February 2007 Archives

Is it just me, or did it strike anyone else that James Cameron announces the premiere of a documentary film that claims to prove that the central claim of Christianity -- that Jesus rose from the dead, and through his resurrection humanity can be saved from death -- is utter garbage ... and Christians worldwide fail to burn embassies, call for Cameron's murder, or say much of anything.

Well, the Catholic League did put out a press release. So I guess Susan S. is right, and there really is no difference between conservative Christian leaders and their Muslim counterparts. My bad.

Light blogging for the next few days; I'm off early in the ayem to Anchorage, Alaska, where I'll be giving a talk at the university's student union on Thursday night (see the Anchorage paper's feature here). I won't be wearing pants, so come out to jeer. You have been warned. In the meantime, here's a missive from a reader who believes global warming has a bad name. Discuss:

What about global warming benefits?

1. Those shorter, milder winters will mean less demand for heating, which means lower heating bills, less fossil fuel burned, and fewer greenhouse gas emissions.

2. Those longer summers will mean longer growing seasons, which mean higher crop yields.

3. If global warming persists long enough, our oak forests will expand northward and yield lots of high-quality lumber for centuries.

4. The expanded warm-weather habitat means bass fishermen, et al, will rejoice.

The above benefits are not trivial (well, maybe 4.). Worldwide, they mean trillions of dollars saved in energy costs which could be used to construct sea walls to protect coastal cities (see the Netherlands). The thawing tundra is exposing millions of acres of nutrient-rich soil, and, for example, Siberia could become the next breadbasket for the entire world, alleviating world hunger. Northern Canada and much of Russia will become hospitable for civilization, and new cities could emerge, alleviating population crowding elsewhere.

I have now lived long enough to see many examples of how the media catastrophize change. I remember that, in anticipation of Y2K, we were urged to stock up on bottled water and food, buy a gasoline generator, and hoard cash to protect ourselves from the coming calamity. I remember those African "killer bees" that were moving up from South America to Mexico and were going to kill the California honeybees that pollinate our crops, devastating our state's agricultural economy. And now that global warming is about to extinguish half the species on earth I'm reminded that some of those same climatologists were telling us in the mid-70s that the next ice age was imminent!

I'm all for reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, but let's put global warming in perspective. The earth regularly goes through cycles of warming and cooling, and the geologic record clearly shows that life has been in its greatest abundance and diversity during the warm periods. Think how warm it must have been when dinosaurs existed. Those huge, cold-blooded creatures needed a lot more warmth than even the most pessimistic climatological models are predicting for the current warming period. And life flourished. The warm oceans teemed with life. Fern forests grew in Colorado.

It's global cooling that we must fear! Before this warming period started, the Laurentian Ice Sheet covered what became Manhattan Island to depths up to thirty feet! Life was not in abundance in that environment. Should the next ice age be similar to the previous ones, folks in the temperate zones will be in deep trouble. I have no idea how we would cope with the enormous demand for energy to keep warm. Maybe we'll have alternate sources of energy. Maybe we'll have to burn fossil fuels to generate greenhouse gasses. Or maybe there will be a tremendous migration to the equatorial zones which are little affected by global cooling and warming. Now that will be a population density to contend with!

I don't mean to alarm you, Rod, though we are about due for the next cooling period, geologically speaking.

I do suggest we start now to figure out how to take advantage of the benefits of global warming in addition to mitigating the disadvantages. That seems much more sensible than just hawking gloom and doom.

I hate clowns. Hate them. Mimes, by the way, are the most annoying of all clowns. And I know I'm not alone.

But even if I did love clowns, I'd still say: What the heck is wrong with the Archdiocese of Milwaukee?!? The inimitable Diogenes over at the Catholic World News blog draws attention to the archdiocesan newspaper's puffing of a priest who gads about in clown drag -- Father's nom de clown is "Stripes" -- and calls it "ministry." Writes Diogenes:

Why not feature a man who finds the spiritual satisfactions of his priestly life -- not in social work or dance or twisting balloons into animal shapes -- but in sacramental ministry? After all, do we want to entice into the priesthood the kind of 22-year-old male that would be attracted by Stripes?

