State of the Culture
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It is a great loss. Everybody has heard about Scalia's dissent in Obergefell vs. Hodges, in which the court discovered that marriage has nothing to do with sex. I had read a few quotes from the dissent, but not the whole thing until today. It's very much worth reading. Here is one powerful excerpt. This…
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I mentioned a few weeks ago (in a comment on Louise's George Orwell post) that I had listened to a recording of part of this book and had found it disappointing. I knew the recording was at least part of the problem. I just didn't care for the actor's voice and style, and didn't want to…
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Out for a walk Sunday evening, I was brooding about the state of politics and culture in the U.S., and my personal frustration at the complete closed-mindedness of many of the liberals I know. Sure, there are many, many on the right who are equally closed-minded. But for the most part I'm not trying to argue with them (although…
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From Walker Percy's Love in the Ruins, spoken by the narrator but probably the author's view: Students are, if the truth be known, a bad lot. En masse they're as fickle as a mob, manipulable by any professor who'll stoop to it. They have, moreover, an infinite capacity for repeating dull truths and old lies with…
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It's been said that Guardini is a big influence on Pope Francis, and that was certainly apparent to me when I read Laudato Si soon after End of the Modern World. If the latter identifies any one greatest practical danger facing man in this new world, it's that his power has grown vastly greater than his wisdom.…
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We (my wife and I) finished watching the second series of Broadchurch a couple of weeks ago. I liked it almost as much as the first one. The plot was more diffuse, taking up where the first series left off, with the trial of the murderer arrested in that case, and also re-activating the unrelated and unsolved…
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I don’t know anything about Canadian politics or the real significance of the newly-elected premier. But this piece by David Warren says some insightful things that are as applicable to our political culture as to our neighbor’s. Perhaps I should explain what I mean by “drivel.” I could write, “lies,” but these are only possible…
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I mentioned in the previous post on this topic that I had seen something somewhere comparing speeches made by Francis on his recent visit to some made by John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Whatever it was I saw, I couldn’t find it again. So I compared speeches made by all three at the U.N.…
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I discern a pattern in my reactions to popes in the news. I'm so irritated by the political weaponizing of everything he says or does that I pretty much have to ignore the hullabaloo while it's in progress. I've been told that his speech to Congress today was good, but I think I'll wait at…
Light On Dark Water 