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I Would've Thought Baltimore had Bigger Crime Problems A new sheriff’s unit is being created to enforce Baltimore’s liquor lawsA new unit in the Baltimore City Sheriff’s Office aims to enforce the city’s liquor laws and crack down on unlicensed sellers.Baltimore BannerMatti Gellman

Thomas Sowell's Hemispheres

Picture Thomas Sowell, that old warrior of the mind, sitting at his desk, sifting through the wreckage of human folly. His right hemisphere? Hell if I know how it hums. Does he commune with the Tao, feel the pulse of the cosmos in his bones? Not my place to say,

Reading: Kicking Against the Left Hemisphere's Hegemony

Few things are more degrading than being a child of the modern age. “Prison wife” comes closest. It ain’t our fault we were born into this asphalt dystopia of algorithms and plastic. But we can claw our way out. We can break the chains. The trick is knowing what

Introduction to Profiles in Right-Hemispherism

In this left-brained madhouse we call western civilization, the right-brained are the outcasts, the oddballs, the glorious lunatics who refuse to salute the spreadsheet and the algorithm. They’re the ones who don’t fit in the cubicle, who won’t bow to the soul-crushing hum of the globalist machine.

Edgar Cayce: Sleeping Prophet

Edgar Cayce, the “Sleeping Prophet” (1877-1945), was a peculiar figure, a lanky Kentuckian who slipped into some kind of trance-like stupor and spouted answers to life’s mysteries like a backwoods oracle. Over 14,000 of his mutterings were scribbled down by diligent stenographers, responses to questions from 6,000

A Hemisphere Hypothesis Meditation on Pieper's Abuse of Language

Attempts to define the Tao are like a retard trying to stick his head out of a closed car window. Sad, pitiful, and comical. Until he gets so frustrated that he smashes the window with a hammer. Fresh air rushes in but so do shards of glass. Bust up the

Why June 1 is a Great Day to Honor the Copts

A little Coptic history, a feast day to remember, and a great drink I concocted from my garden produce.

Two Learned Men; Six Volumes

I only have the single volume "Section," but it's enjoyable

We Value Knowledge Like the Jerk-Off Values Porn

A mini-meditation on Josef Pieper's "Knowledge and Freedom"

More Snoring, Less Beltway Whoring

The Hemisphere Hypothesis won’t teach you how to wrench a lug nut off a busted tire and it won’t tell you how to deal with the beard in your daughter’s locker room. For all its highfalutin talk about brain wiring and reality, it’s about as useful

Are You Trapped in the World of Total Work?

Josef Pieper (with a G.K. Chesterton kicker) teaches us the importance of leisure It’s commonplace knowledge that many of our best ideas hit us in the middle of the night or in our first waking moments. While we are completely at rest, not obsessed with ourselves or our

The Silence of St. Thomas, by Josef Pieper

A Micro-Review/Essay

Majeres Applies McGilchrist

Back in 2009, Iain McGilchrist unleashed The Master and His Emissary upon a world too distracted to notice its own decay. This bestseller was merely a prelude to his magnum opus, The Matter with Things—a sprawling, 1,500-page odyssey that starts with the Master’s Hemisphere Hypothesis and ends

Pieper Primer

Christine Norvell at Front Porch Republic

Benedict in the City

My Kindle’s a cluttered attic, stuffed with a few books I pick at like a vulture when the mood strikes. Nothing I’d sink into, just odds and ends for those moments when the world’s noise gets too shrill. One of them’s E. Michael Jones’ Benedict’s

Way of the Right Brain: Chuang-Tzu’s Genius

Seven and a half centuries before Bodhidharma started Zen by melding Buddhism to Taoism, Chuang-Tzu danced through the world. This sly jester is second only to the old sage Lao-Tzu in Tao greatness. Chuang-Tzu championed wu-wei—the art of non-doing, of letting the world spin without your sweaty grip on

Montaigne: Smiling Skeptic

Montaigne spat on every dogma and system that strutted through the intellectual barnyard of his day. His motto: Que sais-je? (What do I know?) His answer, delivered with a smirk: Not a daggone thing. “There is a plague on man: his opinion that he knows something.” Montaigne Logic? Pfft. He’

Gimme Silence or Give Me Death

Because without silence, there is no life

McGilchrist Finds Gnosticism . . . and the Thought of Eric Voegelin

I've maintained for years that these two thinkers needed to get together. It finally happened.

The Thrill of Competition Might be Vitamins for the Left Hemisphere of Your Brains

And in this modern age, you never need to nourish your left hemisphere

A Gardening Piece at The University Bookman

My dad received The University Bookman while I was growing up, so I was especially pleased to see one of my pieces appear here today.

The Everyday Problem That is the Left Hemisphere

The left hemisphere of your brain is a miserable little tyrant, a penny-ante dictator strutting around in the gray matter. Don’t believe me? Look at the everyday modern life that the left hemisphere has given us. It’s one big prick-fest, a carnival of impatience and irritation where every

Why I Don't Stay Informed

I'm glad the Establishment didn't succeed in destroying JRE during COVID. It’s pretty much the only way I stay informed to the extent I want to be informed. I agree with Nassim Taleb’s observation that there’s no reason to read the daily news,

The Stud that Was H.L. Mencken

Every so often, I plunge headlong into a Mencken spree, a vice I’ve nursed since the early 1990s when I first stumbled into Ann Arbor’s Dawn Treader Bookstore and smelled those old books (that odd but pleasing scent, I’m told, comes from vanilla releasing from the aging

The Battle of the Hemispheres

So, fear’s the new punk squatting in the pantheon of mortal sins. That oozing narcissism, born from the left hemisphere’s tyrannical stranglehold on our skulls, lights up our amygdalas like a cheap firecracker every time our little empire of self gets a scratch. It’s a meltdown, a

Why Weak Fools Can Dominate

Exploring the fool in Christ and the fool in Antichrist. Ivan the Terrible v. Nicholas of Pskov. Nietzsche v. Everyone

Four Reformers

I had a chance last month to booze it up at Sloppy Joe’s in Key West, but by the time I came across it, I’d already guzzled enough gin to fill a Prohibition-era bathtub, so I skipped it. Bad on me. Sloppy Joe’s was Hemingway’s haunt

I Want My Son to Visit Vegas

Vegas is Sin City, where what happens stays, except the clap. But that shouldn’t spook a lad with a shred of Catholic spine.

AI's Little Victories Add Up to Huge Defeat

A malign pincer grips our weary souls as I peck out these words in the bleak dawn of early 2025. You feel it too. That dull ache in your ribcage ain't a cardiac event. It's the life force being throttled out of you by a twin-pronged

Why We Need to Meditate

So, you want to meditate? Here’s the raw deal, stripped down to the studs: 1. Plunk yourself in a chair—or on the floor if you’re one of those types—and shut your eyes. 2. Zero in on the air moving through your nose. Feel it, don’t

Freaking Out with the Left Hemisphere

Editor's note: It's my birthday. Please forward the Substack or this post to friends and family. The seven cardinal sins have shaken and shimmied ever since Evagrius—or maybe Origen, who knows—first jotted them down in some dusty desert hole. By the time Gregory the

Maybe We Should Thank the Buddhists for Mindfulness Meditation

Catholics keep flogging their tired old nag of a gripe about mindfulness meditation, even though heavyweights like Peter Kreeft and Kevin Majeres have given it their thumbs-up. Their big beef? “The Buddhists kicked it off!” Cue the pearl-clutching and incense-waving, as if that’s a knockout punch. It’s the

Gen-Z Needs Community Gardens

It’s dang near Chinese coolie labor time again, that grand American spectacle where hordes of lunatics, armed with shovels, hoes, and a rabid gleam in their eyes, descend upon their garden patches like it’s a sacred calling. Think of it as the nation’s biggest hobby—a manic,

A Meditation on Gnosticism Over at Substack This Morning

The guy who demands that everyone be rational becomes the most irrational of all. That’s an old Taoist zinger. It rang true when Lao-Tzu swayed atop his water buffalo to the misty hills of eternity; it’s true today as we clatter along in our mechanical Jacobins, guillotinely crisp

The Pilgrim Plague

Ah, the elite progressive white people. Those insufferable, self-righteous bastards who've managed to infect the American psyche with their millenarian madness for centuries. It's a flippin’ disease, a gnostic virus that's been festering in our national bloodstream since the first Puritan set his sanctimonious

Minimalists are Hoarders but with Better Hygiene

Few things feel better than disgust. It's the rocket fuel of reality TV, propelling us to smirk and gape at the human wreckage on display: the obese, the addicted, the mentally ill, the hoarders, and that woman who won't eat anything except cheesy potatoes. It'

Scratching with Modernity

Why are some people such jerks? Or, to borrow from our British cousins, so disagreeable? I mean "disagreeable" in the most expansive way possible. I'm talking boors and bastards, cretins and creeps, every person labeled with a derogatory term derived from the nethers of the human

14 Funny Passages from David Foster Wallace’s Consider the Lobster

which means that some staff photographer came in and popped a flash in the face of a traumatized kid at prayer.

Get Ready to Re-Write History

The Don is declassifying. The Elon is dismantling. The Establishment is defecating. Can America handle the truth? We think we’re going to learn who shot JFK, but we better be prepared to learn that Oswald shot from the jealous apex of an Oswald-JFK-Marilyn Monroe love triangle. And Marilyn was

Shellenberger on Carlson

You used to be able to draw a line across California. South of Santa Cruz, where those Lost Boys hung out, things started to stink of something right-wing. By the time you hit Orange County, you were in Oklahoma. San Francisco was Peter Coyote and sandal-wearing freaks. Los Angeles was

The Hemispheres in the Garden

I lost a lot of money in the 2008-2009 crisis. I was doing alright but lawyers throughout Michigan were shuttering their practices. I knew it could become difficult to sustain my homemaker wife and seven young children. An acquaintance asked me if I’d ever tried square-foot gardening. I hadn’

The Five Parts of Existence Strikes Back and The Hemisphere Hypothesis

Part I  What is the Tao? The Tao, also called “the act of existence (actus essendi),” “the first principle of Zen,” and the region on the other side of Aldous Huxley’s doors of perception, is the nameless reality that is logically, conceptually, and in reality prior to everything else.

Edgar Cayce

Edgar Cayce, the “Sleeping Prophet” (1877-1945), was a peculiar figure, a lanky Kentuckian who slipped into some kind of trance-like stupor and spouted answers to life’s mysteries like a backwoods oracle. Over 14,000 of his mutterings were scribbled down by diligent stenographers, responses to questions from 6,000

Why the Left Hemisphere is Ineluctably Drawn to Abstractions

The left hemisphere’s primary goal is to allow its host to survive. Practical considerations drive the left hemisphere. You might think this means the left hemisphere isn’t much interested in abstractions or idealized notions. Such things, at first glance, aren’t practical. But the thing is, abstractions are

Introducing Blaise Pascal: The First Anti-Modern

If we’re going to battle against modernity, we need to recognize our champions. Pascal might have been the first.

Something Tells Me I’d Really Enjoy the Private Letters of Two Men I Didn’t Even Know Existed

It helps to be aware of one’s ignorance. That’s one reason I like to read Joseph Epstein, who wrote a delightful essay for the current issue of the new Catholic journal, The Lamp that brought my level of awareness to the brim. The topic? The letters of George

Left Hemisphere Attack on Small Business?

Jeffrey Tucker at Zero Hedge (via Epoch Times)

At Substack: McGilchrist Explains Huxley

If the left hemisphere's grip on people's minds can be loosened, McGilchrist says, their perceptions will change. They will see "into the depth of things . . . all at once [and] recognize them for what they are, no longer overlaid by our projections." When this happens,

Scrolling Blog: Late 2024 Entries

The True Christmas Story that Never Gets Old And the vile reality that is the State that makes it compelling The Christmas Truce of World War INever forget the Christmas truce of World War I, when troops refused to be pawns of empire for one blessed day.Mises InstituteJohn V.

Eric Scheske's Substack Has Launched

Many of you just received an email from the Substack platform. I hope that's alright.

The Seven Deadly Sins are Dispositions of the Left Hemisphere

Primer: Understanding the Hemisphere HypothesisMany smart people think Iain McGilchrist has effected a Copernican revolution in metaphysics. I tend to agree. Here’s a summary of the revolution.The Daily EudemonEric Scheske When you throw that vase against the wall and scream "f****! (fudge), you're sinning. The

Six Maniacal Observations from G.K. Chesterton

They'll help make sure you don't think like a maniac

Scrolling Blog: June-July 2024

July 12, 2024 People who still believe that the news media tell them the truth and that their nation and their world work pretty much the way they were taught in school are just as brainwashed and deluded as any QAnon cultist. Caitlin Johnson Caitlin Johnstone on SubstackPeople who still

Deadpool Doesn't Matter

Endgame ended me. After that, I pledged never to watch another Marvel superhero film. And it wasn't because I barely survived the CGI waterboarding. And it wasn't because Brie Larson, adorable in 21 Jump Street, was insufferable as Captain Marvel, giving us the biggest fall in

How Many Beers Does It Take to Find the Tao?

C.S. Lewis would’ve said “zero.” It’s the Tao that helps you find the beer. It is Nature, it is the Way, the Road. It is the Way in which the universe goes on, the Way in which things everlastingly emerge, stilly and tranquilly, into space and time.

The Left Hemisphere Deranges People Out of the Local, Driving Them Through Rationalism into the Clutches of Ideology, including Nationalism

The community is embodied existence: you rub against the white trash and the petty; you rub against flawed humans like yourself. You have to deal with it . . . in reality, not in a rational idea. When you escape it through abstraction, you become the anti-Mother Teresa

The Left Hemisphere Ruins Literature

D.H. Lawrence might have had the John Thomas of a degenerate, but he had the soul of an artist. I guess it’s no surprise. His father was an illiterate, hard-drinking coal miner. His mother was educated and refined. It made him earthy but reflective. He appreciated cutting-edge ideas

History of Western Civilization in Just Five Minutes

My first Substack project. It might take ten minutes, btw.

Preparing for Catholicism's Preeminent Role in the West after Democracy Collapses?

Kevin Vallier's analysis of Patrick Deneen's newfound Statism in this podcast episode is really interesting. Deneen wrote Why Liberalism Failed. It got a lot of press, especially after Obama included it on his 2018 reading list. Obama liked his insights but disagreed with Deneen's

Thomas Sowell's Hemispheres

My first attempt to flush out the phenom that is Thomas Sowell

Loper Bright: Relentless War Against the Left Hemisphere

Chevron is Dead: Audio0:00/429.2702041×💡Chevron deferred to rules and experts, two things cherished by the left hemisphere. The death of Chevron is a victory for the right hemisphere. Chevron is dead. Thank goodness. It might have been the biggest Supreme Court victory for the right hemisphere ever.

Celebrating the Overlooked

I appreciate any effort to rescue the neglected noble: those little things that are good but nobody notices. It could be a person, it could be a garden.

Tolkien's Little Hero: Fatty Bolger

Paul Schweigl at Front Porch Republic

The Dorothy Parker and Florence King Reincarnate

But she's going on maternity leave

The Anti-Drinking Campaign Picks Up Steam

Excerpts from two recent articles

Cells of Peace

I keep a handful of books on my Kindle that I read from sporadically. These aren't books that I dive into, but rather books that I read at odd moments when I don't feel like reading anything else. One of them is E. Michael Jones'

Is Substack a Weapon to Preserve Truth?

A Substack montage

"No Amount of Alcohol is Good for You--That Much is Clear"

The idea that moderate drinking is healthy has been debunked . . . currently

No Amount of Alcohol is Good for You?

“No Amount of Alcohol is Good for You--That Much is Clear”The idea that moderate drinking is healthy has been debunked . . . currentlyThe Daily EudemonEric Scheske About a year ago, a friend of mine started evading my invitations to grab a drink. It was only when we caught up for a

Capitalism and Communism are Flipsides of the Same Coin?

Rod Dreher calls Niall Ferguson's first column for The Free Press a "banger" and he's right. Ferguson highlights an alarming number of similarities between the last years of the Soviet Union and the United States today. Does it mean the United States is reaching

The Left Hemisphere Larps

LARPing, Reality, and FraudThis nascent essay needs work, but it’s a decent blog post. The essay could take a few directions. E.g., Fantasy role-playing is fun, but now take your character into the real world. You’re Kick-Ass, coming to beat that inner-city thug, only to find yourself

Rationalized Ideals of Silence Crashing Against the Rock of Reality

Or rather, "Rationalized Ideals AGAINST Silence Crashing . . . ".

Bill Kauffman on the Subjugation of Canada and Neil Young's Sanity

Bill Kauffman at The American Conservative

Slanting History Since 400 BC

A Substack Montage

Cocaine Beer Coming?

If it were anywhere else in South America, the nondescript house with buckets of coca leaves soaking in liquid could be mistaken for a clandestine cocaine lab. But this is La Paz, Bolivia, and the fruity aroma of coca steeping in barrels signals that you’ve arrived at the government-authorized

Existence Strikes Back Project Glossary

A work-in-process. Very early stages. I envision the final product will be ten times this long, if not longer. I haven't even begun to include The Hemisphere Hypothesis, but I hope to start soon.

We're on Information Overload. Here's One Solution

One forgotten ancient suggests what we might do with all of today's information

Read Your Way Out of Left-Hemisphere Hegemony

Encourage Urban Gardening

I have a client in Detroit who keeps a small stash of money at his son's house, along with a few guns, on the west side of Michigan, in a rural farming community. The reason? "When things collapse and Detroit erupts, I'll boogie out and

We Either Flee Devils or Fight Them

Toward the end of The Catcher in the Rye, Holden Caulfield tells himself he will move out West and shut himself off from everyone and everything, possibly by posing as a deaf-mute. If he pretends to be a deaf-mute, he reasons, people would have to write messages to him on

The Spirit of Medieval Philosophy: A Micro-Review

If I had to come up with a list of books whose title makes the book sound far drier than it is, I'd nominate Gilson's The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy. Merton fans may recall that he bought the book in his pre-Catholic days, then nearly hurled

Cynar and Tonic

Peter Suderman at Cocktails with Suderman (Substack)

Disappearing Asparagus

Cindy Carcamo at L.A. Times

Knowledge Through Experience is Still Knowledge

Nassim Taleb's Assault on the Left Hemisphere's Pretensions: Samples

Magic in Everyday Renaissance Europe

Laura Miller at Slate

Black Magic and Scientism

Magic has fascinated me since I learned that the high watermark of magic was the Renaissance. The cutting-edge Renaissance thinkers were magicians. Magic and science were intertwined, its practitioners flitting between the two practices (arts) in their attempt to understand and, ultimately, control/manipulate the world, unaware that they are

Why Gardening Matters

Do You Like Being a Chump?

Politicians are turning the United States into a nation of chumps. It won't end well. In progressive circles, “justice” doesn't mean fairness or evenhandedness; it describes a world in which every problem is the fault of some entrenched power group. Therefore, every solution should involve both

If You Want to Write, Learn to Walk

"Now I’ve got you, you nihilist! Sitting on your arse is precisely the sin against the Holy Ghost. Only those thoughts that come in walking have any value." Nietzsche

Learn to Love Your Region

It might be the only effective answer to Leviathan . . . and it arguably saves lives Socialist? Liberal? Conservative? Libertarian? Anarchist? I'm none of those things. I'm a Subsidiarist. I believe in the Catholic bedrock of political philosophy, which holds the smallest units of government ought to handle

On Vermentino

Lettie Teague at the Wall Street Journal

Zuby's Twitter Thread: 20 Things I've Learned (Or Had Confirmed) About Humanity During The 'Pandemic'

The pandemic is over but the leader and expert's despicable response to it must not be forgotten, so herewith . . .