Clowns belong in the circus. Priests belong in church. Any priest who dresses up like a clown forfeits any claim to spiritual authority, as far as I'm concerned. One of these days, the "Godspell" generation will pass from our midst. Hurry!

I've wondered for a while if technology would make it possible for small towns in rural areas to repopulate with knowledge workers and their families -- people who want to get out of the cities and into smaller communities, and for whom that's possible via telecommuting. The kinds of cultural amenities that people used to only be able to get in bigger cities -- a good selection of movies, big bookstores, record stores with a decent selection -- are now available over the web (Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, etc.). Plus you can order specialty foods over the Internet if you can't find what you want locally. And the homeschooling revolution makes families less dependent on local educational institutions. Point is, technology makes small town and rural life more doable for people who before the Internet wouldn't have been able to choose that kind of life without giving up their careers, or certain pleasures of city life. The idea that if you live in a small town you're going to be bored silly is outdated.

Well, Joel Kotkin says this out-migration from urban areas has actually been happening slowly for a while, and it's picking up steam. Excerpt:

Another type of Heartland growth could be described as re-emerging rural hubs. These are usually small and midsized cities that grew up during the period of agricultural expansion in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and then began to decline or plateau as early as the 1920s. Prominent examples include Fargo, Sioux Falls, Des Moines and Boise. These communities are exploiting their lower costs, good public schools, universities and better quality of life for middle-class families to lure high-end professional service firms, information companies and diversified, often innovative small manufacturers.

In coming decades, these trends may be further driven by aesthetic preferences, particularly those of retiring baby boomers, for a less dense environment. In contrast to always popular stories about people “returning to the cities”, more than twice as many adults say they would prefer to live in a rural or small town area. That is partly because most Americans perceive rural America as epitomizing traditional values of family, religion, self-sufficiency—someplace attractive, friendlier and safer, particularly for children. These views are held by the majority of suburbanites as well as by a slightly larger proportion of rural residents, suggesting that there is a large, mostly untapped market that would consider a move to a smaller community in the Heartland. As one demographer suggests, “America’s love affair with suburban life may be winding down in favor of the countryside.”

There's a discussion in the piece about Fargo, ND:

These characteristics are the main draw, particularly to relocating thirty-somethings, notes Mike Chambers, founder of the fast-growing biotech firm Aldevron. It’s an experience common to many companies in this buckle of the Brain Belt. “Wherever you go you find people who went out and came back”, says Howard Dahl, CEO of Fargo-based Amity Technologies, a fast-growing agricultural machinery firm, and former head of the local Arts Council. “We constantly get resumes from people at Boeing in Seattle or somewhere else. They don’t come for the mountains or the sunshine or the culture—they come back because of the kind of people who are here.”

Dahl, a former Lutheran seminarian, says religion also plays a major role, but not in the loud, assertive tones one might find in Houston or Dallas. “Religion and family play a huge role in everything, but it’s quiet. It’s people’s sense of ethics”, he suggests. “It’s that you care about your community and can count on your neighbors.” Such values, Aurora’s Gary Allen believes, are the real secret behind the nascent Heartland resurgence. In a town of barely 4,500, there are more than thirty non-profit foundations, with assets in excess of $45 million. It is all part, notes Gary Warren, of a community spirit reflected in the city’s extensive recreation facilities, its well-maintained central square, library, senior center and museum. “Community building is a way of life here”, Warren offers. “You give to your community the way you give to your church on Sunday. It’s the essence of what it is to live here, and it’s why people decide they want to come here.”

Having grown up in a good small town, I would caution against idealizing any place. It can't be said often enough that as long as cable/satellite TV exist, there's no way to escape popular culture entirely. But boy, I sure would love to be able to live here, even if there were no jobs for me there.

Cardinal Egan of New York, a real class act. I'm in no position to say whether or not the parish should have been closed, but to do it like that? Wow.

The new issue of National Geographic has a big feature on how Orlando, Fla., is pioneering the template for American living in this century. Here's how writer T.D. Allman starts his piece:Everything happening to America today is happening here, and...

