time over the course … Read more
Last month, Governor Bobby Jindal signed House Bill 1272 into law, which gives houses of worship in Louisiana the authority to allow concealed handgun carry in their congregations. Catholics are out of luck, though: The Louisiana Conference of Catholic Bishops nipped that one in the bud. “We don’t think it is appropriate to have guns … Read more
First, Belgium banned the veiled burqa, then two months later, France followed. Spain is considering a ban as well, and while the British government has no interest in joining them, most of its citizens wish it would. But the most interesting development in the Great Burqa Debate came Sunday, when Syria’s Minister of Higher Education … Read more
This story… The driver of a FedEx tractor-trailer rig lost control of his truck on Interstate 5 after choking on some spicy pork rinds, jackknifed and came to a stop in a muddy ditch, says a Washington State Patrol trooper. Trooper Keith Leary says 42-year-old Edward Sutherland of Mount Vernon suffered minor injuries Monday. Leary … Read more
I just got back from a week-long family vacation with limited internet access, so I’ve spent the morning trying to get caught up on current events (wait, we seriously had an earthquake here?). Wading through my feedreader, an article by Kathleen Gilbert over at LifeSiteNews caught my eye (via David Goldman at First Thoughts) — … Read more
I can’t decide where I stand on the ban of the burqa (full veil) in France. I want to be against it — on the grounds of religious and personal freedom — but I see the challenges the niqab (face veil) poses to national security. It’s one thing to cover the top of your head, … Read more
The photo below was taken earlier this week by my friend Renata Grzan. Her website www.fortheloveofbeauty.com is worth visiting. Her photo evokes memories of my summers as a young boy, when days seemed long, and I needed nothing but a stick to pass the afternoon. I had invited Renata to take some photos of Chippy … Read more
The photo below was taken earlier this week by my friend Renata Grzan. Her website www.fortheloveofbeauty.com is worth visiting. Her photo evokes memories of my summers as a young boy, when days seemed long, and I needed nothing but a stick to pass the afternoon. I had invited Renata to take some photos of Chippy … Read more
The photo below was taken earlier this week by my friend Renata Grzan. Her website www.fortheloveofbeauty.com is worth visiting. Her photo evokes memories of my summers as a young boy, when days seemed long, and I needed nothing but a stick to pass the afternoon. I had invited Renata to take some photos of Chippy … Read more
The photo below was taken earlier this week by my friend Renata Grzan. Her website www.fortheloveofbeauty.com is worth visiting. Her photo evokes memories of my summers as a young boy, when days seemed long, and I needed nothing but a stick to pass the afternoon. I had invited Renata to take some photos of Chippy … Read more
This has been a bad press week for the Vatican, and is now made worse: A new Italian court-ordered study has determined that Vatican Radio’s main broadcast tower outside Rome is increasing the neighbors’ risk of cancer. “There has been an important, coherent and meaningful correlation between exposure to Vatican Radio’s structures and the risk … Read more
I admit I was taken aback by some of the comments under my article on Gov. Christie’s effort to privatize many government services, such as toll collection, etc. (“A Catholic Governor Embraces Subsidiarity“). Given the fact that Catholic teaching on subsidiarity is directly connected to the encroachment of centralized government into the lives of communities … Read more
At 5:00AM this morning, I woke for no apparent reason. Four seconds later, the house began to rattle. It was like a huge truck had driven by, shaking our home… except there was no truck, or anything like it. Earthquake, I thought. That was an earthquake. It was brief and didn’t continue so I promptly … Read more
During all the soccer mania last week, I thought it would be a good time to watch The Damned United, the (very loose) story of the rise of Brian Clough, one of England’s most successful (and colorful) football managers in the 1970s. It was a fun, lighthearted movie: Michael Sheen is fast becoming one of … 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
About two years ago, a young man — name unknown — took on the moniker of The Faking Hoaxer (TFH), and began uploading a series of astonishing short films to YouTube. These aren’t your standard videos of dolled-up teens singing along to Lady GaGa. Rather, TFH’s specialty is producing disturbingly realistic footage of fictional disasters, … Read more
Stephen Phelan, communications director at Human Life International, writes at Catholic Advocate about the alarming attempt of Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI) to investigate pro-life efforts to protect the unborn in Kenya. Reading about Kennedy’s effort to mount a federal investigation of a perfectly legal lobbying effort, you have to wonder if he is coming unglued … Read more