Hector St. John de Crèvecoeur (1735-1813): Left-Hemispheric

McGilchrist writes about the left hemisphere's love for abstraction. Because it is the hemisphere of action ("it's tasked with tasks," is my (oh-so-clever) way of putting it), it prefers abstract ideas that give it guideposts for action. It keeps things simple, which makes things

Dorothy Parker's Brilliance and Other Sundries to Fascinate Your Friends at the Bar Tonight

The godfather of modern libertarianism, Albert Nock, was in his prime during Prohibition. Needless to say, he railed against it, noting once that it's absurd to regulate something that, in nature, flows as freely as water. He's right, of course. And the fact that it flows

50-Year Anniversary of The Gulag

Gary Saul Morson at The New Criterion

Day Drinking

Dani Blum at the New York Times

A Dominican, a Neuroscientist, and Computer Scientist Walk into a Bar . . . or Maybe a Library

A.G. Sertillanges (the Dominican), Andrew Huberman (the Neuroscientist), and Cal Newport (the Computer Scientist) on the Need for Focus

Hemispheres in the Garden

The left hemisphere plans, incidentally. The right hemisphere flows. Carol Deppe draws an autobiographical distinction in The Tao of Vegetable Gardening between "Planning Carol" and "Doing Carol." PC lays out elaborate plans that DC later disregards as she gardens. I can relate . . . big-time. Deppe's

The Utopian Gardener: An Autobiographical Incident

Rational ideas create hell on earth. Just ask a kulak. Or just ask the lettuce plants in my garden. I had a great gardening idea a few years ago. I called it “wild gardening.” The idea was simple and based on U.S. foreign policy over the past 75 years.

Misshapen Creatures that Live in the Earth Can Give Us Sage Advice?

Well, no. But: Don't Fear the Gnome The first philosophical event in the Greek world, the selection of their seven sages, gives the first distinctive and unforgettable characteristic of Greek civilization. Other people have saints, while the Greeks have philosophers. They are right when some state that a

Six Potential Apparition Conclusions

From the conclusion of the Vatican's new norms for discerning apparitions

It’s Time We Recognize Noise as the Eighth Capital Sin

I’m thinking the list of seven capital sins — Pride, Envy, Avarice, Anger, Sloth, Gluttony, Lust — ought to be expanded to eight. This may be audacious of me, and I’m not sure what type of campaign I’d need in order to obtain official recognition for an eighth sin,

Cormac's Border Trilogy

Joel J. Miller at Miller's Book Review (Substack)

Recommended? Get Frustrated with Your Cell Phone

Derek Smith at Michigan Engineering

This Might Be the Best Book of the 21st Century

Look Homeward, America. Bill Kauffman. ISI Books, 2006. Strong, deep, readable, desperate, fun. All those adjectives–even those that trip over one another–fit this book. It's such a good book, it made me want to quit writing. “If someone like Kauffman, with his erudition and talent, isn&

Is the Netflix Documentary a Paean to Catholic Convert and Daily Communicant Marshall McLuhan?

The Social Dilemma uses the intellectual framework built by McLuhan, but the similarities stop there The Social Dilemma documentary has broken records. According to its main star, Tristan Harris, 38 million households in the first 28 days saw it on Netflix. That’s incredible. What’s even more incredible? The

On Phoebe Bridgers

Are social media companies the new big tobacco?

How Not to Sacrifice if You're a Father

Hint: Don't be Rousseau I’ve been reading some Nock. Albert Jay Nock, one of the premier American essayists of the early twentieth century and one of the founders of modern conservative/libertarian thought. A weighty man, that Nock. But also a disturbing man. In a 1964 biography,

You're Not a Lunatic? Thank Your Daddy.

What do the violent extremes on the Left and the Right have in common? They tend to come from fatherless or divorced homes. That's Mary Eberstadt's observation in “The Fury of the Fatherless” in First Things. She recites the well-known statistical facts about fatherlessness in the

Can Science Recover Lost Trust?

Theodore Dalrymple at Law & Liberty

Loneliness and Activism

A Sports Cliché that Can Improve Your Daily Life

"Take what the defense gives you." Our local high school basketball coach was working with his talented but very young (8?) son. The father guarded his son. The son made the wrong move and turned the ball over. His father said, "Take what the defense gives you.

Read on the Run

For years, I've wanted to start the "On-the-Run Reader." It would be a Reader's Digest-type publication, but weightier and lighter. The subject matter would be more serious than RD, but the length of the "articles" (more like blurbs, quotes, summaries, and essays)

The Most Cashless Country on Earth Says We Shouldn't Go Cashless

Nick Corbishley at Naked Capitalism

Five Things You Didn't Know About Your Community

There’s a localism movement afoot. The Saturday after Black Friday is now recognized as “Small Business Saturday,” an effort to remind people that it’s important to support their local stores. There has been a corresponding harsh backlash against Amazon and its disturbing gains on the back of COVID.

Google and the Hemispheres

The Industrial Revolution had been churning for a hundred years. Results were impressive. Standards of living were climbing. Sure, urban slums were miserable, but many historians believe they beat the squalor in rural villages. But industrialization was messy and not just from a pollution standpoint. Labor itself was messy. There

Should You Try Writing Poetry?

Glenn Arbery at The Imaginative Conservative

The RCIA Haunting

Jayme Clune at National Catholic Register

Preserving Affirmative Action at All Costs, including Honesty

James Breslo at Epoch Times

The Minotaur: Five Short Lessons About the Modern State

Revisiting de Jouvenel's 1945 classic, On Power “the spirit of domination never slumbers” Bertrand de Jouvenel was born in 1903 to an aristocratic family that embraced the “progressive” mores of the day. His parents divorced. His father married the famous novelist Colette in 1912. In 1920, de Jouvenel

Saturday Morning BYCU: White Coffee

Susan C. Olmstead at Epoch Times

On Yuengling

When I was a college student in Texas, I told someone at a bar that I was from Pennsylvania. The guy’s eyes lit up. “Pennsylvania?!” the man exclaimed. “That means you get to drink Yuengling whenever you want!” Yes, I mused, with a shrug and a swig of my

Playboy Taki, the Riviera, and an Elegant Culture of Excess

I have a romantic nostalgia for something I'm nearly clueless about I tend to loathe the rich, especially those who have money because of Hollywood or, worst of the worse, government. But there's something about the elegant rich I admire, almost in a nostalgic or romantic

The Cell Phone is a Monkey Trap for the Left Hemisphere

Scrolling Blog: May 2024

May 31, 2024 BYCU A Newcomer in the Grape Industry It's Vermentino. It resists drought and is cheap and California growers are lovin' it. It currently costs $4,000 a ton (whereas Napa Cabernet costs over $8,000), but as more use it, the cost will go

The Left Hemisphere Thwarts Focus: On Art Appreciation

Attention, attention, attention. Everyone is starved for it . . . their own, not others. People want to be able to focus again. Madison Avenue purposefully kills it: The legal scholar Tim Wu, in his book “The Attention Merchants,” notes, “Without express consent, most of us have passively opened ourselves up to the

Art Appreciation: One Way to Reclaim Your Attention?

Nathan Heller at The New Yorker ("The Battle for Attention")

Substack Frustrates Me

Substack frustrates me like only a lover can get frustrated with his beloved. It Suffocates. I get frustrated when I can't breathe. Substack frustrates me. It buries me with unknown authors who I want to read, but I can't possibly get to all of them. Access

Twenty 20th-Century Books for Young Autodidacts

(Actually, there are 33, if you count the honorable mentions) Joseph Epstein is arguably the best essayist alive. He’s urbane, funny, self-deprecating. He’s a fine stylist, and he’s remarkably well-read. I remember William F. Buckley marveling at Epstein’s erudition and wondering how Epstein could have so

The Gin and Tonic is Coming Back in its Birthplace: India

Jaya Saxena at Punch

NPR is in Fine Hands, Indeed

Christopher Rufo at City Journal

Tucker Carlson's Interview on Joe Rogan

A Few Notes about Episode #2138

Gulf Princes, Safaris, and Conservation Groups are Destroying the Maasai

Stephanie McCrummen at The Atlantic

The Defecated Rationality of the Left Hemisphere in Action. Right Before Our Eyes.

The question: How can people who make the smallest carbon footprint be responsible for making the largest carbon footprint? The answer: They can't. Except in the mental world of our brain's left hemisphere. This is a real-life (real-time) example from Tanzania and the plight of the

The Beatniks Were a Bunch of Consumerists

Well, kinda William Burroughs liked opium, a lot. He liked its derivatives, morphine, and heroin. He liked other types of dope. He liked women. He liked men and boys. He wrote recklessly. He lived recklessly. He loved his common-law wife. He shot her dead in a drunken game of William

Against Human Flourishing?

A few notes about a difficult essay

Nine Helpful Micro-Habits

I've long eschewed self-improvement books of the secular sort for the simple reason that, if they have any merit, they are merely rehashings of lessons you can learn from the saints, who not only teach and embody the lessons but tie them into a coherent worldview that reflects

Easter

"When the disciples saw the risen Christ, they beheld him as a reality in the world, though no longer of it, respecting the order of the world, but Lord of its laws. To behold such reality was different and more than to see a tree or watch a man

Wine Collecting: Billionaire Frenzy

Kathleen Willcox at The Spectator

The World of Wine Collecting

It's a combination of pretension, mystery, investment, viticulture, vinification, historical appreciation, and fraud. The world of wine collecting. The world of the 1%. Scratch that. The 1/10th of one percent. It sounds like oenophiles work with vintners to create a buzz about a new wine, one that

Pragmatism and the Saints

"Pragmatism" and "practicality" aren't the same things. When a person says, "I'm just being practical," he's probably being highly impractical. It normally means he's just thinking rationally: with the certitude of his left hemisphere, which excludes

The Fact Is, Saints Have Levitated

Daniel K. Williams at Mere Orthodoxy

How I Found Great Used Books . . . and a Dose of Grace

Except for my garden, which is a blend of hobby and post-apocalyptic planning, I don’t have any hobbies. I have a lot of things I do occasionally, like travel, watch football, and drink at a bar. I also exercise and pray regularly. I don’t think the former rise

Six Challenging Assertions from D. H. Lawrence's Studies in Classic American Literature

Highlightings of D. H. Lawrence's Studies in Classic American Literature

Rodriguez and Maundy Thursday

From the conclusion

Drug-Fueled Travelogue of the Post-Soviet Iron Curtain Region

Sam Kriss at The Lamp

Sam Kriss: Drug Aficionado and Master Essayist

I don't know whether I'm impressed or appalled, and I can't tell if the writer is confessing or bragging. But boy, Sam Kriss, a "British writer and dilettante," has written the most enjoyable essay of the year. The agnostic Kriss ("[m]

Did Video Bring Us BLM, Riots, and COVID Hysteria?

A new essay about the Marshall McLuhan disciple, Neil Postman You like dead white guys? How about a dead white guy who was the disciple of a dead white guy? I do. I also like DWG Marshall McLuhan and his disciple, DWG Neil Postman, whose Amusing Ourselves to Death is

In Related News, Alcoholics Tend to Have Other Behavioral Disorders

Sarah Parshall Perry at The Heritage Foundation's "Daily Signal"

Encounters: Experiences with Nonhuman Intelligences by Diana Pasulka

How to Rebel Against the New Barbarism

We might be entering a new Middle Ages. The Middle Ages were a contest between the Catholic Church and barbarism. The Church won. That's not what's happening in the new Middle Ages. Here's how to deal with the new barbarism. Russian mystic and philosopher

Fyodor, Flannery, and GoodFellas Reveal Something Ironic about Our Modern World

Essences become meaningless in both a perfect and marred world.

When Virtue Becomes Vice

We can't pursue virtue without vice. Every pursuit of virtue, after all, requires us to strive to advance our happiness. Every such pursuit, in other words, is selfish, which is the root of all vice. It's a paradox. Paradox, The Hemispheres, and the TaoA basic tension

No More Boozy Bachelorette Parties?

By Ivy Manners at the New York Times

Another Defection from the Left

Here's the thing that strikes me about Uri Berliner's essay on Tuesday about National Public Radio's leftist agenda: The guy is still working there. He now has whistleblower status, which offers social and legal protections, but it makes him persona non gratia at the

NPR Shuts Down Conversation

Uri Berliner at The Free Press

Scrolling Blog: April 2024

The Cell Phone is a Monkey Trap for the Left HemisphereAnd Eight Other Short Observations about the HemispheresThe Daily EudemonEric Scheske April 30, 2024 Art Appreciation: One Way to Reclaim Your Attention?Nathan Heller at The New Yorker (“The Battle for Attention”)The Daily EudemonEric Scheske April 29, 2024 Monday

Elitism v. Snobbery

I never could "get into" Bell's Crowd Culture. This micro review kinda makes me want to try again, but only "kinda." The book falls into "snobbish conservatism," which I've never much cared for. We tend to think of liberalism as

Small Talk: How to Cultivate the True Disposition of the Artist

Practice being an artist by being a good conversationalist

Why Curb Your Enthusiasm is Funny

Good-Bye, CurbThe last Curb Your Enthusiasm aired Sunday. It will be sorely missed, even if I think this last season hasn’t been as good as the previous ones. Britannica has a great entry about Curb basics. I don’t think you’ll need a subscription to access it. Two

Tolkien's Letters: Revised and Expanded

Isaiah Flair at University Bookman

More Skeptics are at Least Scratching Their Heads about God These Days

Justin Brierley at Spectator World

Big Oil: Desecrating the Sacred?

Jeff Bilbro at Front Porch Republic

"Disparate Impact" is a Mind Disease. If Blacks Can't Pass the Test, It's a Racist Test

Heather Mac Donald at Imprimis

Partial Payments: Essays on Writers and Their Lives, by Joseph Epstein

A Micro-Review/Essay “I am indebted to these writers.” Paean. Nineteen of them. An essayist removes his hat, lowers his head, and says “thanks.” The essayist convinces us these subjects are great. We then understand that the essayist is great. Like recognizes like. Max Beerbohm’s prose is difficult to

Are We Really Supposed to Believe Psychedelics Gave Us Our Souls?

A mushroom? Or God? I didn’t fully appreciate the implication of The Stoned Ape theory until listening to Lex Fridman’s interview with Brian Muraresku. Muraresku recently published The Immortality Key: The Secret History of the Religion with No Name, which claims psychedelics, in particular psilocybin, has made huge,

California Wine Struggles

Louis Sahagún at Los Angeles Times

Mint Julep: The Percy Battle?

Poet Will Percy provided this recipe for the Mint Julep in his autobiography, Lanterns on the Levee: First you needed excellent bourbon whisky; rye or Scotch would not do at all. Then you put half an inch of sugar in the bottom of the glass and merely dampened it with

The Grid-less Vacation

Power Down Week is April 21-27, 2024

Jimmy Buffet: Hymnographer

How Jimmy Buffet can help cultivate the virtue of detachment I started listening to Jimmy Buffet songs when I was in law school. Though I was ambitiously studying hard so I could get a job with a powerful law firm, I was drawn to Buffet's music because it

How to be a Good Agrarian

I hung out with Michael Jordan outside Chicago about twenty years ago. No, not basketball Michael Jordan. I'm talking about Michael Jordan, the English professor from Hillsdale College. We met at a Touchstone conference at Mundelein Seminary. He saw my name tag and said he enjoyed my articles.

New Movie about The Shroud

The Shroud: Face to Face moves audiences. Robert Orlando crosses boundaries to show scientific and historical evidence that “He is risen, indeed.” The new film documentary, which debuted on Good Friday, is about the Shroud of Turin, “but the Shroud is a significant symbol pointing to something bigger: I want

Toni Morrison's Rejection Letters

Melina Moe at the Los Angeles Review of Books

Russia’s Freaky History with the Cult of Mother Earth

The Russian digs Mother Earth. This has been the case from Russia’s earliest years when dark and brutal paganism soaked her culture in blood.[1] The Russian venerates Mother Earth for her black depths, for the crops of life she provides, and for the resting home she gives at

Listening to Podcasts at Oxford in 1374 and Kansas in 1974

Why do we love those conversational podcasts? If you were a student at a medieval university, you listened to lectures. And listened and listened and listened to lectures, often more than ten hours a day. But they weren’t like lectures at today’s universities, where hundreds of students sit

Protect Your Children from Moloch

The evidence is in: Social media kills children. Well, it at least seriously wounds them. Or at least many of them. And no matter what, there ain't no adult with an ounce of sense who claims it's good for them. You know who else thinks it&

Lady, You Have One Ugly Kid

If you haven't heard, you haven't been listening: Europe is grossly under-birthed, and the United States isn't far behind. For a society to replace its population, demographers say each woman needs to average 2.1 children. The last time I looked, Germany was at

Parliament Created the 18th-Century’s Great Gin Craze

“[N]oe sort of Brandy Aqua vite or other Spirits or distilled Waters of any Kingdome Country or place whatsoever shall after the said foure and twentyeth day of August be imported into the Kingdoms of England or Ireland . . .”. If you read the Wikipedia entries about England’s Great Gin

How to be a Holy Drunk

A few notes on Sebastian Flyte The early pages of Evelyn Waugh's Brideshead Revisited describe the drunken antics of students Lord Sebastian Flyte and Charles Ryder (the narrator). Ryder makes the later observation that he “got drunk often, but through an excess of high spirits, in the love

Taoing Around in the Garden

There's a great gardening book called “The Tao of Vegetable Gardening.” The author, Carol Deppe, applies Taoist principles (especially that of wu-wei, “not doing”) to the soil, but the book isn't about Taoism. It's all about gardening. The Taoism is rarely explicit, but rather

Assault on Huberman

Kerry Howley at New York Mag

No Cell Phones in This Room

The room: A room in his house that he has dedicated strictly to deep work. I think it's a den: a study or small library. He never takes his cell phone into it. Dr. Cal Newport: How to Enhance Focus and Improve ProductivityIn this episode, my guest is

Hypocrite, Me: Netflixing My Own Aesthetic Prison

Aaron Timms at The New Republic

Who Exactly is Trying to Take Down Joe Rogan?

I wrote this in February 2022. I'm happy with it in light of what we're learning in 2024.

Four Levels of Literature to Form a Healthy Worldview

Ideas bloom like plants. Good plants begin with good soil

If You Can Successfully Get SNAP Out of KFC, I'll Listen

Until that obvious and flagrant and massive fraud is remedied, I'm afraid any argument for more government action is laughably absurd

A Tip to the Right Hemisphere

I agree with Modern Drunkard Magazine's observation that, if you can't afford to tip the bartender, you can't afford to drink in a bar. Just buy a six-pack and stay home. Me? I prefer to stay home with the six-pack, but I love bars.

Happy Birthday, Front Porch Republic

Bill Kauffman at Front Porch Republic

Why I Subscribed to Encylopedia Britannica

I subscribed to the Encyclopedia Britannica. It was difficult. I didn't much mind the $75 annual subscription price, but I've spent early 2024 weeding subscriptions out of my wallet—about $1,000 worth annually. Last week, I discovered I could watch March Madness this year for

Why Are We So Metaphysically Beleaguered?

A review of Bradley Lowell Stone’s Robert Nisbet: Communitarian Traditionalist (ISI Books, 2000) Episode 262: The Quest for Community by Robert Nisbet | National ReviewJohn J. Miller is joined by Luke Sheahan of Duquesne University to discuss Robert Nisbet’s book, The Quest for Community.National Review G.K. Chesterton’

Night Train: An American Legend

The tent city crisis continues. It was even the subject of a recent Econtalk episode, in which the guest explained that the tent cities result from fentanyl-laced meth, which makes users paranoid, so they want to be in an enclosed space (a tent), but when they’re not under the

George MacDonald: Grandfather of Middle Earth?

