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
Two news tidbits for an overcast Friday: First, as everyone knows, my neighbors to the south in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are getting ready to vote on the Senate seat vacated by Ted Kennedy when he vacated the earth last August (they’ve been represented since by his temporary replacement Paul Kirk, whom state lawmakers appointed … Read more
I have found myself in a brisk correspondence in recent weeks with a Calvinist friend from my school days 60 years ago. The topic touched on in our correspondence entails the redrawing of the moral map of the universe, which has been undertaken in the West since the 1960s. That redrawing arrived on the crest … Read more
Readers here may be interested in this personal account of a Jewish woman’s first encounter with the Catholic Mass on Christmas eve. American Thinker contributor “Robyn of Berkeley” became a political conservative, and her experience of religious people drew her to church. (Certainly the reverse of the stories we typically hear.) Here’s an excerpt from … Read more
Here’s a piece by a Lefty named Annalee Newitz about the insufficiently Lefty liberal power fantasy that energizes stories like Avatar: These are movies about white guilt. Our main white characters realize that they are complicit in a system which is destroying aliens, AKA people of color — their cultures, their habitats, and … Read more
Some years ago, my kids got a computer game called Myst. It‘s a very curious game — there are no instructions, no rules, and no commentary offered at the beginning. You find yourself plunked down into a strange environment on a mysterious island. You don‘t know where you are or why you‘re there. As you … Read more
I remember when I was in the fourth grade a rerun of The Twilight Zone was interrupted by a news bulletin announcing that somebody named “Martin Luther King Jr.” had been shot. I had not the foggiest idea who that might be, but I could tell from my mom’s worried face that he must be … Read more
There are many ways to play the game of politics in America. Two of the most time-honored are the race/ethnic game and the ideological game. That is, you can play politics by making an appeal to certain ethnic/racial groups or by appealing to certain ideological groups. In 2008, the brilliant Obama campaign strategy combined both … Read more
What does Aristotle have to do with same-sex marriage? Aristotle held that the human race, in addition to being divided into male and female, was also divided into slave and free. This latter division was not merely conventional or legal; like the male-female division, it was a product of nature. Just as nature had made … Read more
A Splendid Exchange: How Trade Shaped the World William J. Bernstein, Atlantic Monthly Press, 494 pages, $30 It was the year 1600 and coffee had become wildly popular all over Europe, just as it had been popular all over the Muslim world since its discovery 900 years earlier. The sitting pope was Clement VIII. His … Read more
Racism has raised its ugly head in the presidential campaign. More exactly, talk about racism has raised its ugly head. Given that it’s a Democratic year — or, at least, should be a Democratic year — the difficult question has presented itself: Why isn’t Sen. Barack Obama way ahead of Sen. John McCain in the … Read more
None of this year’s Catholic presidential candidates (Sam Brownback, George Pataki, Rudolph Giuliani, Joe Biden, Wesley Clark, Christopher Dodd, Dennis Kucinich, and Bill Richardson) earned a nomination from either of the two major political parties. Arguably, however, the Church had its highest profile in a presidential race since 1960 with this past Democratic primary. Unfortunately, … Read more
An atheist who bears an uncanny resemblance to Jack Chick theorizes on What Rome Is Up To when a couple of Catholic sources remark that the discovery of life on other planets poses no particular threat to the Catholic Faith. This piece is a classic example of how sin makes you stupid. Our Bright knows … Read more
As a long-time fan of Star Trek, I have to say that the Prime Directive is majorly stupid and incoherent. Now, I realize I risk alienating a large number of people simply by speaking seriously about Star Trek. So I will hasten to add that I’m not one of the “Get a life!” people who … Read more
The Beginning of the Gospel of Barack Obama, the Son of God (According to Mark Shea) 1:1 As it is written in the AP Manual, “Behold, I send my press corps before thy face, who shall prepare thy way.” And so it came to pass that pundits went forth into all that country, preaching a … Read more
When Senator Sam Brownback (R-KS) dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed “maverick” Senator John McCain (R-AZ), many scratched their heads. But his endorsement, which bucked the conservative establishment trend toward Mitt Romney, has provided the winning edge for McCain. Brownback surprised people with his support of McCain after pulling out of the race, … Read more
Glenn Reynolds (aka "Instapundit") is the blogosphere’s resident libertarian transhumanist. We owe him a debt for leading the charge in making the blogosphere an important counterweight to the Usual Stuff from the mainstream media. And he has lived that belief personally by becoming the single most influential member of the New Media, simply by setting … Read more
While staying in the rectory of the St. Thomas Aquinas Newman Club at the University of North Dakota, on the shelves of the guest room I noticed the B.A.C. edition of Aquinas’s Summa Theologiae. I had seen this edition before. With a few moments to spare, I took down the third part of the Summa, … Read more
Following up on his last column, Mark P. Shea argues that what unites Catholics with Muslims — and the rest of the human race — is our sense of the sacramental in the created world. Atheists tend to make treacherous allies in the Clash of Civilizations. Just when Catholics sidle up to our godless friends … Read more
On several evenings recently, my wife and I have gone around the corner to our son’s flat overlooking the harbor in our small town here on the Massachusetts coast. He had invited us to watch a television series that takes us into the day-to-day workings of Windsor Castle over the course of a year. For … Read more