Eric Scheske

A Random Passage “[T]he reality behind the words of the Declaration of Independence (issued in the same year as Adam Smith's capitalist manifesto, The Wealth of Nations) was that a rising class of important people needed to enlist on their side enough Americans to defeat England, without

BYCU I love it when two hobbies come together, especially when one of the hobbies is drinking. This email I received from a TDE reader combines vodka and gardening: "So, two years ago, we bought a small hops vine, just for fun. Year 1, it grew a little but

From the Gardening Journals I'm pretty much giving up on gardening websites, unless they're certified knowledgeable (e.g., Johnny's Selected Seeds). I've gotten all sorts of bad advice from gardening bloggers who, I suspect, crank out script without regard to whether the

Background: When I was the editor of Gilbert Magazine [http://www.chesterton.org/explore-the-acs/gilbertmagazine/], I was responsible for the "Tremendous Trifles" column. It was occasionally hard to find a sufficient amount of interesting GKC material to fill the page, so John Peterson sent me a

Miscellaneous Rambling So my son is a freshman at Eastern Michigan University. Its homecoming was last weekend. He sent me this text, "Eastern gave the homecoming couple award to two lesbians, one of which said she is an 'avid member' of Catholics on Campus." Great, just

October continues its retinue of great saints. Sunday is new saint St. John XXIII, who was perhaps the funniest guy to occupy the Chair of St. Peter. Wednesday belongs to the little-known St. Callistus, but Thursday is a huge feast day: St. Teresa Avila, the beautiful sixteenth century nun

> Chesterton Casts a Spell on Tolkien (essay by Joseph Pearce) http://t.co/6UwHBUe8Ad > — ImaginativeConservat (@imaginativecons) October 11, 2015 [https://twitter.com/imaginativecons/status/653004656503824384]

From the Notebooks A truism worth remembering the next time the Washington Party beats the war drum. Oh wait, nevermind. It's been beating the war drum for a hundred years now, which speaks volume about our level of contentedness: "The silence of historians is the surest record

The Vatican has announced that Pope Francis will visit Mexico next year. Now that he's met all the Catholics in America, he wants to see where they're from.

Bieber had the word "Purpose" tattooed over his bellybutton, which of all the parts of the human body has the least purpose of all. "Purpose" is reportedly the title of his next album. He has "Believe" on his forearm, an earlier album. Good news,