Fantasy literature wasn't even "a thing" until George MacDonald came along. Timothy Larsen flushes it out. One of my favorite "browsing books" is C.S. Lewis' Anthology: 365 Readings of George MacDonald writings. I've also long believed that the fiction of

The CCP and Me: Once Upon A Time in Today's Hollywood

Michael Clark at Epoch Times

China Controls Hollywood?

"The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." Lenin (might be apocryphal)

Vermont is the New Texas?

Ice BacksThe folks fly into Canada then trudge into Vermont and North Dakota. In 2023, compared to 2020, it’s up five-fold and is on pace in 2024 to crush the 2023 numbers. Graph. And like the new immigrants coming across the southern border, these folks appear to be well-funded.

Debasement Fundamentals: Bitcoin Has No Top Because Fiat Has No Bottom

From Bitcoin Magazine

St. Patrick and Sundry

Black St. Patrick's Day According to the Spectator, St. Patrick's Day is the biggest bar night of the year, surpassing even my favorite holiday, Black Wednesday. For a country like Ireland, as devoted to its faith as to a good party, the fact that St. Patrick’

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Everything you need and don't need for your bar conversations this weekend

You Can't See Their Faces on Route 66

The Blurry Allure of the Open Road

Hating Rural Whites

Nathan Robinson at Current Affairs

Cabrini Movie Review

Less Girl Power and More Holy Ghost Power

Twelve Aquinas Aphorisms

Simple observations from the medieval poster boy will give you new perspectives

Hey Dude, Let's Inherit the Kingdom

If you want to inherit the kingdom, look with the eyes of the little child. Or maybe drink a few cocktails. Here's the thing about kids: Their prefrontal cortexes aren't developed. Their PFCs don't fully develop until their early twenties. PFCs control analytical thinking.

Drunks and Stoners are Bright, Creative, and Talented, But I Don't Want to be One

Hey Dude, Let’s Inherit the KingdomIf you want to inherit the kingdom, look with the eyes of the little child. Or maybe drink a few cocktails. Here’s the thing about kids: Their prefrontal cortexes aren’t developed. Their PFCs don’t fully develop until their early twenties. PFCs

Albert Jay Nock, Our Enemy, the State: Summary

I think this minor classic boils down to a handful of points: 1. State power comes at the price of social power. If the state will take care of something, then people won't. As social power collapses, so does society. This is Nock's best insight, and

California was a Hot Bed of Libertarianism

Given the ideological condition of the Golden State today, it must've been the most-failed ideological movement in history My opinion of Gavin Newsom, Eric Garcetti, and other imbecilic politicians in California is strongly colored by Joe Rogan, who has an extremely low opinion of them. So whereas I

More Bud Lite Fun, but Not Nearly Enough

Bud Light Missed Out on the Super Bowl Party I don't deny that the boycott has hurt, but that swill is still the second most popular brand out there. We have way too many trannies and pinko-trannies in this country. Kid Rock even pulled back on the boycott

The Inherent and Severe Limitations of Thinking

In the early 1990s, I practiced law with a lot of impressive Jewish attorneys. One, particularly so. He was brilliant, aggressive, and driven. He also held a Ph.D. in philosophy. I always wanted to ask him why he got a doctorate in philosophy and then went to law school,

Thinking isn't Rational: It's Embodied Reasoning

David Weinberger at University Bookman

Left-Hemispheric Knowledge

💡I wrote this short essay 15 years ago, before I was even aware of the hemisphere hypothesis. This passage from the essay captures well the problem with left hemisphere thinking: "It takes a proud person to take incomplete knowledge and respond as though he has a complete grasp of

Netflix’s Hidden High School Comedy Gem

American Vandal

"Mental Health": The Refuge of Scoundrels

Theodore Dalrymple at the Spectator

Why We Don't Like Handicapped People

"Introducing a Person Who Needs No Introduction . . ."

My inadvertent love affair with book introductions. Plus a dozen introduction recommendations.

Eight Astonishing Facts about The Brothers Karamazov

Plus Six Unverified Facts and Five Interesting Facts

A Few Great Charles Bukowski Quotes

His headstone features a graphic of a boxer and the Zen-inspired epitaph “Don’t try.”

Why We Should Pray

Part I of a Two-Part Series

Pulling Thomas Aquinas Kicking and Screaming into the Twentieth Century

There are some authors who make you think, “I could read this guy, and just this guy, for the rest of my life. He'd bring me to greater and greater levels of wisdom and understanding.” For me, the German philosopher Josef Pieper (1904-1997) is such a writer. He

Scrolling Blog: March 2024

Happy Easter "When the disciples saw the risen Christ, they beheld him as a reality in the world, though no longer of it, respecting the order of the world, but Lord of its laws. To behold such reality was different and more than to see a tree or watch

Rare Figs + a Strain of Yeast from 850 B.C. = Ancient Egypt Beer

The idea came to Dylan McDonnell early in the pandemic, when a sourdough-baking craze took over a nation under lockdown. Mr. McDonnell, an amateur brewer who lives outside Salt Lake City, saw Seamus Blackley, a video game designer, boasting on social media about baking bread with 4,500-year-old Egyptian yeast.

A Magisterial Appreciation for a Magisterial Effort: Fadiman's Lifetime Reading Plan

Nathan Payne at The Lamp

Why Were Humans Suddenly Able to Drink Liquor?

One drinker's haphazard, irresponsible, and drunken theory.

How to Find Diversity without Even Trying

Re-thinking our obsession with diversity Religion is good for you. Religious participation, sociologists tell us, correlates with lower levels of criminality, better health, greater marital stability, and greater well-being. According to an article awhile back in the Atlantic Monthly, sociologists and economists are studying this phenomenon further and, in the

Place and Conservatism

Mark T. Mitchell at Front Porch Republic

Blow Back Beer to the Vanishing Sommelier

This Video is Pretty Wild Brewer blown backwards by beer blast (video)An employee of Back Channel Brewing Company in Spring Park, Minnesota, was standing in front of a large vat when it blew him backwards.Boing BoingDavid Pescovitz The Sommelier is Vanishing Wine is still poured at many tables.

Hard Currency to be Eliminated?

Aaron Day at Brownstone Institute

Prices Reflect Our Participation in Reality in General

A few notes on prices and reality

John McClaughry: Underappreciated Man

Bill Kauffman at The American Conservative

Collectors, Hoarders, and the Childless

In my youth, I started more collections than a wino starts bottles. I stopped. I don't know why.

Science and Magic . . . And Math

This is a great historical tie into Part II of Existence Strikes Back and its observation that modernity's momentum began to build in the 13th century, as Western civilization's capacity for control increased. Magic and science were twins in the cradle of modernity. This essay points

Hanging Out is Counter-Conduct

Derek Thompson at The Atlantic

The Peasant Sentiment

The Greatest Game Ever Played is a true story about an unaccomplished young golfer, Francis Ouimet, at the turn of the century and how he beat the world's top two golfers in an 18-hole playoff at the 1913 U.S. Open. Francis's goal to be a

Portland: A Laboratory Experiment on Progressive Politics

Naomi Schaefer Riley at City Journal

The Technology Paradox

The more efficient technology makes us, the less efficient we become. Of course, information technology saves time by doing things quickly. Or does it? Bosses save wages, but we become their new, unwilling wage slaves. Meanwhile, with the automation of more and more processes that used to take a five-minute

French Beer Rises

Kathleen Willcox at The Spectator

An Honest "Celebration" [Tortured Account] of an Open Marriage

Dorothy Fortenberry at Commonweal. Caution: Reprobate content.

Handwriting: Brain Connectivity?

George Citroner at Epoch Times

Bend It Like Orwell

Essay Rules from the Master

Social Activist Thomas Merton Didn't Stay Informed?

Merton didn't trust the media, but he formed strong opinions on current events. It's because Merton was an artist victimized by his left hemisphere. He needed to embrace causes.

Scrolling Blog: February 2024

February 29, 2204 I Loathe the Republican Party But Thank Goodness for the Republican Party This issue is so important, I'm not inclined to much care what kind of politics or demagoguery or other roguery is driving the opposition, just as long as this measure is exposed and

Kerouac and Cassady Pick Up a Hitchhiker

Sal’s and Dean’s wanderings are exercises in detachment. The road detaches them from the binding conventionalities of normal society. As a result, they are able to enjoy everything and everyone, even the most disgusting, because they are able, in their unique way, to see God’s stamp of

Austria Loves Its Schnapps. Plus: Wine Trends 2024

Brews You Can Use

The Homeless Have Vigorous Circadian Clocks

Sacred Cow Homeless Ari Matti Mustonen had a good set at the Comedy Mothership. He comes from Estonia. He pointed out that they have homeless in Europe too, but they're not . . . erratic. He talked about moving to Austin and dealing with a homeless guy who's always

What the Ape Man Can Teach Us About a Common Mental Mistake

Pithecanthropus is the ape-man. He's also known as the Java Man and the Peking Man. Latin-loving scientists call him Homo erectus, Homo modjokertenses, Meganthropus palaeojavanicus, Pithecanthropus robustus, and Pithecanthropus dubius. He is the creation of Dutch physician Eugene Dubois. In the 1890s, Dubois discovered a few bony remains

This is So Outrageous, I Won't Believe It Unless This Guy Shows Up Wearing a Toe Tag

And Introducing "the Murder Paradox"

The Doors Don't Open on Madison Avenue

Christopher Sandford at The Spectator

Austin: Beautiful Model Plus 20 Pounds

Picture a model. Neither waif nor plus-sized. Maybe Cindy Crawford in her prime. Now picture her ten years later with 20 more pounds. She'd probably still be kinda hot but not when compared to her prime. That's Austin. 300,000 to One Million Austin has put

Five Dispositions that Can Make Your Life More Productive and Happy

The philosophy of focusing on a slow and loving existence in the quiet now

Five Pieces of Furniture for Your Intellectual Living Room

These truths settle nothing but ought to inform everything

The Joy of Seed Catalogs

Teresa Mull at The Spectator

Charles Bukowski's L.A.

Loren Kantor at WritingAndTyping (Medium)

The Shallow World of Artificial Intelligence

Adam Kirsch at LiteratureGBT

Asteroid City: America is a Strange Land

I didn't like the movie, but it was strange. I suppose that's positive . . . or at least, American.

A Charming Suggestion: Bring Back the Tickets

Bailey Sincox at Public Books

Fundamentalism: The Disposition that Fuels the Jerks of the World

Most disagreeable people have this common trait.

Why You Should Care about Gene Wolfe

He's the author of Book of the New Sun, which is massive but which I just finished and which is incredible, full of implicit Catholic theology, Greek philosophy, and mythology. Some of his biggest literary influences were Chesterton and Tolkien. He's also a convert, whose conversion

BYCU: Drinking Literature: The Good, the Bad, and the Tripe

This is a Lovely Drinking Piece from the Spectator An ode to localism, in its way It used to have a snug: a partitioned room where ladies could drink in privacy. Those days are gone, now; it’s been closed off. The ornately carved bar and buttoned leather bench seats

Big Ag is Killing Us

I Think It's Time to Go Organic, but the USDA Makes It Very Difficult by Allowing Dishonest Food Labeling . . . at the Behest of Big Ag and to the Detriment of American Citizens My doctor takes a sane approach. During consultation, he discusses nutrition, weight loss, and exercise, but

A Life of Exploring in One's Own Corner of the World

Alastair Humphreys at Noema

Spending in Ways that Further the Evil Empire of Hudge and Gudge

Jane Clark Scharl at Plough

Don't Crowd Me

A few years ago, I went to my local high school's first home football game. Afterwards, I was exhausted. I mean, absolutely exhausted, like I had lead around my shoulders. I'd had a hard week at work, but the level of exhaustion was something else. I

Localism without Fundamentalism

Adam Smith at Front Porch Republic

2024: 800-Year Anniversary of the Franciscans' Arrival in England

The year 2024 marks the eight-hundredth anniversary of the arrival in England of the Friars Minor, sent personally by Saint Francis of Assisi, and the establishment of England’s first Franciscan friary in Canterbury in 1224. The Franciscans followed the Dominicans, who had already arrived in England in 1221, and

Botoxing Beauty

💡This "non-story" appeared yesterday at Catholic365. Practical problems require darker powers. The British writer G.K. Chesterton made that observation a hundred years ago, noting that people have always a "secret and perverse feeling that the darker powers would really do things." A corollary idea came

A Gay Guy, a Jew, and a Catholic Go into a Bar . . . No, Not Really. I Was Just Kidding.

It's here: Flat-out speech prohibition, even in private conversations that take place in one's house: Norway has criminalized hate speech against transgender people. A “transgression” can land you in jail for a year . . and three years if the transgression occurs in public. If you don'

BYCU

Priming your pump in this damp January

Hanging Out is a Rebuke to the Left Hemisphere

America has a crisis: Young people aren't wasting enough time with one another. The result? Depression, suicide, and general malaise are up. Happiness is down. I've long chided my kids, especially my daughters, for making "hanging out" a priority. In my left-hemispheric world, hanging

Maisie Ward, Gilbert Keith Chesterton

Ben Franklin and the Mouse

How I finally accepted multi-tasking It had been there for years, but I had never noticed it. Until one morning when I found myself with a telephone receiver tucked under my neck while I talked with an acquaintance, a computer mouse in my hand while I surfed the Internet, and

Give Me Nothingness or Give Me Nothing at All

Last Friday evening, I was supposed to meet friends at the Hillcrest Lounge shortly after 5:00. I got there at 5:10 and ordered a drink. The others were delayed, so I sat there for over twenty minutes, looking out the window. Other than Ted Nugent on the jukebox,

Propaganda and Love of the Ugly

Anthony Daniels (a/k/a "Theodore Dalrymple") at The New Criterion

Your Opinions Stink

John of Montmirail liked to fight. He was a leading knight in battle; he jousted in peace. But then he had a religious conversion and dedicated his resources to helping the poor, including the establishment of a hospice in his castle. He once went to help a woman whose dying

Bawdy Premodern and Postmodern

RabelaisOne of my favorite writers, Albert Jay Nock, was a huge Rabelais fan. He wrote two books about him. From the first: It must be laid down once and for all, that the chief purpose of reading a classic like Rabelais is to prop and stay the spirit, especially inThe

Frantically Trying to Fit in All the Spiritual Stuff?

I once told a spiritual adviser that I really liked a'Kempis' The Imitation of Christ. He shook his head a bit and said he preferred to read Thomas Aquinas. He said he found the profound truths of, say, the Summa Theologica more moving spiritually than devotional works.

Entangled Life: How Fungi Know

Merlin Sheldrake, Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures. This short book tells me everything I want (and far more than I need) to know about mushrooms and their earlier stages. The author, it seems to me, tries to keep a sane perspective

The Rise of the Holy Men

So holy men left. They left for the desert and became the forerunners of the monks, though these early counter-culture revolutionaries were “in some ways less comparable to modern monks and nuns than to modern drop-outs, supporters of gurus, or others . . . who abandon the conventional world . . .”. Gibbon, The Fall of

BYCU

Man Arrested for Shopdrinking A store loss prevention officer said the man was spotted selecting bottles of gin from the store shelves, pouring the contents into a cup, drinking the contents and discarding the bottles into a reusable shopping bag. [eco-friendly] The man initially did not cooperate with police when

Renewing Catholic Education on the Atlantic

Ray Domanico at City Journal

First Things' Feature Essay: Resist the Machine Apocalypse

The March 2024 issue of First Things arrived Tuesday. The feature essay: Iain McGilchrist, "Resist the Machine Apocalypse." It's great. But it's not online yet. When it is, I'll post an excerpt and a link to the full essay, but I suspect

Botch Your New Year's Resolutions Already? Maybe Try a Few of These Winter Resolutions

"New year" means "new soul." That's what British writer G.K. Chesterton once observed. Many of us, though, already feel like we've soiled our souls with botched New Year's resolutions. And the rest of us will feel pretty soiled soon

1273: Apex of Western Civilization

December 6, 1273. That's the date St. Thomas Aquinas had such an intense experience or vision during Mass, that he stopped writing. For 35 years, Aquinas had used the written word to explain pretty much everything. He provided proofs of God's existence that atheists still struggle

Is "Dry January" Just a Neo-Prohibitionist Trick?

News and commentary to fuel your weekend

Six Observations from a Habsburg Sympathizer

Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn might have been the world's most fascinating man

Journalists Continue to Think They Have a Monopoly on Truth

Bonnie Kristian at Christianity Today

The Importance of Manners

💡George Washington, the first President of the United States, was known to have studied a book called Rules of Civility & Decent Behaviour In Company and Conversation. This book was based on a set of rules compiled by French Jesuits in the 16th century and was a guide to proper

Urban Planning v. Organic Cities

Anthony Eagan at City Journal

23 Truths

Gurwinder at The Prism (Substack)

Feeling Hurried? Blame Netflix

One quality about modern life that no one denies: it's rushed. It's hurried. Frenzied. No one feels like they have enough time. There's a simple explanation: Modern life is fun. It's interesting. Tons of worthy things grab our attention. The adjective "

"To Play is to Contemplate," James Schall

"One should live out one's days playing at certain games--sacrificing, singing, and dancing." Plato, The Laws

Localism is Better Because It Provides Far More Options

This is a frustrating interview. The champions of localism, Front Porch Republic, interview an enemy of it, Trevor Latimore (author of Small Isn't Beautiful). It's a cordial exchange, with interesting arguments/points by both sides, but Latimore's position seems to gel around this simple

Jigsaw Puzzles. Non-Stories. The Focused Life?

My father-in-law is 93 and really sharp. One thing he does to keep sharp: jigsaw puzzles. He times himself and works them serenely but with focus. The mental exercise drips with lessons explored by Dr. Kevin Majerjes at Optimal Work: short bursts of sustained focus, little goals that keep you

Has Feminism And 'Hoeflation' Destroyed Dating In The West?

Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge

Scrolling Blog: January 2024

January 31, 2024 AI and the Left Hemisphere About once a month, I come across an online essay that is so lengthy and compelling that, after reading the first section, I merely scan the rest and print it out so I can study it later. Such is this essay by

Britain’s Oldest Pubs—Some Over 800 Years Old—Still Open

from Epoch Times

Cell Phones, Radio, and the Philosophy of Marshall McLuhan

Breaking down a 21st-century matter by bringing back a 1960s icon. My first cell phone was the Motorola RAZR V3. That was in 2005. I didn’t use it a lot at first, but it made me more accessible to my clients. I would often use it to return calls

Beer is on the Decline

2023 has been a terrible year for the nectar of the gods U.S. beer shipments fell more than 5% in the first nine months of the year and by year’s end are expected to hit their lowest level in a quarter-century, according to industry tracker Beer Marketer’s

In Praise of Repair Culture

Repair Culture on the Rise?The new issue of Plough magazine pushes for a return to repairing things. The thrust of this new movement: “throwaway culture” is creating all sorts of problems, from landfills to euthanasia. And big business is the reason. Starting in 1923, it stopped making products intended

Jeremy Clarke: A Great Reader

It's arguably the most popular column in Britain's oldest newspaper. The "Low Life" column of The Spectator has entertained readers since 1975, when Jeffrey Bernard provided readers with, to quote Johnathan Meades, "a suicide note in weekly installments." After Bernard's

Dark Santa

Mary Wellesley at The Spectator

Christmas Quotes

“For while all things were in quiet silence and the night was in the midst of her course, thy almighty word leapt down from heaven from thy royal throne.” Book of Wisdom. “[This] passage, brimming with the mystery of the Incarnation, is wonderfully expressive of the infinite stillness that hovered

First Christmas in the Convent

Carino Hodder at the Lamp

Holiday BYCU

A Splendid Micro-History of Mulled Wine "Glow Wine" At Christmas Markets Worldwide, the Holiday Spirit Comes in a Little Red BootAll over Europe and the US, Christmas markets bring good cheer and warm mulled wine, often served out of a curious collectible mug. Here’s the story of

Will New York Be the Old Babylon?