Here's a good overview of the Muslim demographic situation in Europe, how it came to be, and prospects for the future -- this in a just-released paper from an Israeli professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern Studies. Highlights:+ The aftermath...

I've been corresponding with a reader of this blog, a distinguished left-liberal journalist and commentator who writes frequently about war and foreign affairs. With his permission, I quote from the exchange, which began off my quoting the Nick Cohen essay...

Turns out the head of the E.F. Schumacher Society, based in the Berkshires of Massachusetts, is behind an interesting scheme to encourage the development of a local economy: the use of a currency only valid in Berkshire County. Reports the...

...please proceed to Sy Hersh's big New Yorker story and untangle the meaning for us. Best I can figure is a) the Bush administration is planning to attack Iran (which I completely believe, despite the denials), and b) whatever the...

Some years ago, First Things caused a massive row after publishing a symposium around the question of abortion, the judicial usurpation of politics, and the legitimacy of the American government. At hand was the question of, in the words of...

Please pray for my friend and fellow blogger Dom Bettinelli and his family. His wife Melanie had a miscarriage. Good people. They need our prayers....

There was an interesting piece in yesterday's NYTimes opinion section, showing graphs from the General Social Survey tracking the change in Americans' opinions on particular issues over 34 years. The link to the short accompanying essay is here, but you...

Another one for the Get Religion analysts: today's Wall Street Journal (sub.req.) features an informative front-page story on the rise in anti-Shia fear, even fanaticism, in Bahrain and elsewhere in nations governed by Sunni Arabs. The story, by Andrew Higgins,...

I wish I could think of a single interesting thing to say about the Oscars. Time was when I really cared about them (well, I was paid to care about them, but aside from a professional interest, I really did)....

Writing in yesterday's Wall Street Journal -- the essay is not on the web, yet anyway -- the left-wing British journalist Nick Cohen excoriates left-liberal Europeans for selling out all their principles to embrace "ultra-reactionary [Islamic] movements", versus America. How...

Steve Sailer's column on the chicanery of No Child Left Behind is yet another reminder that we can try all the government schemes we want, but nothing is more important than personal culture in the education of students. We don't...

How in the name of all that is good and holy is American strategy in Iraq once again dependent on that weasel Ahmad Chalabi, who helped manipulate us into this stupid war? 2008 cannot come fast enough....

This week's Bible Girl column tells an incredibly grim and graphic -- you have been warned -- tale of an influential black Pentecostal minister in the Dallas-Fort Worth area who has been formally accused of multiple counts of rape and...

If you've ever wondered what a middle-aged New Jersey suburban yenta looks like trying to act like a stripper at a kaffeeklatsch, check out today's NYTimes. From the story:Now the pole — think ballet barre turned vertical — is the...

John Allen, the widely respected Vatican reporter, cuts loose on the British media for their irresponsible religion reporting. Without mentioning names, he basically turns the Times of London's Ruth Gledhill into a smoking ruin. Here's his conclusion, and God bless...

Via Daniel Larison, here's a rather diverting passage from Myrna Minkoff Marcotte's latest epistle to the sexually unenlightened:I think that abortion is not only a good thing, but I’d like to posit that it seems to me that in the...

Here's a good one for the Get Religion gang. Jim Schutze of the Dallas Observer has an excellent column this week about the role that syncretist Latino-African religions play in the local crime scene -- this, off police in south...

Hard-to-read story on today's Times front page, about the heavy cost being paid by families of men serving in Iraq, but full-time soldiers and reservists. Here's the lede:In the nearly two years Cpl. John Callahan of the Army was away...

Mark Sanford, the Republican governor of South Carolina, laments that the GOP is continuing to blow an opportunity to be relevant to the climate change debate. Excerpt:I am a conservative conservationist who worries that sea levels and government intervention may...

Peggy Noonan says that Obama backer David Geffen's attack on Hillary Clinton this week shows her vulnerability. Noonan paraphrases Geffen's attack on his old friends the Clintons like this: "I've known them intimately for almost 20 years, and they're bad...

