Month: February 2005

There Goes Breakfast, Lunch, and Dinner

“Once they were a byword for mindless docility. But cows have a secret mental life in which they bear grudges, nurture friendships and become excited over intellectual challenges, scientists have found.

“Cows are also capable of feeling strong emotions such as pain, fear and even anxiety — they worry about the future. But if farmers provide the right conditions, they can also feel great happiness.

“The findings have emerged from studies of farm animals that have found similar traits in pigs, goats, chickens and other livestock. They suggest that such animals may be so emotionally similar to humans that welfare laws need to be rethought.”

LINK to full story… Read the rest

The Swimsuit Issue

The Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue came out earlier this month. We subscribed to SI for years and have seen over twenty swimsuit issues. We finally concluded that all the 4/5s-of-a-breast pictures weren’t doing us any good. We couldn’t get the image of those women out of our heads. Let’s face it: computer enhancements and plastic surgery notwithstanding, those models are objectively beautiful, and we don’t have the level of detachment attained by one holy desert father who, while in town with junior anchorites, watched a woman proceed naked through the village. The younger cenobites covered their eyes. After she left, he asked the others, “Didn’t you look? I did. She was beautiful.” He then went about his business without thinking about her. That’s a level of divinely-infused detachment that most non-saints don’t have. For us average lascivious Joes, we’re safer not looking in the first place.

We also grew tired of SI’s pro-homosexual stance, including featured columnist Rick Reilly’s repeated rants (including name calling) against people who don’t share his pro-gay stance. That got tiresome after about the eighth gay-centered column. We didn’t keep tabs, but for a while there, it seemed that homosexuality was Reilly’s favorite topic. He could’ve been a guest columnist on Andrew Sullivan’s blog.

Anyway, we cancelled our subscription and subscribed to The Sporting News. We never regretted it. Beyond any doubt, TSN offers far more sports coverage than SI. SI has more “human interest” stuff, pretty pictures, and things to entertain the non-sports reader, but for sports facts and analysis, TSN is much better.

Side note: We also tried ESPN the Magazine. It’s not … Read the rest

Pro-Life Commies!
“A pro-Putin youth group organized by the Kremlin, Idushie Vmeste (“Moving Together”), represents a kind of model for how Patriotic Orthodoxy aims to renew Russia. The group is against abortion (Russia has one of the highest rates in the world) and informs recruits about the Orthodox tradition of having large families. Members help at orphanages and hand out small crosses on street corners.” Lifted from The Atlantic, March 2005.… Read the rest

B.T.K. Serial Murderer

Well, they caught the B.T.K. murderer in Wichita, Kansas. The initials stand for his mode of operation: bind, torture, kill. He’s Dennis Rader, a 59-year-old municipal employee.

It turns out he was an active member and President of his congregation at Christ Lutheran Church.

We looked up their website. Christ Lutheran Church is a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA). We’re glad it’s not a member of the Wisconsin or Missouri Synod Lutheran churches. Both of those synods are strict in their beliefs and eschew the “anything goes” Christianity found in many old-line Protestant churches. The press would’ve had a field day if Rader was a member of the Wisconsin or Missouri Synods. The ELCA, on the other hand, is mainstream and embraces various non-traditional beliefs and practices at odds with what C.S. Lewis would have described as “mere Christianity.” (Important Note: We’re not saying Rader’s membership in a left-leaning church had anything to do with his serial murders; we’re just somewhat relieved that the left-leaning parts of the press won’t have the opportunity to make that type of ridiculous assertion against a traditional church.)

For anyone curious: Here’s a message from the Christ Lutheran Church’s minister. We’re strictly posting it for informational purposes. We wouldn’t have had anything better to say ourselves. Tough situation:

Dennis is a member of Christ Lutheran Church. He has held leadership positions here at Christ Lutheran over the course of approximately 30 years as a member. We are all concerned for Dennis Rader and his family. We lift up our prayers in support of all of them. The members of Christ Lutheran Church … Read the rest

Vulgar but Funny and On

Yet more about Chris Rock and tonight’s Academy Awards. This time, from Slate Magazine:

“Rock may speak the irreverent language of blue comedy, but more often than not, his ideas are red-state red.

“Take, for instance, the opening numbers in Bigger & Blacker, the HBO special Rock did in 1999. He begins with a discussion of the Columbine shootings, then recent, dismissing attempts to examine the shooters’ psychology. ‘What ever happened to crazy?’ he demands. He next turns to gun control, which he’s against, and single mothers, whom he also doesn’t like. ‘If a kid calls his grandma ‘mama’ and his mama ‘Pam,’ he’s going to jail,’ Rock explains. To all the women who leave their kids at home so they can pop some bubbly at the club, Rock has this advice: ‘Go take care of those kids before they rob me in 10 years.'”… Read the rest

Dysfunctional Oscar

For those who missed the Catholic League’s William Donahue’s comments on tonight’s Oscars. LINK.

Here’s the opening paragraph:

“This year’s Oscar nominees tell us a great deal about the Hollywood mindset. As in previous years, the theme of good and evil permeates many of the films. With a Hollywood twist, of course. To wit: a positive spin is put on pedophilia, homosexuality, suicide, abortion and communism; a negative spin is put on religion, especially Catholicism.”… Read the rest