I thought NYC would rebound quickly after COVID and De Blasio, but it just can't seem to get its act together.

The Holiday Elf

Okay, you want a killer drink? This is it: The Holiday Elf. Ingredients: One part Midori Melon Liqueur, one part Blue Curacao, one part Spiced Rum, one part Coconut Rum, two parts lemon/lime juice, two parts simple syrup, two parts pineapple juice. Process: Mix 'em all together and

No Room in the Inn — What Inn?

Dwight Longenecker at The Imaginative Conservative

Bowling Alone Reads Like a Nostalgic Look at the Good Ol’ Days

Bridget Phetasy at The Spectator

Celebrate the New Year in Edinburgh

Scomo collapsed from a heart attack near the new commercial center that he detested. Hurried and busy pedestrians left him there, figuring he was a drunken tramp, until a feeble-minded woman knelt to care for him and discovered he was dead. That's how the writer George Scott-Moncrieff died

The Quest for Community at 70

Brad Birzer at University Bookman

Western Civilization Hit Its Apex During Advent 1273

A civilization can, indeed, advance and decline at the same time. Eric Voegelin, New Science of Politics, 132. As civilization advances, the sense of wonder declines. Abraham Heschel, God in Search of Man Modern civilization is gnostic civilization. Gnostic civilization is left-hemispheric civilization. Gnosis: Knowledge. Specifically, explicit knowledge, the kind

The Battle Between Macroculture and Microculture Is Turning into a War

Ted Gioia at The Honest Broker

Parliament Created the Great London Gin Craze

“[N]oe sort of Brandy Aqua vite or other Spirits or distilled Waters of any Kingdome Country or place whatsoever shall after the said foure and twentyeth day of August be imported into the Kingdoms of England or Ireland . . .”. If you read the Wikipedia entries about England’s Great Gin

The Difference between "Reason" and "Rationality"

Reason Greek nous Latin intellectus Reason is flexible. It resists fixed formulation. It is shaped by experience. It involves the whole living being, combining the mental and physical . . . the spiritual and material. It is the intellectual glue of sacramental existence. It is characterized by intuition. Reason is "congenial to

How to Make a Cocktail

How Have These Ten Extensions Changed Us?

Toward the end of his life, Marshall McLuhan provided a list of the ten things that have changed us the most. Perhaps the biggest difference between childhood and adulthood is time. The adult frantically looks for more time. The child looks for ways to fill time. I filled a lot

Is New Year's Eve Still the King of Alcohol?

New Year’s Eve is dead. It’s not the biggest bar night of the year. It’s not even the biggest drinking night in general. I base those claims on a (very scientific and statistical) review of the facts. First, I spent four minutes on internet searches, which brought

Absinthe Minded

Barnaby Conrad III at the New Criterion

Zero Hedge: Decent Prose?

Robert Kiyosaki supposedly once counseled a new "creator" about the perils of good writing: "It's 'bestselling author,' not 'best-written author.'" His point: If you want to be successful online, you need to write for sales, not art. He's

Don't Let Your Left Hemisphere Ruin Christmas

"I wouldn’t upset my plan for anything. I’d rather upset life than the plan." The Anonymous Schoizoid The left hemisphere doesn't live. It thinks. It plans: "How to do this?" "How to tackle that?" The best way to develop a

The Age of Avengers

Jesse Russell at VoegelinView

Catholic Elementary School Christmas Play: Review

When my wife asked if I could come with her to watch her 4-11-year-old students in a Christmas play, I can’t say I was expecting much. But as a lover of theater, the no-admission fee was too good to turn down. This Christmas play, directed by third grade-teacher Miss

Catholicism's Claim to the Hemisphere Hypothesis

Introducing the Catholic Hemisphere. Part Two of Two. About the Hemisphere Hypothesis Straight explanations are dryer than Las Vegas in July (unless you're standing in front of the Bellagio Fountains), but I guess I need to explain the Hemisphere Hypothesis. You can find my full explanation here, but

The Catholic Church is the Proper Master

Introducing the Catholic Hemisphere: Part One of Two

Introducing The Catholic Hemisphere

I've been wrestling mightily with the Hemisphere Hypothesis for the past two years. I've tied it into the Existence Strikes Back project, which is something that has occupied my attention off and on for the past 25 years. My labors (of love) with THH and ESB

The John's Penance

One thing from Chapter 11 of Tom Holland's excellent Dominion: A clerical disciple of Abelard argued that, when determining the severity of penance for patronizing a prostitute, the woman's hotness should be taken into account.

Traveling with Your Left Hemisphere

In The Art of Travel, Alain de Botton describes traveling to an island paradise. The first morning, he sat on the beach, coconut trees leaning toward the sea, jungle-covered hills behind him. He then began to think about a sore throat I had developed during the flight, worry over not

Blessed Henri de Lubac?

George Weigel at First Things

Ten Totally Impractical Observations about Life that You Need to Hear

I don't think Fr. Schall knew it, but his book is a relentless celebration of the right hemisphere.

Fine Drunken Literature Returns

Dopamine flooded my brain and I immediately wanted gin to fill my veins: An email announced a new issue of Modern Drunkard Magazine had dropped. My immediate reaction, "It's not dead!" "Will I get a hard copy in the mail?" "How many of

Why I am Now a Christian

Ayaan Hirsi Ali at UnHerd

Scrolling Blog: December 2023

December 30, 2023 Detroit Pistons Relegated To WNBADETROIT, MI — After suffering a record-tying 28th straight loss, basketball fans across the country and the other 29 NBA teams voted unanimously to demote the Detroit Pistons to the WNBA.The Babylon Bee December 29, 2023 BYCU Beer is on the Decline2023 has

This is Your Brain on News

Interview of Bryan Caplan at the 80,000 Hours Podcast. Transcript.

Clearing Ground

Adam Smith at Front Porch Republic

Paragraph 7 of This Newman Sermon is Stunning (Plus a Thomas Sowell Kicker)

"Sermon 13: Implicit and Explicit Reason"

Introducing the Non-Story

I've been noticing a new type of Internet article:  Sites making podcast episodes into news stories. The gimmick's approach: A flashy "news-like" headline, followed by a story about the podcast's content, sprinkled with quotes, which give it the feel of a journalist

How to Use the Cold Weather

I woke up yesterday morning to the gales of November, the same that brought down the Edmund Fitzgerald in 1975, according to meteorologists who said the atmospheric mix that dumped a few inches on my town is the same that brought down the mighty freighter. I could hear a collective

Hemisphere Video

You don't want to read the 500-page Master and his Emissary? You don't want to read the 1,500 pages that flush it all out? Try The Divided Brain. You can rent it for $1.99. In just 80 minutes, you'll understand the Hemisphere

Days of Wine and Gin

Memoirs of an Oenophile It reminds me of a book I once bought solely because of the great title: Memoirs of an Amnesiac by Oscar Levant (available at Amazon for only $147 . . . used versions as low as $27) "Whenever I see the word 'oenophile,' I picture people

Everlasting GKC for Advent

Lynyrd Skynyrd wrote "Sweet Home Alabama" as a rejoinder to Neil Young's smug "Southern Man. Likewise, GKC wrote The Everlasting Man as a rejoinder to H.G. Wells' Outline of History. In both cases, the rejoinders won. The Everlasting Man explains history as part

The Visionaries: Arendt, Beauvoir, Rand, Weil, and the Power of Philosophy in Dark Times

Robert Zaretsky at The American Scholar

This is Your Brain on Books

Elyse Graham at Public Books

Pixel v. Print and Five Hard Novels

I ran across perhaps the most-enjoyable Medium.com pieces of the past few months: Five Insanely Difficult Novels (and Why They're Worth the Effort). It, for me, is perhaps the quintessential online essay. I agree with Joseph Epstein that there is something fundamentally different between reading print and

Boys are Not Girls and Women are Not Men

No Matter How Hard We Try

Annual Thanksgiving Day Quotes

“Thanksgiving Day originated in New England when the Puritans realized they had succeeded in exterminating their neighbors, the Indians, instead of getting exterminated by their neighbors, the Indians.” Mark Twain “Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.” Samuel Johnson “Beggar that I

Oiling the Chicken Machine

Garth Brown at The New Atlantis

Christmas Eve with GKC

In the round of our rational and mournful year one festival remains out of all those ancient gaieties that once covered the whole earth. Christmas remains to remind us of those ages, whether Pagan or Christian, when the many acted poetry instead of the few writing it. “Christmas and the

Black Wednesday Arrives

Welcome to the biggest bar night of the year. New Years Eve is for house parties. Halloween is for frat parties. St. Patrick's Day is for Irish parties. Thanksgiving Eve is for bar parties. College kids come home and filter into the local watering hole that declined them

The Difference Between Superstition and Religion

Personal Computer and Personal Choice

In 1968, Carver Mead, professor at California Institute of Technology, began to demonstrate the possibilities of placing an entire computer on one chip at a cost of just a few dollars.  He also began to preach the possibilities of the innovation, asserting it would end the burdensome and expensive computer

The Stoics and Me

As an uptight Christian, I've sought spiritual counsel from St. John the Apostle to Thomas Merton, from Augustine through Aquinas to Guardini. They all helped. But I still suffered from uptightness and swings of passion: worry about the future; sudden bursts of good emotional energy, mortgaged with my

How Mathematics Built the Modern World

Bo Malmberg & Hannes Malmberg at Works in Process

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Count Me In I love everything about Christmas. I even like its commercialization. And I love gin. The problem is, I'm not sure it's available in the U.S. Gordon’s Unveils Sugar Plum Gin Liqueur Just in Time for Holiday ImbibingAs the holiday season approaches,

Motorized Ox-Carts

Peter Hitchens at The Lamp

Gatsby: Grasping for Transcendence

Frank DeVito at Front Porch Republic

The Origins of the Tavern: A Micro-History

The bar in English-speaking countries traces its roots back to Roman Britain where drinking establishments flourished. The establishments declined with Rome, but they came back in the Middle Ages, largely through the efforts of monasteries to provide for travelers. By the fifteenth century, three different drinking establishments were found in

An Encyclopedia of Curiosities and Horrors

Filip Bakardzhiev at VoegelinView

Has the Rabble Breached Another Wall in the Castle of High Culture?

The New Criterion properly considers itself an urbane journal of the arts. With this, comes a commitment to first-rate style, without regard to the Idiocracy that is overwhelming our culture. But I saw something interesting (or disturbing, depending on whether one cheers this cultural secular bear market or condemns it)

Picture Books for Adults

This is a delightful piece from Public Books. I especially liked this observation about how medieval monks would read: This form of reading, de Hamel says, is one reason why so many medieval manuscripts have richly decorated pages. The decorations “helped impress a page visually in the reader’s memory,

Why the CIA No Longer Works—and How to Fix It

Charles S. Faddis at Hillsdale College

BYCU

Another Modern Drunkard Magazine tribute

That Inscription at the Temple of Apollo Won't Go Away

Markets and the Good: Thinking Beyond the Tyranny of Economics

Jay Tolson at The Hedgehog Review

What Do Fungi Have to Do with Athens?

Eve Tushnet at The University Bookman

These Monks Were on a Search-and-Destroy Mission Against Their Left Hemispheres

It's hard to admit this, but here goes: Back in my twenties, I decided I wanted to be a mystic. Such a thing is absurd: The goal is foiled by the goal. You might as well decide you want to be a poor man with money (one of

Podcast: November 5, 2023

Slay Your Orc, Then Read Your Poetry

BYCU

Giving a Whole New Meaning to the "Rear Naked Choke" And the "Reverse Mount," the "Rear Mount," the "Full Mount," the "Arm Drag," and the "Whizzer" I was cracking up, just reading through a UFC glossary. Can you

"He is Interested Only in the Individual Soul Whom He Places Before God"

Advocates from across the political field have claimed Christ for their side: Communists, Socialists, Liberals, Conservatives, Monarchists. They all can find something in Christ's life or his words to support their political vision. It isn't surprising, of course, since every doctrine, no matter how absurd, has

The Smallest of Seeds: A Review of Fragile Neighborhoods

Christian McNamara at Front Porch Republic

Scrolling Blog: November 2023

November 30, 2023 Four Female Philosophers His four magi, emerging from the material, moral, social, and political wreckage wrought by the First World War, grasped that philosophy had to be utterly reimagined. Exactly. All the decent philosophers in the twentieth century knew modern thought was broken and had to be

Inside the Transgender Empire

Christopher Rufo at Imprimis

Podcast: October 3, 2023

How to Think about the Cell Phone

Weapon of Self-Destruction or Tool of Self-Improvement: The cell phone. Is it a great thing? A useful thing? An annoying thing? An addicting thing? A ton of writers have condemned the cell phone on all sorts of grounds. They’re tired of rude talkers who use it in restaurants, parks,

Gothic Realism: Right Hemispheric?

The macabre might, in part, be a rejection of the Enlightenment and yet another route to re-energize the right hemisphere and its embrace of the trans-rational, much as the occult is a rejection of rationalism and its left hemispheric overlord. The Gothic genre is particularly suited to depicting these elements.

Repair Culture on the Rise?

The new issue of Plough magazine pushes for a return to repairing things. The thrust of this new movement: "throwaway culture" is creating all sorts of problems, from landfills to euthanasia. And big business is the reason. Starting in 1923, it stopped making products intended to last for

Famous Amos

Kyle Smith at The New Criterion

Nassim Taleb Tore into the Left Hemisphere Before The Master and His Emissary

The Canonization of Lou Reed

Jeremy Lybarger at The New Republic

Beyond Progressivism

John Milbank at The Hedgehog Review: Toward a Personalist Metaphysics of History

BYCU

People are Drinking More of Those Frilly Canned Drinks And they're reducing household budgets and trying to live healthier Not mentioned: More people are smoking marijuana. It's easier to take the pledge when you're taking a bong hit. People Are Drinking Less Craft Beer.

Saving St. Louis One Block at a Time

Rachel Ferguson at the Acton Institute

Jon Fosse's Fiction

Jonathan Geltner at Close Reading

Waiting for the Biggest Bar Night of the Year

💡BYCU from 2021 “The waiting is the hardest part.” Tom Petty #blackwednesdaysmatter It sits there. Five days away, the biggest bar night of the year, two years removed from the last one. Black Wednesday. I will have the traditional BYCU Special Edition next Wednesday. Today, I wait. I’m itching

How to Re-Read

Joseph Epstein at The Lamp

James Schall's Another Sort of Learning

Summer 1988. I’d just graduated from the University of Michigan and was preparing to enter the University of Notre Dame School of Law. I was working second shift at a local factory as a material handler (gopher). I was working six nights a week, Monday through Saturday,4:30

“Freedom of Speech Does Not Mean Freedom From Consequences” Says Executioner

Toronto, Canada, 2034 Toronto citizens were in for a treat last night as they got to witness the public beheading of Terrence Horn. Horn had been convicted of blasphemy of the highest degree when he accused the government of running concentration camps. “Pay no attention to him,” said Judge Lawrence

Can the Right Hemisphere Atrophy?

Darwin thought so

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Finally, Political News We Can Drink To Austrian ‘Beer Party’ polling well in Vienna state electionThey have proposed a beer fountain in Vienna, the abolition of mandatory closing times and a 50 per cent tax on Radlers.The London EconomicJack Peat Ah, The Monkey is Back at $80 for the

What Was Literary Fiction?

Dan Sinykin at The Nation

The Art of Listening Opens the Right Hemisphere

The Gnostic: A Person Controlled by His Left Hemisphere, Plus a Cause

Merely being controlled by the left hemisphere doesn't make a person a gnostic. He also needs a cause.

Why the Fading of the Southern Accent Is Bad News

Jack Butler at National Review

I Almost Became an Anarchist

A mini-review of The Essential Rothbard by David Gordon. Murray Rothbard almost made me an anarchist. I had read some of Rothbard's stuff and had delved into various areas of anarchist thought (mostly through this somewhat difficult, very thick, often fascinating volume). I've abandoned such notions,

Three Ways to War Poetically

BYCU

The Topsy-Turvy World of Bankruptcy Law is Never a Dry Area Leave it to the American genius to devise the elaborate maze that is the Bankruptcy Code. No other area of law has such an elaborate left-hemispheric schema, complete with its own internal rationalizations that only the mad men within

Left Hemisphere v. Right Hemisphere. Specific Differences in a Two-Column Format

The Nothing Desire

“The poor monk is lord of world.” St. John Climacus  Bruno was a rising star of eleventh-century European culture. A master of the cathedral school (the precursor to the university) of Rheims, he taught grammar, poetry, philosophy and theology.  He became head of Rheims by age thirty. The most promising

In Defense of Voracious Reading

Philip Bunn at Law & Liberty

Satire Can Save Us

This was previously published as an "Outside the Modern Limits" newsletter. I normally don't send them again as a Substack newsletter, but I did this time because I edited almost every sentence and added a bunch of footnotes. It's the same product, but entirely

Leisure and Liberality

Elizabeth C. Corey at First Things

Battles on the Right

A new battlefront has opened on the political right: localists v. monoliths. It's the latest version of the libertarian-conservative debate that George Nash described marvelously in his major work. The localists in the current debate are the libertarians and the monoliths are the conservatives. I say "monoliths&

The Reality of Fr. Damien

A few years ago, the future of the Catholic Church AOC said a statue of Fr. Damien of Molokai at the Capitol building is an example of “patriarchy and white supremacist culture.” She quickly realized that she picked a bad example and backpedaled faster than Deion Sanders in his prime,

Old Mistakes From the New Right

Tyler Syck at Law & Liberty

Scrolling Blog: October 2023

October 31, 2023 Is Corporate Woke Entering Its Death Throes? No thanks to those who still patronize Disney and the other leftist corporate elites out there, but hats off to those who used to patronize but stopped. Me? I never purposefully patronized Disney, except for one trip to Disneyland in

BYCU

First Spirit Named After Egyptian Eunuchian Platonic Church Father Origen Specialty Vodka | Harmony Gin | DrinkHolistic.comExplore the world of Origen Specialty Vodka and Harmony Gin, the pioneers among Herbal Liqueur Brands. Embrace a lifestyle of harmony with nature, curated by Amy Holmwood and Woody Harrelson. With every sip, step into

In Memoriam: Ellis Sandoz

David Walsh at VoegelinView

Attack the Left Hemisphere with Satire

We're Increasingly Lonely Because the Gnostics are Increasingly Powerful

This is a great piece at Plough, drawing de Tocqueville to diagnose the problem with democracy. The bottom line: In a static culture, a man knows his place and settles into quiet contentment. In a democratic culture, no one knows his place and is neither quiet nor content . . . and he&

Why Are We Lonely?