An entire generation of videogaming has passed me by. The last time I was into videogames was round about the time that Atari came out with its supercrappy home version of "Pac-Man." I was a big fan of Atari's "Missile...

The Catholic apologist Mark Shea has some good thoughts on what he wants potential Catholics to know before entering the Catholic Church.Excerpt:The main counsel I give anybody coming in to the Church is that "faith" means "you stay." The Catholic...

Interesting set of comments from The Guardian today, from British troops serving in Iraq, on the UK war effort there. Excerpt:A corporal in the Queens Dragoon Guards who has been on three toursI feel sorry for some of the true...

A friend and reader of this blog writes:The problem with the need for authority, or authority figures, is this: Every time you turn around authority figures are behaving in ways that indicate they don't deserve to be authority figures. You...

A soldier writes to Andrew Sullivan about the disgraceful conditions at Walter Reed Hospital's outpatient facilities:My only hope is that this causes a ground swell of both concern AND action. It's one thing to say "those poor Soldiers. Damn this...

Remember when I said the other day that our newsroom was looking into an Orthodox scandal? It's on the DMN's front page today: the longtime pastor of Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church here in Dallas has been suspended from ministry...

This burns me up. Excerpt:The Pentagon is planning to send more than 14,000 National Guard troops back to Iraq next year, shortening their time between deployments to meet the demands of President Bush’s buildup, Defense Department officials said Wednesday.[snip]Changing the...

From the head of a liberal Episcopal organization, collected and posted on Fr. Kendall Harmon's blog:The Sunday after General Convention I returned to my home parish for Gay Pride Sunday and participated in a Disco Mass for which gays and...

Guilt is the ruling emotion of every credal culture; those inside such a culture are compelled to responsibility for themselves. This is to say that they must act entirely within the enclosing symbolic. Any other action is transgressive. The enclosedness...

This press release flopped over the transom just now. If this is not a joke, clearly KFC has decided to give up good taste for Lent. "Modern Take on 'Loaves and Fishes'" -- good grief!:KFC Appeals to Higher Authority by...

For our Western Christian brothers and sisters, a blessed Ash Wednesday to you, and welcome to Lent. This morning I was up early, and had time to follow the link a reader posted in a combox yesterday, to an interview...

In Britain's Daily Telegraph today, a former editor of the Catholic Herald urges fed-up Anglicans thinking of swimming the Tiber to safe shelter in Rome to discard any illusions they might have before doing so. She writes:Editing the Catholic Herald...

Tony Blair will reportedly announce in Commons tomorrow that his government will withdraw about half the British force in Iraq by Christmas. Then, no doubt, the Shia militias will turn on each other in the British-patrolled south. Anyway, there goes...

The Anglican Communion bishops wrapped up their meeting by telling the Episcopal Church that it has until September to formally ban same-sex blessings and the ordination of sexually active gays and lesbians, and it has provided for alternative pastoral oversight...

Reader Rob Grano found this in the Touchstone magazine files, from 1999. Touchstone, in case you don't know, is an ecumenical Christian magazine whose orientation is orthodox and traditional. Father Patrick Reardon wrote it in the name of the editors....

A colleague came by just now to say, "You've got to watch this Anna Nicole hearing. That Florida judge is a nut." I've had it on for 10 minutes, and boy, it's true. Broward County Circuit Court Judge Larry Seidlin...

A reader writes to say he found the following comment from the "Retroculture" thread very telling:“Believe me, premium cable beats the hell out of weeding a garden any day of the week.”He adds:I guess that is the most concise statement...

I'm late getting to this, but the WaPo published a stunner of a piece this past weekend, detailing the abysmal conditions our wounded soldiers are having to endure as outpatients at Walter Reed Hospital. Un-freaking-believable that we would ask these...

Dean Abbott ponders the sadness of it all. Excerpt:Though these women ultimately stand accountable for their choices, the rest of us are not innocent in their fall. A prime characteristic of the media age is that even when we want...

Forgiveness Vespers mark the start of Lent in the Orthodox Church. It includes a lengthy ritual in which each member of the parish personally asks for (and offers) forgiveness to each other member of the parish. The Drehers weren’t able...

