thoughts in and out of season
James Kalb The NYC marathon put the kibosh on the Latin Mass I usually go to in Brooklyn, so on All Saints Day and Sunday I went to Mass a couple of places in Manhattan. It’s remarkable how different it can seem in different presentations (High or Low Mass, music, behavior of the congregation, physical setting and … More ...
George Will and Virginia Postrel seem to be creating a new fusionism in which true conservatism, like true libertarianism, turns out to be a celebration of Starbucks, manicurists and health clubs—not to mention “tattoo parlors and the emporiums where people get their bodies pierced in so many interesting places.” In a puff piece on … More ...
More on the transformation of “this blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England” into a modern technocracy:
Dispatches from the front in the war for the final victory of tolerance:
Here’s an interesting article relating to sexual differences: Genes Organize Male, Female Brain Differently. Actually, the findings presented—that there are genetic differences between male and female brains—don’t seem at all surprising. After all, men and women differ genetically almost as much as chimpanzees and homo sapiens, there’s a whole chromosome’s worth of difference, … More ...
An Italian court has banned crucifixes in schools. As the judge points out, the crucifixes show an intent to portray Catholicism as the center of everything, even though the Vatican has accepted since 1984 that Catholicism is no longer the religion of the state. Since that’s so, the decision makes sense. The Church has … More ...
I just saw some of the video clips of Terri Schiavo and was horrified. I hadn’t been paying close attention to the case, although in the abstract I opposed what the pro-death people were up to, but seeing is believing. Unfortunately, I saw the clips shortly before going to bed, and ended up losing some … More ...
Attitudinizing that’s gotten old: A. N. Wilson would be sad to see his Church sundered by so small a thing.
Americans have been alternately fascinated and repelled by a post-Empire state of mind among many Englishmen that combined a love of “civilization” understood as decency, order and tolerance, a mild skeptical conservatism, and a … More ...
Hilton Kramer makes a good observation in his essay “Modernism & its institutions” in the current (October) issue of The New Criterion, that postmodernism has created no institutions of its own. One explanation for the situation—Mr. Kramer doesn’t go into this—is that postmodernism is basically a career strategy for functionaries trying to gain power … More ...
A story that suggests the mess the President’s school initiative has left behind: Should Utah opt out of school reform?. No Child Left Behind requires states that accept Federal money to bring all students up to grade level in reading and math by 2013-14, and in the meantime show annual improvements on standardized tests. … More ...