Joey Hiles at Plough

In the Shallows: Why Do Public Intellectuals Condescend to Their Readers

Becca Rothfeld at The Yale Review

Middlebrow Writing

There used to be writing that was "middlebrow." You'd find it in urbane and smart publications that were lower than academia and fine writing (highbrow) and higher than sports columnists and dimestore novels (lowbrow). It was always a limited market. When Henry Fowler self-published his own

The Hemisphere Hypothesis Changes Everything

And since "everything" is dictated by modernity's rationalist and gnostic presumptions and conclusions, it's a good thing

Counter-Conduct and Flourishing are the Same Things Except They're Not

Modernity is left-hemispheric. It has led to a culture of left hemisphere presumptions, conditions, and conclusions. As a result, it has led to a population of people with atrophied right hemispheres. Each of us has an obligation to reinvigorate our right hemispheres. We owe it to ourselves; we owe it

Drinking with Children

The first Christmas card Tis the season . . . to get kids drunk. The very first Christmas card showed a young child drinking mulled wine. It was 1843, the year Dickens' Christmas Carol came out. One of the works of art proved very popular, selling out its first edition in six

Why We're Watching Zombie Movies

After I saw World War Z years ago, I wrote: What's with all the zombie flicks? I read E. Michael Jones' Monsters from the Id when it first came out over twenty years ago, and I've always thought its central message didn't get

BYCU

Reason 2: The Screw Top Wine Bottle is Ascendent I put wine corks in the same category as neckties: Fancy vestiges whose hassles outweigh their traditional charm. Is This the Best Time Ever to Be Drinking Wine? 4 Compelling ReasonsFrom fewer corked bottles to more-adventurous approaches to obscure grapes, recent

On words and the Word

Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule

Shelby Foote: The South’s Jewish Proust

Blake Smith at The Tablet

Voodoo and Zombies and the Absurdization of All Religions

Well, far out. Voodoo is back. Actually, it never left. Voodoo was originally a pagan African religion that got mixed with Catholicism in Haiti during Spanish and French colonial rule. Since then, it has always been a religious force on the island and in 2003, it became an officially-recognized Haitian

The Fateful Nineties

Christopher Caldwell at First Things

18 Things You Can Learn from A Monk of the Eastern Church

Mystical. Passionate. Spiritual. Cranky. Monastic. Urban. Greek Orthodox. Catholic. French. English. Anonymous. . . . . . Lev (Leo) Gillet. All of those words describe an unusual man who would become known to readers as “A Monk of the Eastern Church.” He was born in France in 1893. Shortly before World War I, he became

BYCU

Priming your mental pump for weekend conversation

How to be Guerrilla Fighter Against Left Hemispheric Hegemony

A former marine taught me jurisprudence. Professor Charles Rice was a tough guy. This Irish man dripped with an attitude that said, “Don’t you dare call me a ‘mick.’” He was a no-nonsense guy who raised ten children and was fiercely loyal to the Catholic Church. I don’t

Meg 2 Features a Diverse Cast of Original Characters

With the constant remakes, reboots, re-imaginings, sequels, threequels, prequels and spinoffs, movies have begun to feel formulaic. That’s why a movie like Meg 2: The Trench, works so well. Where other movies opt for safety in doing what has worked before, Meg 2 has the boldness to craft new

P. S. 51 to the End

Paul Hundt at The Lamp

BYCU

State Agricultural Dysfunction that Would Make Stalin Blush Why France Must Destroy 80 Million Gallons of WineQuality French wine is expensive, and that’s if you want to drink it—who knew it would be more expensive to destroy it? As a result of a surplus of wine and a

Off the Grid Since 1693

I live around the Amish. I invited a few to my daughter's wedding last month. I'm currently working on a set of contracts for my largest Amish client. I live within bicycling distance of Shipshewana, which, last I knew, is Indiana's largest tourist destination.

In Amish Country, Buggy Lanes Will Flank Some Rural Roads

Lonnie Lee Hood at The Daily Yonder

Drink that Pint: Flex Your Right Hemisphere, Spit at that Gnostic

Pubs are closing at an alarming rate, possibly as many as 50 every month. Rising energy rates are the immediate culprit, but so is an increasing tendency among Brits to be "economical" and drink at home. It's a problem: The death of the local pub, like

The Death of Church and Pub

Carl Trueman at First Things

Cultural Appropriation! Main Actor in Upcoming Napoleon Movie is Not Even Napoleon

Eyebrows were raised at the release of the trailer for the upcoming Napoleon movie, starring Joaquin Phoenix and not the 19th-century French general-turned-emperor himself. Many took to Twitter to voice their opposition to the decision by Sony Studios. “From Desiree to Bill and Ted to Night at the Museum 2,

Are We Becoming a Nation of Gollums?

Joseph Pearce at The Imaginative Conservative

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The Labor Day Edition

Scrolling Blog: September 2023

A Correction to the 9/23/23 Scrolling Blog Entry I sent Dale Ahlquist a picture of GKC's South Bend residence. Dale good-humoredly responded that I had been misinformed. GKC's house was a few blocks away from where my daughter stayed. I was at Notre Dame

More Guys Need to Get to the Trad Mass

The women described in his piece (the "hoes") are taken straight from the movies and other pop culture. They're also taken straight from real life (art mirrors life). But not all young women are like this. Not remotely. Some young women don't think family

The Unsound and Little Fury

A tale told by an idiot

Summering in Scranton

Bill Kauffman at The Spectator

When “Professionalism” Means Politics

Rav Arora at City Journal

Rage Against the Machine

“I am propelled along by my activities, for I am merely a cog in their great machinery.” Benedict XVI, The Blessing of Christmas Benedict has a paradoxical way of writing at times. I guess that makes sense: all truth is ultimately paradoxical (the Divine Man, the Crucified God, the Almighty

Rock and Roll Magazine Scolds Musician for Rebelling Against the Establishment

When staffers at Rolling Stone magazine heard the song of a blue-collar factory worker, they were quick to offer correction from their air-conditioned New York offices. “This singer is causing too much of a disturbance and must be shut down!” proclaimed Rolling Stone writer, Karen Ratched. “Who does he think

"On the Heart," by The Pseudo-Macarius

Every sin gushes from a complex soul. The Pseudo-Macarius, a master of intimate theology, described the heart (a term nearly synonymous with soul) as follows: "The heart itself is but a small vessel, yet dragons are there, and there are also lions; there are poisonous beasts and all the

Trying to Figure Out How We Got Into These Rationalist Cocoons

And the cocoons' severe limitations

Inside Japan’s ‘Miracle Town,’ Where the Birth Rate is Soaring Amid a Demographic Crisis

Stephanie Yang at L.A. Times

Conspirators Accuse Accusers of Being Conspiracy Theorists

Powerful people across the world are lashing back at critics who have noticed all the powerful people across the world seem to be involved in the same events and say the same things. “These deplorables are just a bunch of tin foil hat-wearers shouting at the sky,” said Congressman Eric

BYCU

Special (Inadvertent) Vodka Edition

Leisure is Counter-Conduct

In the modern world of "total work" demanded by the left hemisphere, we need to carve out leisure. It's helpful to understand what "leisure" is.

Back to Nebraska With Bruce

Bill Kauffman at The American Conservative

What is Time for?

Zena Hitz at Plough

Seven Ways to Dispose of Garden Weeds

After using a weeding hoe, which entails slicing weeds off just below the surface, here are ways you can dispose of them: 1. Cut and Leave: Let them decompose where they fell. This is the easiest and my primary method. 2. Hot Piles: Rake them into a pile, mixed with

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All the Drinking News Worthy of Drink

Private Tyrants, Public Remedies: A Review of Sohrab Ahmari’s Tyranny, Inc.

Philip Bunn at Front Porch Republic

Lost in the Cosmos

Titus Techera at Law & Liberty

The Clash and the Angry Left, Circa 1977

I've been getting into The Clash lately. Okay, okay: this probably isn't the appropriate season for the music of an angry Socialist punk band (it ain't Bing Crosby's “White Christmas” album), but I couldn't help it. I got pulled in

The Novel, Who Needs It? by Joseph Epstein

Steve Donoghue at Open Letters Review

Federal Government Admits Catholicism is True

Well, not really, but indirectly, through PBS' Flannery O'Connor documentary I greatly enjoyed PBS documentary, American Masters: Flannery O'Connor, on PBS. I thought the producers respected her intense Catholicism. I'm sure they could've found critics to say sacrilegious things like, “Her

Catholic Hagiographer Did LSD

It inspired a musical currently playing at NYC's Lincoln Center Clare Boothe Luce. Brainy and beautiful. Married mega-publisher Henry Luce in 1935. Converted to Catholicism in 1946, then put together one of the greatest collections of short saint biographies ever. Did LSD? James Lapine, the director and librettist

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Amaze your drinking companions with your cannon of beverage fodder

Laws Can’t Cure Loneliness

Auguste Meyrat at Law & Liberty

One Mean Chick? Or Just an Unfortunate Alignment of Facial Features?

Does the person who creates an air of discomfort with the RBF have a level of moral culpability? The RBF: resting bitch face. An innocent and harmless expression? Or a culpable and harmful one? I started wondering about that after reading Jacques Philippe's observation in Real Mercy that

Why We Judge. And Why We Need to Stop

I buy a cup of coffee about twice a month. Nearly every time, I see the same groups of older guys, sitting around a table, drinking coffee, and chatting. It appears they stay for hours during the morning: Revving up their neurons with caffeine so they can bear down on

Why Is America’s ‘Woke Left’ Silent Over Blockbuster Child Sex-Trafficking Film?

Robert Bridge at Strategic Culture Foundation

Pinball is of the Body: Why Modern Tech Can't Recreate the World Under Glass

Rae Hodge at Slate

Nobody Ever Read American Literature Like This Guy Did

A.O. Scott at New York Times

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Position yourself as the clever and contemporaneous drinker this weekend

The Five Worst Atheist Arguments

If you’re reading this article, you’ve probably been in the situation where you heard a smart-sounding atheist making a point with such suave delivery that you find yourself with questions like: Does God exist or is He just a too-good-to-be-true fantasy? Is my faith real? Do I even

John Crowe Ransom on Leisure

It's hard to pick a favorite essay from I'll Take My Stand, but the lead essay by John Crowe Ransom, "Unreconstructed but Unregenerate," is a leading candidate. The essay spends ample time criticizing what Joseph Pieper also condemned: the world of "total work.

End of the Encampments?

Judge Glock at City Journal

Third Places Aren't Enough: On Community Gardens

Sarah Soltis at Public Discourse

Labor Day Weekend

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot of Melancholy

Scrolling Blog: August 2023

August 31, 2023 Kauffman in Scranton An essay by Bill Kauffman always triggers my forefinger. He's a man with a robust right hemisphere, or at least a severe distrust of his left and the conditions/presumptions created by a culture of left-hemisphere dominance. In this piece, Kauffman expresses

The Month that Perished

Because There's Always More to be Said

What de Lubac Would Think About the Synod on Synodality

Robert Imbelli at First Things

The Liberty to Value Common Goods: A Review of The Political Economy of Distributism

Jon D. Schaff at Front Porch Republic

Faulkner, Foote, Percy, Percy, and Kauffman, P.C.

A snapshot of the southern literary tradition in the early 20th century I think Bill Kauffman knows more literary anecdotes than any man alive. I ran across this passage last night* while recovering from a migraine and just flipping through my random notes: Among my favorite interviewees was novelist and

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Amaze your drinking friends this weekend with this batch of lore

Not Just Tulsa: Black Neighborhoods Were Often Destroyed by Urban-Renewal Policies

Howard Husock at City Journal

The Life, Death—And Afterlife—of Literary Fiction

Will Blythe at Esquire

I Garden by Accident

With a "kale kicker" application

Maybe We Should Start Doing Jigsaw Puzzles

I enjoyed jigsaw puzzles as a kid, but by the time I got to college, they had become relics in my closet. I’m “toying” with the idea of getting them out again, perhaps starting with the really pretty Bob Ross puzzle collection. Jigsaw puzzles are excellent ways to relax.

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Drinking in the Dog Days of Summer

How to Raise a Sane Child

Rule Number One: Don't be a Nominalist My three-year-old son Jack received a menagerie of thirty-some plastic animals at Christmas to go with the dozen or so he already owned. He played with his “anmuls” constantly, carrying them around in different containers (wagon, bag, box, hat) and setting

Figures of Speech: 60 Ways to Turn a Phrase, by Arthur Quinn

The Conservative Abandonment of Culture

Jason Jewell at Law & Liberty

You Can Pretend Your Way to the Flourishing Life

The Goodness of Faking Yourself Out

The Deep Spring: A Few Words in Favor of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Teddy Macker at Front Porch Republic

Orestes Brownson: The Forgotten Transcendentalist

Part I of a Five-Part Series

We're Going to Kill Ourselves to Death!

The world isn't going to overpopulate itself to extinction. In fact, just the opposite is going to occur, according to a recent book.

Andrew Senior on John Senior, Proponent of Beauty & Tradition

Julian Kwasniewski at The Imaginative Conservative

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Be the interesting guy at the bachelor party this weekend

Maisie Ward, Gilbert Keith Chesterton

I went on a crash GKC diet in my twenties. In addition to a score of Chesterton books, I read three biographies about the great man, plus his Autobiography. But I realized earlier this month that I had never read the first biography, which was written by his friend, Maisie

Your Opinions Stink

John of Montmirail liked to fight. He was a leading knight in battle; he jousted in peace. But then he had a religious conversion and dedicated his resources to helping the poor, including the establishment of a hospice in his castle. He once went to help a woman whose dying

How to Listen to Your Heart

The Rise of Satire

Have you heard of the Scriblerus Club? It was an authors’ club founded in London in 1714. It was known for its satiric bent. Jonathan Swift was a member. Western culture had long enjoyed satire, but there was a great satiric revival right after Descartes. Satire became huge. Can we

The Stumbling Block: On Dorothy Day's Cause

Matthew Walther at The Lamp

The Shire: Land of the Tao . . . and of Solid Right Hemispheres

Tao Teh Ching, Chapter 57

BYCU: National Dive Bar Day

I celebrate those phony holidays as much as Hitler celebrated Yom Kippur, but I'm getting behind this one: National Dive Bar DayHere’s a deep ‘dive’ into dive bars and how best to celebrate these establishments.Ali SultanNational Today Many people credit author/poet Charles Bukowski’s semi-autobiography,

Big Isn't Beautiful Either

Joshua Bowman at Law & Liberty

Oh Yeah Baby Eat It

Robert Grant Price at University Bookman

The Puritan Spirit of America's Civil War

David Samuels at UnHerd

Resistance to the Gnostics and Their Left Hemispheres. Click Here to See the Main Projects that Develop These Themes.

Existence Strikes Back, The Hemisphere Hypothesis, Counter-Conduct, Flourishing, the Tao, and Gnosticism

Beyond the Scientific Revolution: Ian McGilchrist’s “The Matter With Things”

Richard Cocks at VoegelinView

Scrolling Blog: July 2023

July 31, 2023 Monday Column This week's Monday Column borrows from Taki Mag's feature, "The Week that Perished," which offers aggressive and humorous prose on the week's news items. "The Month that Perished" offers (slightly) aggressive and (hopefully) humorous prose

The Full Agrarian Letter

Professor Michael Jordan's Final Exam Letter to his Students Professor Michael Jordan saw last week's post. He graciously provided me the original, full letter, with this note: I taught a course on “The Agrarian Roots of Western Civilization” back in 1999, and while students were taking

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Amaze your friends this weekend with this drinking news

Alleged Sex Slaveholder in Custody

Goldberry in protective custody

Christian Humanism and the Imaginative Mysteries

Dan Hugger at Religion & Liberty Online

Rust Belt Studies

Ed Simon at Belt Magazine

I’ve Grown to Like Reprobate Leftists

I fear I picked up a lazy and stultifying mental habit in my early adult years: I habitually assumed every academic and artistic person is a reprobate leftist.

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Drinking fare for your weekend libations

15 Questions That Are More Useful Than “What Presidential Candidate Should Americans Vote For?”

Caitlin Johnstone dot org

How I Read Now

Read Like an Easy Rider

The Integrity of Poetry

Micah Mattix at First Things

Our Need for Self-Knowledge

One of man's deepest needs is the need for identity. We need to know who we are; we need to exist in our own eyes and other people's. That need for identity is so strong that it can lead to aberrations [an over-active left hemisphere giving

Optimal Work on Josef Pieper's Leisure, the Basis of Culture

One Hundred Years of Platitudes

Giles Fraser at UnHerd

No Woom for Wu? You Have Pwoblems

Tao Teh Ching, Chapter 3

LARPing, Reality, and Fraud

This nascent essay needs work, but it's a decent blog post. The essay could take a few directions. E.g., Fantasy role-playing is fun, but now take your character into the real world. You're Kick-Ass, coming to beat that inner-city thug, only to find yourself on

Vaya con Dios: Cormac McCarthy (1933-2023)

Casey Spinks at Front Porch Republic

The Hemisphere Hypothesis and Existence Strikes Back: Summary with Audio

Modernity: Political religions and powerful elites allied in their exclusive reliance on the left hemisphere. Their intuitive goal: To kill the Tao and repress the right hemisphere altogether. But the right hemisphere and Tao intuitively keep fighting back.

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Drinking news for your weekend conversations

Why the Dodgers Chose Anti-Catholicism

Raymond de Souza at First Things

A Micro History of the Holy Roman Empire

The HRE started when Charlemagne received the emperor crown from Pope Leo in 800 or when Otto got the crown from Pope John in 962. The HRE then went through twists and turns, up and downs, was controlled by the Hapsburg family starting in 1438, until it was dissolved under

Eric Voegelin: Timeline Biographical Sketch

1901: Born in Cologne. 1910: Moved to Vienna. 1922: Received doctorate in political science from the University of Vienna. While there, he attended seminars by Ludwig von Mises and developed a lasting friendship with F.A. Hayek. 1922-1926: Studied at the universities of Berlin, Heidelberg, Oxford, Columbia, Harvard, and Wisconsin.

A World Beyond Us: On Adam Kirsch’s “The Revolt Against Humanity”

THE REVOLT AGAINST HUMANITY: Imagining a Future Without Us (2023) belongs in a Columbia University series titled “Global Reports.” Reportage of the views of leading figures in “the revolt against humanity” indeed occupies many of its pages. But Adam Kirsch—best known as a poet and literary critic—does much

Patient Zero Found

Matt Taibbi at Substack

The Original Deep States

Wilfred McClay at the Claremont Review of Books

In Praise and Condemnation of Dogma

Tao Teh Ching, Chapter 2

The Metaphor: Transcendence-Tao-RH-LH

Our connection to reality is kind of like our connection to the Internet. The Internet Metaphor is marked in white. Transcendence: Internet Tao: Modem Right Hemisphere: Router Left Hemisphere: Devices that Let Us Enjoy the Internet Now look at modern culture's tendency to disconnect from The Reality Spectrum.

Kirk and Del Noce: Two Philosophers Connected through History

Carolina Riva Posse at University Bookman

Stop Trying to Make a "Good" Social Media Site

Erik Hoel at Intrinsic Perspective (Substack)

On Jacques Philippe

I bit the bullet and bought the entire Jacques Philippe Scepter Publishing collection. For years, I've eschewed contemporary spiritual writers. Mostly because I'm just arrogant. I figured that only the great ones can teach me anything, and you don't know who's great

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Drinking news to share with your friends this weekend

The Free Press on Tucker Carlson

Bari Weiss' Free Press says Tucker Carlson is a loon. Me? I'm not sure what to think.

Saving the Commons

Jack Bell at Plough

Partisans of Freedom

Bradley J. Birzer at Law & Liberty

Rational Magic

Tara Isabella Burton at The New Atlantis

Excerpts from Joseph Bottum's "Christians and Postmoderns"

[T]hough we cannot revert, we nonetheless have resources that may help us to advance beyond these late times. The modern project that attacked the Middle Ages has itself been under attack for some time. For some time, hyper-modern writers have brought to bear against their modern past the same

Everything Old is New Again: A.E. Stallings and This Afterlife

Ethan McGuire at Literary Matters

Scrolling Blog: June 2023

June 30, 2023 BYCUAmaze your friends this weekend with this drinking newsEric ScheskeThe Daily Eudemon June 28, 2023 An Addendum, of Sorts, to an Earlier Feature Essay Trying to Figure Out How We Got Into These Rationalist CocoonsNo one can reason us out of our [rationalist] pods because we didn’

BYCU

An abbreviated edition this week. All seven kids are home, so better things call. Enjoy the weekend. It's Become Cliché . . . and Relentless Rod Stewart launches own whisky brandBottles of the Maggie May rocker’s new Wolfie’s Whisky, made at Loch Lomond distillery, will hit the shelves next

"Catholic is About as Sane as You Get"

Jordan Peterson, interviewing James Lindsay. Go to 39:08: Peterson: One of the things I learned from you is that Catholic was about as sane as you get. So you destroy that, if you think the Catholics are insane, you wait until you see what that's protecting you

Nation Shocked to Learn Hollywood Still Has Writers

As news of the Hollywood writer’s strike reached the headlines, people around the world were speechless and wondered how such a thing could happen. “You mean, someone is actually writing this stuff?” exclaimed Robert Smith, an accountant outside Cedar Rapids. His sentiment was echoed by many who marveled and

Community Gardens

This is an odd little piece. The author applauds gardening because it is a great example of Joseph Pieper's "active leisure." That's a great observation. But she puts it in the context of community gardens, which, the author says, lead people to sharing produce,

What are the Four Parts of Existence Strikes Back?