Paul Weyrich and William Lind have already begun rethinking the future of post-Bush conservatism, and have published an American Conservative cover story that once again shows why the magazine is vital to keeping fresh thinking alive on the Right. They...

I use this blog to think out loud, and through your comments help me to refine my own thinking, and form my opinions. What follows is only that: thinking out loud, trying to put down some inchoate thoughts, in the...

I nearly choked on my (creamless -- it's Lent) coffee this morning when, in the NYT story about how Hillary-hating ain't what it used to be, I read this passage:Mr. Scaife, reclusive heir to the Mellon banking fortune, spent more...

Here's my column from yesterday's Dallas Morning News, in which I take on the local Catholic bishop for saying local authorities who are trying to keep illegal immigrants from moving to their town are the same kind of people who...

I ought to have learned right now that nothing comes between Jonah and his shtick, but for the record -- and once again, despite the straw man that has the durability of Rasputin -- I do not believe organic produce...

What do you get when you cross Anna Nicole Smith and Sinead O'Connor?UPDATE: On the other hand......

The LA Times reports today that many churches have quit burning palm fronds from the previous Palm Sunday to make ashes for Ash Wednesday services, and instead order them from an ashes supply shop. "It's just a lot easier and...

David Brooks observes today (behind TimesSelect) that the once widely-held belief in goodness as the natural state of mankind has faded. Too much reality. Here's Brooks:This darker if more realistic view of human nature has led to a rediscovery of...

Here's a piece from the new First Things in which FT editor Jody Bottum and contributor Michael Novak discuss the state of conservatism in this grim political moment. I want to focus on Bottum's piece, which is fascinating, and bears...

Story today -- and more fodder for Theodore Dalrymple's dystopian but compulsive readable musings -- about the rising violent crime rate in London, and how some in Britain are blaming the collapse of the family for social breakdown. Interesting quotes...

The NYT brings us news today that more and more girls are participating in high school wrestling. If you're me, you think what kind of girls would want to do that? But it gets better, or worse: because there are...

Myrna Minkoff vents her spleen today over her departure from the Kingfish's campaign. You will not be surprised to learn that she and Melissa McEwan are -- wait for it -- victims of misogynists. Excerpt:One question that's hard to avoid...

Two days after the 9/11 attacks, Jerry Falwell went on Pat Robertson's program and suggested that God allowed them to happen because of gays, lesbians, abortionists, the ACLU and others. Robertson agreed. Falwell also said: And with biological warfare available...

Got a nice letter this morning from a Catholic grad student in NYC. I post it here with his permission:I thought I would write a quite note to say 'thanks' for doing what you do. I came to your book,...

Day Five of the siege, here in the Coughateria. It seemed like things were on the upswing -- the childrens' fever had subsided. But guess what? All three are running temperatures again, Julie's fever has never left and ... well,...

Today I am 40. I spent it mostly in bed, sleeping off this flu and fever. My voice sounds like what you might hear if Jack Klugman and the Three Billy Goats Gruff attempted to croak the Hallelujah Chorus. The...

Frederica Mathewes-Green sends along news of something she encountered on a recent trip to the Pacific Northwest: The 100-Mile Diet. It's an idea hatched by two Vancouverites who wanted to limit themselves to supporting and developing a local food culture....

Day Two of life in the Snot-o-drome. Oh boy, is this fun. Neither fever nor coughs nor a head full of mucus will prevent the boys from whaling the crap out of each other at every opportunity. Bleah. The problem...

You know, after having seen Amanda Marcotte's review of "The Children of Men," which went up a day or so ago on Pandagon, I'm starting to wonder if the crackpot blogger's continued presence on the Edwards campaign staff wouldn't be...

Q: What was in Anna Nicole's fridge when she died?Shoot, you can't make this stuff up. She makes the Springer show look like "Meet the Press." Va va va voom!...

Now that the White House has confirmed Karl Rove's impolitic remark the other day -- "I don’t want my 17-year-old son to have to pick tomatoes or make beds in Las Vegas" -- Mickey Kaus calls it "Gaffe of the...

