thoughts in and out of season
Why care about copyright anyway? It’s a dry topic, but in a world of mass media and computers it’s an absolutely fundamental issue.
Should it exist at all? Is property theft in this case, because there’s something wrong with the notion that you can own an idea? Should it only last for 5 years? Would … More ...
There’s something odd about intellectual property. Rules are necessary to prevent conflict in the case of tangible property but not intellectual property. So unlike other kinds of property, which would be found in almost any society, patent and copyright are visibly things we made up. The phrasing of the U.S. Constitution reflects the situation: Congress … More ...
A “professional liturgist” is somewhere between a “professional writer of love letters” and a “professional composer of sacred scripture.” There’s no such thing, and if someone claims to be one it demonstrates he has no idea what he’s talking about.
I went to a Latin mass here in Brooklyn today, so far as I know the only one celebrated in the borough. I liked it very much, and will continue to attend.
One reason is that the traditional mass is not specially about the priest or the congregation, it’s about God, the saints, the church … More ...
An oddity of the coverage of the current sex scandals in the Catholic Church is the persistent use of the term “pedophilia” for homosexual predation that involves adolescents and young men rather than children.
Another is the mantra that homosexuals are no more likely to be pedophiles than heterosexuals. If that’s so why is there … More ...
Now that I have a blog, I decided to look around and see what was out there. It’s not a random collection of views. So far as I can tell, most of the prominent blogs (vpostrel.com, andrewsullivan.com, The Instapundit) are libertarian or at least have sympathies in that direction—fiscally conservative, less … More ...
An oddity of the coverage of the current sex scandals in the Catholic Church is the persistent use of the term “pedophilia” for homosexual predation that involves adolescents and young men rather than children.
Another is the mantra that homosexuals are no more likely to be pedophiles than heterosexuals. If that’s so why is there … More ...
Off to the races!
A problem with being a right-winger is that we’re constantly being drenched in what we reject. The media and experts are always with us, and on the whole they’re on the left. They like centralized rational solutions—the media want to tell a story that applies to everything and has a punchline, … More ...