Preamble: Wisdom wants to know reality. A region of reality (“the Tao”) isn’t knowable. Wisdom respects reality’s unknowability while pursuing reality nonetheless. This unending pursuit reached its apex in the 13th century, then the pursuit started to decline. Modernity was the rejection of respect for the Tao. Postmodernity

After Postliberalism

Nathan Schlueter at Public Discourse

Psychedelia

I didn't realize the City of San Francisco canceled its 4/20 celebration this year due to lack of funding (its budget blown on free booze and needles for the homeless, I suppose) and a lack of corporate sponsorships. Corporate sponsorships? In the heart of the Haight? Nonetheless,

Why Universities Should Be More Like Monasteries

Molly Worthen at the New York Times

Martin Amis, RIP

Matthew Walther at The Lamp

Foucault was a Pedophile?

And introducing one of the themes of Part III of The Existence Strikes Back project: The rise of the irrational.

BYCU: The Welcome-to-Summer Edition

"Non-Alcoholic Drinks" Shouldn't Even be on the List, Unless You're Going to Include Ice Tea and Lemonade An alcoholic drink without alcohol is like poker played for funzies. There are better games than poker if money isn't involved, and there are better

Fresh Cliché

Matthew Stewart at Current

The Death of Literature?

If no one can focus long enough to read it, no one is going to pay for it. If no one pays for it, no one can write it. That, I believe, is the steady theme of this lovely literary essay that doesn't merely lament the state of

Day Drinking

This NYT piece had great potential, none of it actualized. It was just the same palaver: empty stomach increases effect of alcohol, the sun further dehydrates you, yada and yads. I think the cue ("Why do we like to drink in the afternoon?") could've led to

Everything Bad Is Good for You: A Review

This is a groundbreaking book by a clever man who goes too far. Steven Johnson is the cheerleading captain for new entertainment technology. A regular columnist about emerging technology and the bestselling author of Mind Wide Open and other books, Johnson has used his understanding of the mind and popular

Department of Civil Rights Investigating the Prancing Pony

Strange News from Bree October 18, 3018 BREE. Innkeeper Barliman Butterbur vigorously denies that he committed a civil rights infraction, but the Department of Justice isn't drinking his ale. “The record is clear,” says Mel Coors, lead prosecutor for the Civil Rights Division. “Mr. Butterbur committed a heinous

Thriving on the Fringe of Society

Carrie Blackmore Smith at Cincinnati Magazine

Primer: Understanding the Hemisphere Hypothesis

Many smart people think Iain McGilchrist has effected a Copernican revolution in metaphysics. I tend to agree. Here's a summary of the revolution.

Observing Limits to Re-enchant a Mute World: A Review of The Uncontrollability of the World

By Adam Smith at Front Porch Republic

Weekend Roundup

Catholic Universities Continue to Embrace Modern Gnosticism "Loyola is heretically unhinged," you say? What about Sister Jean!? Students protesting annual drag show at Catholic university threatened with violenceA group of students protesting an annual drag show at Loyola University Chicago said a group of counterprotesters destroyed their signs

BYCU: More Boycott, Gatorade Cocktails, and Celebrity Alcohol

Everything you need to regale your comrades at the bar tonight

Central Park: A Beautiful Travelogue

Samuel Johnson put London and life itself on the same platform, writing: When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life. I often think the same thing can be said of New York City. It, at least, seems that way to me, a foreigner vis-a-vis NYC. Despite

The Chicago Renaissance

The Renaissance led Baltimorean H.L. Mencken to call Chicago "the literary capital of the U.S."

Cash Man

My wife and I drove Michigan's beautiful Leelanau peninsula the other day. We stopped in Sutton's Bay and hit a few bars. At the last bar, the manager finally got us a table on the roof of his busy establishment, but at that point, we'

The Age of Average

Alex Murrel at Alex Murrell dot com

Our Culture Does Not Understand Marriage or Love

How The Office and Ted Lasso Expose Our Shallowness

Why was the "Door" Concept Such a Big Thing in the 1960s?

Tao Teh Ching, Chapter 1

Boromir Statue Subject of Controversy

Belfalas Times FA 198 OSGILIATH. Local community activists want Boromir's statue torn down, but they're getting resistance from his descendants. “Boromir was the last captain to defend Osgiliath successfully before it fell to Sauron in the War of the Ring,” says Denethor IV, a descendant of

Medical Studies

Dalrymple here just looks at one problem with scientific research: the results are very hard to replicate. The scientific community is jammed with competition and the need to produce papers and studies . . . results. Scientists can't take the time to replicate to confirm what others have done. And that&

A Forgotten Catholic Novelist

Stephen Schmalhofer at First Things

Russell Brand: Baptized

Jane Stannus at the Spectator

Local Counter-Conduct

Counter-Conduct: "Any action that reasserts the primacy of the right hemisphere." That is my McGilchristization of Foucault's "counter-conduct." The immediate implications: Any action that beats down the left hemisphere in favor of the right hemisphere is counter-conduct. Because modernity is the left hemisphere'

The Unorthodox are Converting

Including Russell Brand

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Healthy drinking

Nefarious: Movie Review

They almost had it! *SPOILERS* Christian movies have a problem and we all know what it is. Historically speaking, they put the message over the art, which not only leads to worse art, it leads to less effective evangelization. I have never heard anyone tell me: “you know, I wasn’

Central Government Causes Loneliness . . . It Sure as Heck Can't Cure It

Loneliness is a major problem, but governments, especially central governments, can't fix it. In fact, they cause it: By taking over functions that have traditionally been performed locally, central governments have killed millions of the institutions and associations (families, communities, churches, service clubs . . . the "little platoons"

Latinist Moves to Steubenville

John Byron Kuhner, a Latinist who published a delightful paean to Central Park in the June/July 2023 edition of First Things, has moved to Steubenville, Ohio. I've been to Steubenville once. It was ten years ago. I was stunned by the desolation. It was a "ghost

Tao Teh Ching: A Short Meditation on Its Title and Its Importance

Introduction to an 81-Part Series

My Part in Vice’s Downfall

Aris Roussinos at UnHerd

Counting the Cost of Progress

Mary Harrington at Plough (Book Excerpt)

BYCU

Mint Julep, Ripple, Mint Jipple

The Education Jungle Just Gets Thicker and Thicker

K-12 education is awful. It doesn't need to be.

Living Off the Grid

If modernity is the left hemisphere's creation, then pursuits that appeal to the right hemisphere, or require us to give primacy to the right hemisphere, are acts of rebellion against modernity. Example 1: Prose is the left hemisphere's flex: the earliest written records are from bureaucrats.

David Hume's Warning on Forever Wars

Daniel Klein at Law & Liberty

Good Conversation and the Talking Cure: A Review

Amanda Patchin at Front Porch Republic

A.I. and the Search for the Human

Norman Fiering at Law & Liberty

Strolling Through Spines for Solace and Sobriety

“I’ve been drunk for about a week now, and I thought it might sober me up to sit in a library.’” The man with owl-eyed spectacles, The Great Gatsby. I sit, in a battered, leather chair. It affords me a view of all three ceiling-to-floor bookcases in my study.

The First Catholic Cleric to Go Over to Saruman (and the Left Hemisphere)?

In the early nineteenth century, the “tormented, headstrong Breton priest”[1] Hugues-Félicité Robert de Lamennais changed fundamental Christian doctrines to justify socialism. His career illustrates the damage that can be done by presenting socialism as authentic religious doctrine, especially when an individual or group has established the illusion of orthodoxy

35,000-Word Tribute to The Matter with Things

I typically read the essays I post or link to, but I haven't read this one: "Beyond the Scientific Revolution: Ian McGilchrist's The Matter with Things." But I might be forgiven. It clocks in at 35,000 words. And based on the first 2,

Scrolling Blog: May 2023

May 31, 2023 The Boromir Option It appears Patrick Deneen has rejected the Benedict Option in favor of the Boromir Option, with special disdain for Albert Jay Nock's observation that a man performs his societal role by improving himself, without taking the reigns of power, just as Socrates

The Picture Book: Foe of the Left Hemisphere?

A Medieval Christmas Dollar-for-word, this book is a terrible deal. It's 28 pages long and, except for a short appendix, every word is merely a paste job from the 2003 Revised Standard Edition (Catholic Edition) of the Bible. And the book costs $44! These publishers oughtta be locked

The Neon God

Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule

BYCU

The Walktail and Tequila. Fare for Your Weekend Bar Talk

JFK, Serial Killers, and Cults: The Fall of Heroes

The rise of fear and absurdity in American society from the sixties to the era of COVID-19

Developing: Notes On the Unseen Battle that Goes on Around Us

Father Simon recently said that, if we could see the invisible battle that goes on around us, between the demons and the angels, we'd be terrified. It's a blessing that our normal mode of existence doesn't let us see such things. The mystics, however,

On Milosz, Exile, and Humane Art

Rachel E. Hicks at Front Porch Republic

Nature is Healing

Sam Kriss and The Lamp

Toad Houses

I told a friend about my huge slug and bug problem this year. He recommended I attract toads to my garden. He said they'd crush the slug population quickly. I stored the advice away, then I ran across someone on the Internet enthusing about garden toads and how

Self-Cancellation, Deplatforming, and Censorship

Nick Gillespie at Reason

Our Modern Superpowers are the Worst

Welcome, Heroes, to the Training Grounds of our new lives. We have been bitten by the spider descendent of the Industrial and Digital Revolutions, and we have been given a host of new superpowers and they only come with a few drawbacks. You know how this goes: it seems every

BYCU

Goggles to Elvis. Everything Worth Reading for Your Weekly Bar Fare is Here

James Bond at 70

Titus Techera at Law & Liberty

Star Wars Movies Ranked

Disney is making a whole new Star Wars Trilogy. And that’s . . . just the worst news. As a lifelong Star Wars fan, this is like watching your grandma’s grave desecrated, then watching the same people do it again . . . and film themselves doing it. The first discretion: the newest trilogy.

Medieval Monasticism’s Timeless Lessons on Concentration

The modern world is steeped in distraction. Technological advancements in the age of information have provided an abundance of distractor stimuli and in parallel distorted the divisions between the offline and virtual world. The smartphone has facilitated cyberspace’s expansion into all realms we inhabit, diminishing boundaries and rendering us

Good Friday

The annual assortment of quotes

The Zen Koan

A koan is a ridiculous expression or dialogue designed to get the listener past the subject-object perspective.

The World Turned Upside Down: Tom Holland's "Dominion"

Matthew Rose at First Things

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How Long Until They Claim It was All a PR Stunt?

Irritable Mental Gestures, Reconsidered

James Patterson at Law & Liberty

The Power of Place: Northern Exposure and South Side

Elizabeth Stice at Front Porch Republic

Paradox, The Hemispheres, and the Tao

A basic tension mars the intellectual framework of the spiritual life. Pole 1: The first virtue of the spiritual life is humility, and humility is first and foremost selflessness. Pole 2: We cannot be so selfless that we don't desire our own happiness. “The rational creature . . . cannot wish

Matt Taibbi Is Still an Outsider

Charlie Tidmarsh at Real Clear Wire

Paul Kingsnorth on the Collapse of the Left Hemisphere's Reign and the (Hopeful) Rise of the Tao

The global Machine is teetering, even as it clamps down on its citizenry in an attempt to tamp down unrest and rein in its own wanton destruction of creation and culture. A way of seeing that sets itself against what C. S. Lewis happily characterized as the Tao—the way

Is That Guy Stupid, a Jerk, or Both?

Noisiness tends to stem from an inability to look outside oneself, which is something both the unintelligent and the boors lack

Tell Your Father to Give Her a Call: Why Daisy Jones Is the Best New Show

Music and movies are now aligning: Riley Keough is at her peak — Why Daisy Jones + The Six is the best new show on TV, Season 2 inevitable.

Iain McGilchrist Interview on Russell Brand's Stay Free: A Few Highlights

I listened to Russell Brand's Stay Free yesterday. I came because he was interviewing Iain McGilchrist. I stayed because Brand is smart (I always figured he was a clown), fast, and funny. I've only listened to the McGilchrist but I'm getting a Rumble account

Artificial Intelligence Has No Right Hemisphere: Video

Civilizations Do Collapse

We in modern society can scarcely imagine Xenophon's feelings as he walked through the magnificent runes of the Assyrian cities. Surely peasants in medieval Europe had the same feeling looking at Roman aqueducts and runes while they lived at a subsistence level. For the last 500 years society

Good-Bye, Curb

The last Curb Your Enthusiasm aired Sunday. It will be sorely missed, even if I think this last season hasn't been as good as the previous ones. Britannica has a great entry about Curb basics. I don't think you'll need a subscription to access

Rethinking Economics

I strongly lean libertarian, which means I strongly lean towards being a dick, since I'm stunned at how many libertarians are obnoxious (with notable exceptions, like Tom Woods and Lew Rockwell). I believe it's because libertarian thinking is marked by unshakeable certitude and logical conclusions, which

Libertarians and the Left (Hemisphere)

Brad Birzer reviews a new book about major figures in the libertarian tradition. Needless to say, I now want to buy it, but I'm holding back. I had a drink with one of Birzer's friends a few weeks ago. I think he's probably less

Religion Rising and Rogan

That's what one writer thinks. He has even released a podcast series about it, which I'll start listening to later today. In this article, he references a lot of my favorite personalities, from yesterday (GKC and Lewis) and today (Rogan, Bret Weinstein, Jonathan Haidt, and Peterson)

Devil’s Feast: An Ontological Meditation on the Passion and Resurrection

Few words scrape as dryly against the brain as “ontology.” This branch of metaphysics examines “being”—what it means to have being, what it means to exist, what a thing is. Ontology is largely ignored by Christians. The initial intellectual outlay requires a “leap of faith” (a belief that the

Scrolling Blog: April 2023

April 30, 2023 My New Favorite Podcast? I listened to Russell Brand's Stay Free yesterday. I came because he was interviewing Iain McGilchrist. I stayed because Brand is smart (I always figured he was a clown), fast, and funny. I've only listened to the McGilchrist episode

The Tao Erupts in Silicon Valley

The New Atlantis recently published a great piece about how tech people are leaving the Rationalist religion for spiritual stuff. It's a must-read . . . well, for me, anyway. It is exactly the kind of thing I'm writing about in Part III of Existence Strikes Back: The Tao

What is a Perfect Piece of Knowledge?

An allegory, of sorts

The Existence Strikes Back Project is Divided into Four Parts

1. What is the Tao? Also called “the act of existence (actus essendi),” “the first principle of Zen,” and the region on the other side of Aldous Huxley’s doors of perception. This part emphasizes “The Reality Spectrum”: The Tao-->Essence-->Existence. 2. Modernity rejected the Tao portion

Ukrainian State is Determined to Get More Babies . . . The Left-Hemispheric Way

If Russia hadn't invaded, the Ukraine would've imploded anyway. They seem to realize that now. Their solution to a problem caused by ignoring Humanae Vitae? Veer even further from Humanae Vitae. And when your culture no longer has a healthy relationship with sex? You need the

The Unfortunate Ubiquity of Smartphones

Bill Kauffman at The Spectator

Everything Suddenly Comes Together for the Young G.K. Chesterton

"I had found this hole in the world: the fact that one must somehow find a way of loving the world without trusting it; somehow one must love the world without being worldly. I found this projecting feature of Christian theology, like a sort of hard spike, the dogmatic

Move Over New York: Mexico City is the City That Doesn't Sleep

I'm returning from eight days in Mexico City. I saw the future of Mexico, and I have no idea if it works. Mexico is Ready to Get Rich, if the Cartels Don't Destroy It First Peter Zeihan recently said Mexico is exploding, economically. The future looks

We Must Become Barbarians

Paul Kingsnorth at Unherd

How to Become a Great Man or Woman

For starters, read about the great men and women Merely by thinking about certain sorts of people at all . . . we become objectively, measurably, more like them, in how we behave, think and feel. Iain McGilchrist Ask a college professor this question: “Did Moses write the Torah or did the Torah

Live Like Hobbits

That's apparently the advice in a new book, "The Reactionary Mind," by Michael Warren Davis. It seems to me that Foucault's "counter-conduct" is becoming the number one obsession today, at least among people who think about . . . or at least feel . . . the left-hemisphere&

Propaganda

It's easy to spot propaganda you disagree with. It's not so easy to spot propaganda you agree with. And if you think you're subject to propaganda, you're deluding yourself. Unregistered 149: Mark Crispin Miller — Thaddeus RussellI spoke with Mark Crispin Miller, a

Self-Described “Activist” Wonders Why He’s Depressed

Satire

Toni Morrison's Rejection Letters

To my knowledge, I've never read anything by Toni Morrison. I've never even wanted to read anything by her. Not out of animosity. She simply rarely crossed my mental radar screen, except when there was a reference to Oprah, and that was enough to shoot it

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I Thought Opera Singers are Required to be, ahem, Robust Katherine Jenkins stuns in a black cocktail dress at her gin launchThe opera singer, 42, put on a glamorous display for the launch of her own premium gin named Cygnet in London on Thursday night.MSNConnie Rusk For Mailonline We

Seeking Transcendentals

Why Did I Order a Two-Volume History of Economic Thought? Fun, improvement, and volunteerism. That's how we might use current catchwords to answer the primordial question, “How ought we to live our lives?” That question hit me hard a few summers ago when I opened up a mail

Odysseus’s Dumbest Moments

“Tell me, Muse, of the man of many ways…” So opens The Odyssey (Richard Lattimore Translation). “The man of many ways” is Odysseus. In all Greek myth, only Athena and (perhaps) Theseus are more known for wisdom. His wisdom resume is impressive: he made peace among all the Greek rulers

Persian Tolerance Resulted in Alexander the Great

The Persian Empire, compared to its contemporary empires, was extremely tolerant of conquered territories. It allowed states who submitted to retain their current governance as long as appropriate tribute was passed up to the King. This lax arrangement allowed Macedonia to grow in power mostly undisturbed, eventually giving rise to

A Foucauldian Defense of Liberalism

By David McGrogan at Law & Liberty

How to Grab that Sagging Timber

One pitiful man's attempt to make sense of Holy Thursday

Luke as Historian

Paul Krause at VoegelinView

You're Getting Played, but That's Alright

From last Saturday's "Outside the Modern Limits"

Neutrality Isn't Allowed

Huberman is a non-member of that non-group, The Intellectual Dark Web. He runs with Rogan and the like. He, therefore, is outside the Establishment and, therefore, an enemy, even though I've never discerned a political position in the many hours I've listened to him. But that&

How to Pray

Part II of a Two-Part Series

One Vicious Author

You remember the 1987 movie, Throw Mama from the Train? I learned last night that it was inspired by Alfred Hitchcock's 1951 movie, Strangers on a Train, which was in turn based on the novel by the same name. The author of the novel? Patricia Highsmith, a nasty

Huberman Attack

I struggled about whether to post this story. I really like the Huberman podcast and this reporter wrote this story to show (by implication) that Huberman is a fake because he has demons . . . including a big libido. The thing is, I've always figured Huberman must have pretty serious

People Should be “Seething Mad” Over COVID – And Much More

George Leef at the American Institute for Economic Research

Belt Mag

There's a new magazine: Belt Magazine. The introductory editorial is here. I subscribed (the free subscription) for a few reasons. First, I live in the rust belt. Two, my interest in localism. Three, I'm fascinated that the first paragraph ranks the "rustiest" states (per

BYCU: Tequila Shortage

Everything you need and don't need for your bar conversations this weekend

We Need More Movies like Puss in Boots II: The Last Wish

**SPOILERS** I entered The Last Wish skeptical. I'd heard good things about it, but it’s a sequel from a mediocre spinoff: a decade-old spinoff of an iconic series that had not been great since almost a decade before the first Puss in Boots movie was released. I

The Ghost of Ancient Rome Haunts America

Joel Kotkin at UnHerd

The Unsound and Little Fury

A tale told by an idiot

How to Define "Wokeness"

Edward Feser (at Edward Feser blog)

Poetic Language isn't Modern Language . . . for a Reason

💡A side benefit of this essay: It succinctly states what makes poetry different from other forms of writing: Poetry is concerned primarily with creating images that delight us with their economy and elegance. The Integrity of PoetryMicah Mattix at First ThingsThe Daily EudemonTDE Michael Oakeshott maintains that the intellectual life

Shatter Zones and Jellyfish Tribes

A fellow-Generation X'er channels my thoughts almost precisely. The first third of this must-read essay recounts the problem. The last two-thirds offers a possible response ("shatter zones" and "jellyfish tribes") to the black hole State that sucks in everything near it. Kingsnorth's

How a Nineteenth-Century Debate Can Save the Humanities Today

Peter Jones at Classics for All

71 Thoughts to Improve Your Thoughts

I’m a weak man. Actually, “inconstant” is a better adjective. Here’s the problem: I read an insightful passage, decide that I’ll apply it to my life, and then forget about it. Fortunately, I realized this early in life. Specifically, back in the late 1980s when I was

The Primitive Marauder is the Modern State, Evolved

Check out last week's episode of Econtalk: Omer Moav on the Emergence of the State - EconlibSince at least Adam Smith, the common wisdom has been that the transition from hunter-gathering to farming allowed the creation of the State. Farming, so went the theory, led to agricultural surplus,

Was Albert Jay Nock Like Socrates?