I noticed the NYTimes had quite a gentle adjective the other day to describe the Kingfish's potty-mouthed blog girls' remarks: "intemperate." Yesterday's L.A. Times had a lame editorial sniffing at the whole affair. "Expect this kind of nuttiness to continue...

Light blogging today -- am stuck at home with the same creeping crud everybody seems to be getting around here. What's more, all three kids are sick, and so is Julie. Happily, though, the misery didn't strike until yesterday morning,...

I trust you heard the news today that Zsa Zsa Gabor's elderly husband claims to have been having a longtime affair with Anna Nicole Smith, and says he might be the father of her baby. Guy says he even thought...

Well, finally something non-controversial and fun to talk about. An old friend is coming to town this weekend to celebrate my 40th birthday with me (b-day isn't until next week, but we're having a special dinner this weekend with my...

I just lurv these non-apology apologies put out by the trash-mouthed Christian haters running the Edwards blog operation. Here's Marcotte: "My intention is never to offend anyone for his or her personal beliefs, and I am sorry if anyone was...

Remember the top secret "Downing Street Memo," prepared for PM Blair in July 2002? Remember this quote from the memo (emphases mine)?:C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now...

Via the Mighty Favog comes more horrible news from New Orleans. Kid returns from Katrina exile with his mom on Wednesday. Kid gets into a fistfight with teen thug. Thug goes home, whereupon his mama gives him a pistol and...

Once upon a time, I was a garbageman at a trailer park. It was not the kind of job that got teenage boys a lot of respect, or attention from girls. Twice a week, I'd spend a couple of hours...

Indianapolis area readers might want to register for a Saturday April 14 ISI conference in which several speakers, including Your Working Boy, will talk about Russell Kirk and the future of conservatism. Follow the link to register....

Found out this morning that a National Guard officer who is personally very close to me is being deployed to Baghdad for a year, leaving behind his wife and little kids. Tens of thousands of men and women have had...

A few years ago, I was on a bus in Israel, and struck up a conversation with an American Jew who had moved to Israel to teach in an exchange program at a Palestinian school. It was a post-Oslo program...

Whom the gods would curse, they first make Anna Nicole Smith, who was just pronounced dead in Florida. No cause yet given. Sad, this. Rich, famous, beautiful, miserable -- and now, gone, leaving behind a six-month-old baby. Lord have mercy....

The Kingfish is standing by his foul-mouthed, anti-Christian bloggers. His statement:The tone and the sentiment of some of Amanda Marcotte's and Melissa McEwan's posts personally offended me. It's not how I talk to people, and it's not how I expect...

Big row going over the National Book Critics Circle jury nominating Bruce Bawer's "While Europe Slept" as a finalist for its year-end prize. Today's NYTimes reports on the resulting tempest, started by book critics who accuse the Bawer book of...

In the Dallas suburb of Euless, a Santeria priest has filed suit against the city, saying its laws prohibiting animal slaughter at home interferes with his First Amendment right to practice his religion. I hope he loses, because Santeria is...

Ross (and Caleb) draw attention to a little-known part of the Barack Obama picture: his church's adherence to a black self-help doctrine, one that is compatible with the localism and particularism espoused by traditionalist conservatives.I dunno, this 2008 election is...

Robert J. Samuelson, writing in the Washington Post, says don't believe the hype that we're going to do something about global warming. We're not:The dirty secret about global warming is this: We have no solution. About 80 percent of the...

ABC White House correspondent Terry Moran has been reading John Edwards' new blogger-in-chief Amanda Marcotte's site, and finds this disgusting comment in a Marcottian screed against the Catholic Church's position on contraception:"Q: What if Mary had taken Plan B after...

Fascinating interview with Mailer on Entertainment Weekly's website. Mailer's new novel, "The Castle in the Forest," is about the childhood of Adolf Hitler. Excerpts:Do you really believe the devil was present at the conception of Adolf Hitler, as he is...

JPod flags a moving explanation by the NYT's magnificent correspondent John Burns, on why the American mission in Iraq has gone so wrong. Burns says he's been to many nasty places over the course of his career as a foreign...