Nock’s Memoirs is the figurative equivalent of Socrates drinking the hemlock. But both are suicides that were necessary in light of their worldview. Nock’s Memoirs is his way of getting involved: the only way he could get involved and live true to his principles.

Legolas Canceled for Misappropriating Dwarf Culture

The Rivendell Review July 18, 1702 (Shire Reckoning) RIVENDELL. Local playboy Legolas has been canceled. “He's the worst of misappropriaters,” exclaimed Pat Curunir, President of the Anti-Misappropriation League. “When he's east of the Misty Mountains, he misappropriates dwarf culture by acting like he's the

Ice Backs

Vermont and Texas are the only two states that were once independent republics. That's now not the only thing they have in common.

Infinite Jest

Bill Burr has a great bit where he describes parenting as a 25-30 year sentence. You're sucked into a bubble, cut off from the outside world as you try to raise your kids. When you come out, you're stuck in, say, 1993 but it's

The Self-Destructive Effects of Progressive Sadness

David Brooks at the New York Times

Forrest Gump

💡I wrote the following decades ago. In light of the Hemisphere Hypothesis, I re-consider it. Is Forrest a left hemispheric or a right hemispheric? If his odd character is on "the Spectrum," he's a man bereft of the right hemisphere (autism is left-hemispheric). But maybe he&

We Need More COVID Outrage

The COVID debacle doesn't rankle enough: not enough people seem ashamed or apologetic; not enough people seem to appreciate the enormity of what our politicians did. I, no exaggeration, find it greatly disturbing for an obvious reason: they'll do it again and too many of us

The Unsound and Little Fury

A tale told by an idiot Through the fence, between the curling flower spaces, I see a groundhog. I hate him, but not as much as I hate Satan. Satan and groundhogs are kinda the same thing, except groundhogs stop once they've eaten everything in my garden. I

Nashville, Austin, Charlotte . . . and Detroit?

Are NYC, Chicago, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Philadelphia just going through a bad phase and will eventually rebound? Probably, but that doesn't mean they're not in a secular bear cycle (picture a stock market graph, jaggedly going down, with bumps up but overall, down). According

Why St. Patrick Matters

Or "Why You Should Appreciate Those Indian and African Priests Who Say Mass for Your Parish"

Racist Fan Wants Adaptation to Stick to Source Material

When Brandon Foi tweeted his disapproval of the race-switched casting in the upcoming Disney Plus adaptation of Percy Jackson, friends and family were shocked. “I was stunned,” said friend and Twitch follower, PrincessLeiasboobz, “that Brandon would ever say anything so obscene.” In an interview with his mother, Mrs. Foi told

Leftists Trying Not to be Gnostics

Current Affairs seems like a worthwhile magazine. It describes itself as "the left magazine for people skeptical of leftism." Based on this essay, it seems pretty far left . . . Bernie Sanders-left . . . but intellectually honest left. In the perspective of the Hemisphere Hypothesis, an "intellectually honest" leftist is

Theorists vs. Practitioners

Jeffrey Tucker at The Brownstone Institute

This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things: Directionalists vs. Destinationists

Michael Munger at American Institute for Economic Research

BYCU: Variety is the Spice of Life . . . and Good Health

Brews You Can Use

The Right Hemisphere Way of Therese Lisieux

St. Therese's is the "little way." The left hemisphere values the big. The left hemisphere demands answers and solutions, which require increasingly large effort. The Little Way is a rebuke of such a disposition. She placed no value on abstractions, opting instead for the real and

The Importance of Being is the Flipside of the Importance of Doing Nothing

"It's because artists do not practise, patrons do not patronize, crowds do not assemble to worship reverently the great work of Doing Nothing, that the world has lost its philosophy and even failed to invent a new religion." G.K. Chesterton Here's a great

Matt Taibbi is Testifying This Morning at Congress

Matt Taibbi at Racket News

Have the Ancient Gods Returned?

Naomi Wolf at Brownstone Institute

Henry Fowler and Ernest Gowers

Henry Fowler (1858-1933) wrote A Dictionary of Modern English Usage after a career of pretty much nothing. He worked hard; he was honest and honorable, but he had never amounted to much: teacher, journalist, soldier (lying about his 57 years so he could fight), and editor. But then, in 1925,

Bill Kauffman has Never Owned a Cell Phone

Kauffman sightings have grown increasingly scarce. It's too bad. He's great. His most recent offering at The Spectator is mediocre (by Kauffman standards), but it's worth posting for the lede itself: he couldn't order a bagel at an airport because he doesn&

The Mere Concept of "Mental Health" Makes Us Unhealthy

Of course, this concern is rooted in language itself. By positing one thing, we amplify its opposite. It's why postmodernists hate binaries. It drove ancient Taoism's admonitions not to look at concepts like "good" and "hate." It drove the background of Dostoyevsky&

Stop Being So Serious: Ten Hints

Shortly before he was martyred with others in 203, St. Saturus related a vision he had of heaven. He said he and the other martyrs were carried eastward to a garden, where a handful of angels started exclaiming, “Here they are! Here they are!” The martyrs were taken to a

Why We Tolerate, Even Encourage, Fat People

It's interesting (and runs contrary to this essay) that our left-hemispheric modern culture goes to extremes to accommodate unusual people, like the overweight. Such tolerance, though, is born of the same dogmatism that caused the Nazis to euthanize the disabled. It's part of the postmodern religion

Battle of the Lightweights: Do Other Light Beers Taste Like Water?

Patrick Coffee at Wall Street Journal

Michel Foucault

I can hardly imagine a person more unlike me than Michel Foucault. Flaming homosexual (note the strong contrast!), Communist, French. But man, the more glimpses I get of him, the more I like him. Thaddeus Russell first explained Foucault's appeal, so I decided to start learning about him.

The Twitter Files Reveal an Existential Threat

John Davidson at Imprimis

Is It Even Possible for a Church to Advertise Properly?

Is it even possible to use material bait to capture a spiritual fish? Marlboro Man, meet Pastor Phil. I wrote those words back in 2005 when I heard that the United Methodist Church will start a four-week, $4 million effort to market its church. John Wesley’s spiritual descendants said

Scrolling Blog: March 2023

March 31, 2023 Brews You Can Use Reminder: No BYCU next Friday: Good Friday BYCUI Thought Opera Singers are Required to be, ahem, Robust Katherine Jenkins stuns in a black cocktail dress at her gin launchThe opera singer, 42, put on a glamorous display for the launch of her own

Joe Rogan's Rant Against Christianity

If you want to see something startling, watch this clip from the Joe Rogan Experience. Now, I think Rogan is one of the most entertaining interviewers ever and I find him to be respectful and open to ideas, but at times, his views come out . . . and they come out strong

America's Shadow Self

Michael Shellenberger at City Journal

William Cobbett: Radical

Plough publishes pretty pieces. This piece about the 19th-century radical William Cobbett is the latest. It discusses the centralization of agriculture that took place in England in the early 1800s and Cobbett's resistance (which made him one of GKC's heroes; he wrote a biography about him)

Nyssa, Tolkien, and Gibson: Holy Saturday

A meditation

Who’s Afraid of G. K. Chesterton?

By Michael Warren Davis at The Common Man (Substack)

How Much Garden Would You Need to Live?

From Life Hacker

About the Unsound and Little Fury

The Unsound and Little Fury. It's a parody of stream-of-consciousness literature, which is probably most popularly known through Joyce's Ulysses or Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury. This feature is probably best identified with the line from Macbeth, which is where Faulkner's

The Rise and Fall of Peer Review

Adam Mastroianni at Experimental History (Substack)

Economic Freedom is the First Freedom

Because it deals with the things we require first

The Decentralist File

I grow more tired of online reading every day. It is by nature hard (something about the pixels and how our eyes work), but then the publications need to generate revenue, so they gum up access with pop-up screens and username requests, then gum up the prose with more pop-up

Fat-Shaming Hobbit Banned from Chicago Public Schools

The Chicago Herald August 22, 2021 CHICAGO. Bombur the Dwarf has caused a big uproar in Chicago Public Schools. Bombur is the creation of JRR Tolkien in his children's book, The Hobbit. He is one of the 13 dwarves who go on a quest with hobbit Bilbo to

Ora Et Labora: How I Began To Work Alongside Monks

Michael Snellen at Catholicism for the Modern World

Conservatives and the Culture

Claes Ryn, from Catholic University. A collection of his essays have just been published. The collection appears largely to recount the problem that conservatives have long been aware of: they abandoned the cultural field to the enemy. Shortly after World War II (others might date it back to 1900; others,

Does the Telephone Cripple the Right Hemisphere . . . Thereby Preoccupying our Pysches in General?

Low spatial frequency means not much information is present, so you have to do extra work to make out what you are looking at. Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things, Chp. 2. Looked at through Marshall McLuhan lingo: “Hot” media and “cool” media were McLuhan’s buzz dichotomy. A hot

"I Am Bing, and I Am Evil"

Erik Hoel at Substack

The Gnostics in Hollywood are Perverts

Existence Strikes Back Part IV explores flourishing in our postmodern, left-hemispheric, culturally-gnostic world. One of the ways to promote flourishing: avoid things that are culturally gnostic and left-hemispheric, like Hollywood.

Introductions to and Summaries of The Hemisphere Hypothesis

By the Master Himself Resist the Machine Apocalypse | Iain McGilchristNo two ways about it: We are making ourselves wretched. We are more affluent than ever, but . . . .First ThingsIain McGilchrist The Best The thing about things | The New CriterionJonathan Gaisman on The Thing With Things by Iain McGilchrist.Vol. 42, No.

I Loathe Bracketology: A Screed

For the Love of Dick Vitale’s Soul, Retire the Word “Bracketology”

How You Attend to the World Changes What You Find There

And if you attend sloppily, what you'll find is slop Do you want to understand what you're thinking about? Then think as clearly about it as possible. Do you want to think clearly about something? Then think in clear terms. On the flip side, if you

The Most Delicious Way to Get Your Dose of Elderberry

Nina Molina (great name) at the Wall Street Journal

Fine Prose or Trashy Prose: Is There No Third Way?

I want to encourage young writers, even if it is a poor man’s game. [I]f you want to write well and live well at the same time, you’d better arrange to inherit money or marry a stockbroker or a rich woman who can operate a typewriter. Flannery

Localism and the Importance of Laboratories

If localities have self-determination, it results in a country full of mini-laboratories where we can figure out what works and what doesn't. Granted, in the localities that practice oppression and hatred, things will be miserable, but at least people can leave. If enough people leave, the people who

Aristotle to Aquinas to Pieper: Leisure Solves Nothing. That's What Makes it Counter-Conduct

In the tradition that runs from Aristotle through Aquinas to Josef Pieper, leisure is not a solution to anything, but an alternative way of being in the world. In Pieper’s formulation, leisure “runs at right angles” to the practical pursuits of work and achievement. Leisure and Liberality | Elizabeth C.

Hate the River-Rat!

I gotta say, I'm really enjoying Will Percy's 1941 autobiography, Lanterns of the Levee. I'd heard of it for years but never bothered to buy it, much less read it. The prose is beautiful, if a bit ornate by today's standard, and

‘Incoherent narrative’: 1619 Project’s New Hulu Series Gets Capitalism All Wrong

Maggie Kelly at The College Fix

Why We are Culturally Gnostic

I'd re-title David Brooks' recent op-ed about progressive sadness, "The Gnostification of America." He touches on four of Voegelin's six gnostic traits (and the other two are also present, but op-eds need to be short), starting with discontent. He points out that liberals

Study Shows You’re Nobody Until Somebody Loves You

Naomi Schaefer Riley at The Washington Free Beacon

Don't Judge a Book by Its Cover, I Suppose

I know nothing about this book except what I read in this review. If the reviewer is honest, the publisher isn't. Of course, the publisher is Doubleday, which is probably about as mainstream (corporate, legacy, establishment) media as you get, so it shouldn't surprise me that

I Thought I Was Saving Trans Kids

By Jamie Reed at The Free Press

Gandalf the Grey or Gandalf the Gay?

Ivy Tower News August 4, 2021 BOSTON. Tolkien was a devout Catholic like President Biden. And like President Biden, he embraced homosexuality. “It's pretty clear Gandalf was homosexual,” says Leonard Chadwick, Professor of Multicultural Studies at Enormous State University and noted Tolkien scholar. “Advances in Gay Studies, especially

The Antihumanist and Transhumanist Cometh

I posted this review-essay for one reason: I've been seeing Adam Kirsch's name a lot in The New Criterion and First Things (and other places). I guess his name has been popping up in those journals for years and I just hadn't noticed. Anyway,

Theorists: Left Hemispherists

The left hemisphere is the hemisphere of abstraction and theory. Iain McGilchrist, The Matter with Things, p. 30. The right hemisphere is the hemisphere of experience: fresh, unique, embodied . . . being present with things as they are. Id. The Brownstone Institute was built on the rubble of COVID policy. It'

Flow

A few writers and thinkers seem to have caught onto the same thing. I believe I could find a host of other thinkers, such as William James and Victor Frankl, who would agree with them: "When one is busy and absorbed in one's work, the very absorption

Cocktail Theology

By William Dailey at First Things

There aren't Economic Systems

The Great Reset appears to be an idea among the global elite that COVID gives them an opportunity to “reimagine” economic systems, along the lines that the elite think more appropriate. The problem is, there is no such thing as an “economic system.” People naturally pursue happiness. To paraphrase St.

Gnosticism in Modernity, or Why History Refuses to End

Isaac Ariail Reed and Michael Weinman at The Hedgehog Review

Cryptocurrency Isn't in a Bubble

It might be terribly overvalued, but it's not in a bubble

Moloch Rises

How dark are these times? Have pagan forces (i.e., Satanic forces) been unleashed into western culture? Heck, I don't know, but it really sucks that it's even a theory worth considering. And in this regard, it's worth remembering that the number one response

Orthanc, Symbol of Patriarchy, Must Fall

The Rohan Rambler SR April 1, 1592 ISENGARD.  A fierce debate surrounds Middle Earth's most famous tower, Orthanc. “It was built by men, to celebrate men, and to protect men,” says Dana Harad, of the Lesbians International Community. “It needs to come down.” At the center of the

The Deeply Flawed Campaign for Racial Reparations

By Jeff Jacoby at The Boston Globe

Postmodernist Pinball Wizards

"He Stands Like a Statue/Becomes Part of the Machine" That lyric from The Who's righteous (if overplayed) song summarizes the point of this very good piece at Salon. It's not often you see TDE post an essay from that leftist e-rag, but it&

Are Alien Sightings Just Demonic Possessions?

In 1959, the famous psychologist Carl Jung wrote Flying Saucers: A Modern Myth of Things Seen in the Sky. Instead of trying to account for UFOs as a literal reality, he opted to see them instead as a psychic aspect, a fantasy of the unconscious.

The Demolition of the Western Mind

Louis Markos at The Imaginative Conservative

Be Open to Spiritual Experience. Also, Be Really Careful

Ross Douthat at The New York Times

Scrolling Blog: February 2023

February 28, 2023 Feast Day of St. Oswald Actually, that's not true, but the poor guy, who Butler tells us was "endowed with a very rare and beautiful form of body," is feasted on February 29th, so TDE is doing its part here to remedy the

Labor v. Leisure

There's a thing called the "disutility of labor." It's a fancy phrase that basically means people prefer leisure over labor. We constantly see people make current sacrifices in order to get advantages later, and one of the principle advantages is leisure. Von Mises points

Post-Journalism: Objectivity is No Longer the Goal

Jonathan Turley

How to Hate Jordan Peterson

My man Ayodeji Awosika came out with a great piece at Medium.com awhile back: 12 Rules for Hating Jordan Peterson. This Jordan piece is a monster, consisting of nearly 4,000 words (Medium.com measures its stories by reading time: 265 WPM; this article is 14 minutes long . . . do

How the Media Polarized Us

By Audrey Mir at City Journal

Evelyn Waugh: A Life Revisited

Paul Mankowski at First Things

Seven Most Underappreciated Movie Villains

“A hero is only as good as his villain” is a stupid saying. Is MCU Iron Man only as good as War Monger? Do you even remember who War Monger is? On the flip side, there are hundreds of cases where the villain far outshines the hero: for example, every

AI and the Left Hemisphere

About once a month, I come across an online essay that is so lengthy and compelling that, after reading the first section, I merely scan the rest and print it out so I can study it later. Such is this essay by Adam Kirsch. It appears to be an explanation

QR Codes Aren't Evil

They just feel that way. We ought to be asking "why?"

Flannery O’Connor’s Prescription for Our Divided Times

By Christina Bieber Lake at Comment

Edward Frenkel on the Limits of Large Language Models

"I wonder if a large language model could actually ever come up with the idea that the square root of negative one is something that is essential or meaningful because if all information you get, if all the knowledge that had been accumulated up to that point, tells you

St. Dann the Armed Robber

You ever notice how many saints die of drug overdoses? It's amazing. A newspaper article will recount a man or woman's last days in a way that makes the person sound sweeter than St. Francis, and then, buried in the middle of the article, there'

Aragorn and the Rangers or Dirty Mike and the Boys?