The new issue of The Atlantic Monthly reports the mag's poll of 44 top US foreign-policy experts, who were asked if they thought a major (50,000+) presence of US troops would still be in Iraq five years from now. Three...

Well, that was quick. The Senate floor debate over the Bush surge plan fizzled before it started. I understand that the GOP wants to have a vote that will show division in the Democratic ranks, just as the Warner-Levin amendment...

I don't care what anybody says, I can't get enough of the Absolutely True Adventures of the Diaper-Wearing Lovesick Texas Astronaut Mom. Does that make me a bad person? I'd trade my bladder to be able to write the cover...

Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards -- henceforth known on this blog as "the Kingfish" -- might want to look into the background of the woman he's appointed as his campaign blogmistress. As Kathryn Jean Lopez details, she's got a history...

The DMN editorial board had a lunch meeting today with some of our community contributors. One older gentleman remarked that he didn't like the caustic tone of many letters to the editor we publish, especially those that take out after...

...or so he realized during three weeks of "intensive counseling." D'oh! What was I thinking? Of course I'm straight!Assuming that the pastor quoted in the story is accurately reflecting Ted Haggard's belief, I'd respect Haggard if he admitted that he...

In Dallas, Bishop Charles V. Grahmann recently denounced efforts by the Dallas suburb of Farmers Branch to make renting housing to illegal immigrants against the law. Said the bishop:"I often wonder if Joseph, Mary and Jesus would find a place...

Spengler says it's tragic what's happening in Iraq and the Palestinian territories, but ultimately unimportant to the broader world. Excerpt:I do not think any responsible analyst now believes that a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian issue has much bearing on stability...

ISI Books is without question one of the most important publishers in America. If there is ever to be a broad revival of dynamic traditionalism, ISI Books will be right at its center. I've been getting their new releases lately,...

Here's my column from today's DMN, in which I discuss the (excellent) Oscar-nominated film "The Queen" in light of Marshall McLuhan's thought, and the challenges our own government faces in fighting the media war against jihadis....

Last week, the Dallas Morning News published an op-ed account by the mother of a Down syndrome child, talking about the worth of her daughter's life, in connection to the recent news that far fewer Down babies are being born...

Terry McAuliffe will not become a Knight of Malta after all, say the Knights. Good for them....

Marshall McLuhan once said that he came into the Catholic Church "on my knees." He meant that the only way to truly become a Catholic (or, I think it's fair to say, a serious Christian of any sort) is through...

Ever wonder why Episcopalians and other liberal Protestant churches are increasingly irrelevant to contemporary culture? You could hardly do better than this un-make-uppable Talk of the Town item from the New Yorker, about a gaggle of walking cliches gathered at...

Reader Matt in Dallas sends over an item from the Dallas Observer blog, citing a study purporting to show that suburbanites are happier than city dwellers. From the item:The study, conducted by two economists, found that Americans who live in...

If you want to see an apparently drunk Paris Hilton use the N-word, go here, and fast-forward to the 2:35 mark. Knock yourself out. My first thought was: You are such a loser, wasting any time at all watching this...

In a long thread below, readers have been discussing a Catholic priest's rebuke to Nancy Pelosi for presenting herself as a Catholic in good faith while using her power as one of the most powerful legislators in the country to...

Robert Novak writes today about GOP pollster/strategist Frank Luntz, who is so sick of Washington that he's setting out for the West Coast before what is likely to be a Republican collapse in 2008. Excerpt:Pollster Frank Luntz for the past...

My friend and former boss Rich Lowry said the following over the weekend (video here):In recent years, we have watched a Republican Congress disgrace itself with its association with scandal, with its willful lack of fiscal discipline, and with its...

Have you seen the website that allows you to post videos of yourself denying the Holy Spirit, which according to the Christian Bible is the unforgivable sin? There was a Beliefnet column about it in Newsweek last month, but I...

Seems that Gavin Newsom, the pretty-boy mayor of San Francisco, was bonking the fabulously named Ruby Rippey-Tourk, who is the wife of his old friend and campaign manager. From the San Fran Chronicle story:Alex Tourk "confronted the mayor on the...