New York Gazette August 28, 2021 NEW YORK. Cultural critics have grown outraged by the portrayal of Aragorn in JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Ring series. “It's pretty clear that Aragorn is homosexual but Tolkien simply refused to admit it,” says Guy Chase, President of the

Ellis Sandoz, RIP

The Voegelin community is a puzzling one. To an outsider (i.e., to me), it seems insular but enthusiastic. It's like they're on their own island and eagerly invite others to the island but with one requirement: the others already be on the island. And what

Hamlet in the Metaxy

By Stephen Conlin at The Imaginative Conservative

In Praise of Clichés

Avoid stale phrases. Orwell called them "dying metaphors." Robert Fiske called them "moribund metaphors." They're sayings that have been used hundreds of time but haven't yet made it into regular vernacular. "Emotional rollercoaster," "It's a jungle out

Don't Kill Hudge and Gudge by Thinking Like Hudge and Gudge Writ Small

The struggle to reconcile our use of Amazon with our hatred of big corporations is a constant mental, even emotional, struggle, especially when facts like this are plopped in front of us: Money is power, and companies like Amazon suck this economic power out of local communities and concentrate it

Localism without Fundamentalism

We can applaud yesterday's small towns without worshipping them. We can appreciate the local without demonizing the central. But we also need to insist that today's progressives applaud yesterday and that today's centralizing gnostics respect the local. I'm afraid those just aren&

Relationship Contracts: Another Postmodern Band-Aid

Do I applaud or vomit? That Hamlet-like question twists my mind when I read about our postmodern culture's mental struggles. Most recently, it happened when I read about "relationship contracts." They're documents signed by people who have decided they're going to start

Christopher Lasch Appealed on the Left and the Right

By Christian Lorentzen at The Jacobin

Are Saints Sent at Specific Times for Specific Reasons?

Every so often, spiritual lightning sears across a culture's landscape. The example of St. Francis of Assisi immediately comes to mind. So does St. Antony. Their intense holiness was bright and powerful, and left an indelible mark on the earth. We can't know for certain why

Zen in Brief

When Mahayana Buddhism traveled east out of India and into China, it mingled with Taoism. The offspring: Zen. Like all Buddhism, its ontology (i.e., its theory of what constitutes fundamental reality) is steeped in pantheistic monism. This means that the Buddhist believes all things are one. The same spirit

We're All Schizophrenic Winos

Surviving the Metaverse

By Mary Harrington at First Things

Dalrymple on the WNBA

Anthony Daniels aims at three of my favorite targets: (1) The relentless propaganda to push the WNBA on the populace (but in Daniels' case, he marvels at the propaganda to push female soccer in Europe), (2) tattoo culture, and (3) ugly buildings ("brutalism"). Underlying these three seemingly

Why We Judge. And Why We Need to Stop

It's a left-hemisphere activity where the left hemisphere often doesn't belong

Bertrand Russell Summarizes the Left Hemisphere

Science is "power-knowledge"

When Gods Fight, Men Die

It is important for us to realize that mankind is doomed to live more and more under the spell of a new scientific, social, and political mythology, unless we resolutely exorcise these befuddled notions whose influence on modern life is becoming appalling. Millions of men are starving or bleeding to

Rabelais

One of my favorite writers, Albert Jay Nock, was a huge Rabelais fan. He wrote two books about him. From the first: It must be laid down once and for all, that the chief purpose of reading a classic like Rabelais is to prop and stay the spirit, especially in

The Aristocracy Is Eating the Peasants

By John Rubino at Substack

Doomers May Have One Point: Food Production

Every inch of me resists the doom-and-gloomers. I think it's because I get the sense that this syllogism drives them: doomers are serious. Serious people should rule. Therefore, doomers should rule. At the very least, doomers think they should tell other people what to do. Doomers, after all,

Three Lesser-Known Figures in the Zen Tradition

All three emphasized the Tao side of Zen

Catholic Philosopher Elisabeth Anscombe was Wittgenstein’s Literary Executor

By Jennifer A. Frey at First Things

Burkean Libertarianism

I self-identify as a libertarian, which means I can play on libertarian sports teams even though I was born a conservative, but it bothers me that there's something eerily "religious" in many libertarians' fervor and uncompromising positions. I'm firmly convinced it's

Three Errors Paul Ehrlich Keeps Making

By Vincent Geloso at the American Institute for Economic Research

The Importance of Free Speech

Free speech is the most important issue today, and I don't say that because I loathe Democrats (I don't much care for Republicans, either). I say it because truth is fluid. It's not relative (put your genitals back in your pants, perverts), but it

Capitalism is a Bogeyman

The control of the production of wealth is the control of human life itself.” Hilaire Belloc, The Servile State Capitalism is a bogeyman. There is a type of capitalism rightly condemned by my heroes Chesterton and Belloc, but it was first and foremost a type of capitalism born of privilege

Selections From John Wu's Translation of the Tao Teh Ching

Therefore the sage puts his own person last, and yet it is found in the foremost place; he treats his person as if it were foreign to him, and yet that person is preserved. The highest excellence is like water. The excellence of water appears in its benefiting all things,

Iain McGilchrist, Per Chat GBT

It looks pretty accurate to me

Mushrooming to a New Religious Understanding?

Tuesday mornings are hard on me for some reason, but this morning, delight hit me from three angles, thanks to this one essay. Delight One: Bookman It comes from The University Bookman, one of the first subscription journals I read (my Dad subscribed and I started reading it when I

Whew. Is the Craft Beer Finally Dying Down?

By Mike Jordan at the Wall Street Journal

Summary of Matt Taibbi Twitter Files

By Tom Woods, via his newsletter

Dry January, Tradition, and the Magisterium

Andrew Huberman has gone near-teetotaller lately in his rhetoric. Awhile back, he warned that, if a person averages just one drink a day (seven in a week), he's courting accelerated cognitive decline (and other health issues). He said the safe maximum might be six per week. As the

Whole Earth: The Many Lives of Stewart Brand

By Jude Russo at The Lamp

Scrolling Blog: January 2023

January 30, 2023 Weekly Column is Up Don’t be That Guy“That guy” is always a left hemisphere guyThe Daily EudemonTDE As I mentioned a few weeks ago, the Monday column will occasionally be a repeat of the Saturday newsletter. I thought it would happen only once or twice

On “Edward Hopper’s New York” at the Whitney Museum of American Art

By James Panero at The New Criterion

Magician Affects Audience Even After the Show

Paul Johnson, 1928–2023

By Adrian Goldsworthy at The New Criterion

Hand Me a Gallon of that Vodka and Mountain Dew

Here’s something obvious that I never brought to the surface of full consciousness: a cocktail must, you know, taste like alcohol: A cocktail “must have sufficient alcoholic flavor.” Even the simplest of cocktails like a vermouth cassis must taste of alcohol. If you don’t like the taste of

Poetry Died 100 Years Ago This Month

By Matthew Walther at the New York Times

What is “Existence Strikes Back”?

“Existence Strikes Back” is the working title of a body of writing and ideas that I’ve been working on for 30 years

Reign of the Administrators

By Theodore Dalrymple at City Journal

Starting the Trip: The Matter with Things: Our Brains, Our Delusions, and the Unmaking of the World

At $150, I'm trusting the trip will be worth it.

One of the Finest Saint Books Ever

Robert Payne, The Holy Fire (1957). A Micro-Review

A GKC Christmas Poem

A Christmas Carol by G.K. Chesterton The Christ-child lay on Mary's lap, His hair was like a light. (O weary, weary were the world, But here is all aright.) The Christ-child lay on Mary's breast, His hair was like a star. (O stern and cunning

Dion: The Wanderer Has Never Left the Building

By Rafael Alvarez, at Village Voice

Mystic Alcohology

By Michael P. Foley, at First Things

American Christmas, American New Year

Christopher Flannery at Imprimis

The Flu Ravages Your Soul and Strips You Bare. Maybe That’s a Good Thing.

I'm walking the rest of the way to Bethlehem

The Entire Nation Should be Rooting for the Wolverines

By Matthew Walther at the New York Times

Autocomplete: Coming to Terms with Our New Textual Culture

By Richard Gibson at Hedgehog Review

Scrolling Blog: December 2022

December 31, 2022 T.S. Eliot: Murderer? Matthew Walther claims T.S. Eliot killed poetry (well, finished the slaying . . . it wasn't all TSE's fault). Perhaps. I think McGilchrist would argue the left hemisphere's approach--logic, dislike of metaphor, emphasis on calculation--killed it. No matter, the

The Incredible Shrinking Future of College

Kevin Carey at Vox

Don't Follow the News

The drumbeat grows louder: more people realize the corporate media can't be trusted and smaller media don't have the resources to provide full coverage. On top of that, we know that the corporate media has never been trustworthy, including "trusted men" like Walter Cronkhite.

A Lot of Thinkers Have Intuited that We Have Two Minds

McGilchrist deserves the credit for connecting neuroscience to the intuition

The Woke Chokehold

By Theodore Dalrymple at Taki Mag

A Tribute to David L. Schindler: Teacher and Friend

By Conor Dugan, at Catholic World Report

Dive Bar Patrons Understand More than College Professors

A sample from "Outside the Modern Limits." This is the kind of content you're missing if you don't subscribe to the Saturday morning newsletter.

Distributism Needs a New Name

Dale Ahlquist at Plough

Ten Facts about Black Wednesday

“Drinksgiving” is simply lame. “Drink” doesn’t rhyme with “Thanks,” any more than “Moron” rhymes with “Dolt,” both of which describe anyone who uses that stupid term.

Kauffman on Nisbet

Bill Kauffman at The American Conservative

Science and Magic

The historian of intellectual history, Frances Yates, wrote extensively about the realm of magical pursuits in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in particular about hermeticism and its legendary eponymous source, Hermes Trismegistus. Yates points out that Renaissance magic--through characters such as Ficino, Giordano Bruno, Campanella, and Cornelius Agrippa--reached its apex

Examples of GKC's Right-Hemispheric Brain Overly Stifling His Left Hemisphere

A Work-in-Process

Civilization is Slow Hard Work: A Review of Lee Oser’s “Old Enemies”

Darrell Falconburg at VoegelinView

We Judge Based on Our Own State

For each man judges others by his own state, that is, by what he is himself--in virtues or sins. Simeon the New Theologian, Practical and Theological Precepts (Writings from the Philokalia, p. 109)

Politicians' Self-Interest and Dishonesty

By Pierre Lemieux at Econlib

Planning and The Politics of Beauty: Reflections on Stewart Udall

By Russell Arben Fox at Front Porch Republic

Are You Humble? These 17 Signs from St. Josemaria Will Help You Know

From the Magis Center

Ted McAllister’s Place: A Memorial Tribute

By Bruce Frohnen at the Kirk Center

At eighty, Casablanca embodies Hollywood high style

By Peter Tonguette at the Spectator

Tolkien’s Elves Embody McGilchrist’s Ideal Brain

I think Tolkien’s perfect proto-McGilchrist form is found in Rivendell and Lorien, the last kingdoms of the elves. The elves, I believe, display the proper relationship between the hemispheres, almost to perfection: the musical and poetic and playful nature of the right hemisphere served by the more mundane functions

Try This

By Rafael Alvarez at The Lamp

An Overview of Each Hemisphere's Vision of Reality

If you want an overview of each hemisphere’s vision of reality, McGilchrist provides it at the beginning of The Matter with Things: The left hemisphere’s vision of reality: The “world is composed of static, isolated, fragmentary elements that can be manipulated easily, are decontextualized, abstracted, detached, disembodied, mechanical,

The Viking War on Woke

By Dominic Sandbrook at UnHerd

Hunter S. Thompson’s ‘Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail 1972’: Human Empathy and Political Savvy that Today’s Political Propagandists Lack

By David Mikics at The Tablet

The Master and His Emissary: Summary

By Jonathan Gaisman at The New Criterion

Scrolling Blog: November 2022

November 30, 2022 Beautiful (if hard to read) Tridentine liturgical calendar: https://i.redd.it/td4v1yswj33a1.jpg "Outside the Modern Limits." The Best Saturday Morning NewsletterDive Bar Patrons Understand More than College ProfessorsA sample from “Outside the Modern Limits.” This is the kind of content you’re missing

Urban Jeremiah: Mike Davis, 1946-2022

By Sohrab Ahmari at Compact

Front Porch Republic and Modernity

If you weren't aware, Front Porch Republic is the Internet's premier proponent of localism. Bill Kauffman started it (with others, if memory serves). Though he doesn't make a lot of appearances there, the site is in the talented hands of Jeff Bilbro, who puts

Scrolling Blog: October 2022

October 31, 2022 Happy Halloween The Monday Column Solon, the Father of Democracy, was a Man of the Tao💡Solon opened Athens to true order: the transformative order found through the Tao. Ancient Athens in the 600s BC Ancient Athens didn’t have a king. It was ruled by nine

What Happens When a Newspaper Dies?

By John W. Miller at The Daily Yonder

Parch Delivers All The Fun Of Drinking Without The Booze

By Lisa Kocay at Forbes

This is The Other Place: The TV Moment That Changed His Worldview

By Joseph Serwach at Medium.com

How Far Will the Eco-Fascists Go?

Mary Harrington at UnHerd

Kanye to Catholicism?

By Michael Snellen at Medium.com

Groupies Deserve More Credit

By Lisa Levy at The Walrus

Gin and Morals, Please

By Thomas Triedman at The New Criterion

There’s No Such Thing as Free Breastmilk

Abigail Blanco at the American Institute for Economic Research

Complications of the Ukraine War

Christopher Caldwell at Imprimis

Jon Fosse

Mr. Fosse received the Nobel Prize in Literature on October 5th. This development is relevant to TDE for three reasons: (1) It's literature, which is a form of counter-conduct and a means of flourishing; (2) He converted to Catholicism in 2012; and (3) In the words of the

Roger Scruton Knew What Wine was For

By Roger Kimball at The Spectator

The Passing of a Dive Bar

From the Lamp

A Tribute to Loretta Lynn

By Matthew Walther at The Lamp

Podcasting Hasn’t Produced A New Hit in Years

By Lucas Shaw at Bloomberg

Why the South is Important

The South is important because it's the most distinctive region of the United States. The "region" is the conceptual buffer between the "central" and the "local." We don't want to lose the region any more than a nation would want

Anti-Localism is Left-Hemispheric: Passages from McGilchrist that Bear This Out

Like many "Briefly" posts, this is a work-in-process The left hemisphere prefers the impersonal to the personal, and that tendency would in any case be instantiated in the fabric of a technologically driven and bureaucratically administered society. The impersonal would come to replace the personal. There would be

The Enlightenment Obsessed with Measurement: A Sure Sign of Left-Hemispheric Elephantiasis

💡"Numbers, which the left hemisphere feels familiar with and is excellent at manipulating . . .". McGilchrist, The Master and His Emissary, p. 430. "We take the measure of the world and ourselves a hundred times a day, with rulers and kitchen thermometers and bathroom scales and, everywhere, clocks. Scientists

The Right’s New Divide: Frodo Versus Boromir

By Tony Woodlief at The Spectator

The Mysterious Being in the Ring

By Nathanael Blake at The University Bookman

The End of the Culture of Narcissism

Ashley Colby at UnHerd

The Art of Ghosting

Don't Tell 'em Goodbye!

Why I am Not an Effective Altruist

By Erik Hoel from The Intrinsic Perspective

The New Moral Mathematics

By Kieran Setiya at the Boston Review

Taking Another Look at the Hatfields and McCoys

Appalachia Revisited

Remove Hate from Your Heart . . . And Who Is Andrew Tate

Two good pieces from Medium.com this past week

Chicago's Headwinds

Interview with William Voegeli at City Journal

A Pilgrimage to a Maine Island in the Footsteps of John Steinbeck

By Howard Fishman at the Washington Post

We Create Art All the Time. Try to be Rational about It.

Here’s the thing about art: It’s utterly irrational. Our need to create, our need to share, our need to have it appreciated, our need to depict truth or beauty or goodness. But the artistic work itself is rational, within its sphere.

Cosmic War: A Review of “The Wartime Sermons of Jonathan Edwards”

From VoegelinView

Jim Crow in the Anglican Church?

by Terry Mattingly at Get Religion

St. Therese: Bio

The Little Flower was born in 1873, the youngest of nine children, into a very holy, but otherwise conventional, French middle class family. She enjoyed holidays at the seashore, shrimping, donkey rides, and her pets (rabbits, doves, silkworms, goldfish, magpie, dog). She liked to entertain her family and make them

The Cucumber: New Goliath in the Cocktail World?

Cucumbers and gin. Who knew? A lot of people, apparently, but I'm joining the party now.

Tolkien Wasn’t Politically Correct. Rings of Power Is. That’s Just the Most Surface Symptom of this Diseased Production

There are two types of people in the world: Tolkien fans and everyone else. This series appeals to neither.

Two Philosophers Found Purpose in the World of Work

By Robert Zaretsky and George Alliger: Wall Street Journal

Why Write (Really, Really) Low-Brow Essays

The stylistic troglodytes are popular. Like, really popular. One of my essays might get 200 claps from readers. The five-thumb essays? Thousands, sometimes 10,000

The Libertarian Position, Spun as Concisely as Possible with a Lacing of Catholicism

The market works best when it's free. When the market works best, wealth increases. As wealth increases, everyone on average is better off compared to where they would be without the market. The better off people are, the more they can pursue whatever non-market goals they have. These

Inklings and Tuesday Beer

It is Nature, it is the Way, the Road. It is the Way in which the universe goes on, the Way in which things everlastingly emerge, stilly and tranquilly, into space and time. It is also the Way which every man should tread in imitation of that cosmic and supercosmic

C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien and the Inklings: Telling Stories to Save Lives

By Rachel Lu: America Magazine

Scrolling Blog: September 2022

September 30, 2022 The Art of Ghosting If you think I've written about this topic before, you're not wrong. The Art of GhostingDon’t Tell ’em Goodbye!The Daily EudemonTDE September 29, 2022 TDE Needs it for 3.0 . . . Apparently Click here to subscribe to TDE.

Our Lady of Chicago

By Matthew Milliner, The Lamp

The Pascal of the Pandemic

By David Black From City Journal

Where Did Wokeness Come From?

By Theodore Kupfer City Journal

Flannery O’Connor on Sin and Politics

By Darrell Falconburg From The Imaginative Conservative

The Infidels Will Not be Silenced

By Ayaan Hirsi Ali From Unherd

The Creedence Clearwater Revival Revival

From The New Yorker

Exhaustion: Causes, Treatment

By Alan Jacobs

Orestes Brownson's Influence

Part IV of a Five-Part Series

Americans are Rejecting College in Record Numbers

From The Hechinger Report

Orestes Brownson: The Prized Convert

Part II of a Five-Part Series

Orestes Brownson: The Inflammatory Public Philosopher

Part III of a Five-Part Series

Orestes Brownson: Pioneer Catholic

Part V of a Five-Part Series

Why Do So Many Bikes End Up in Waterways?

From The Guardian

‘Eliot After “The Waste Land”’ Review: As Prufrock Grew Old

From The Wall Street Journal

Am I an Idiot for Wanting a Dumber Phone?

From Wired

The Man with the Golden Gun

From The Lamp

Pope Michael, RIP

From The Lamp

Meg Scheske's (now "Schlueter") Wedding Day

Margaret Rita (Meg) joined Leo Schlueter in matrimony two days ago. They're both graduates of Hillsdale College. His father is a professor of philosophy there. Meg's dad is, well, your scribe at TDE and an amateur philosopher, historian, and gardener. Bride and groom come from large

Seed Oils and Bad Science

From The American Conservative

It's Bourbon's Turn

A few bourbon notes, infused with Walker Percy observations

Did the Best Chess Player in the World Just Give Up?

From Christianity Today

Taking the Faith into the Trades

From The Washington Examiner

Progress has Given Way to Bubbling Madness

The WEF: a kind of trade union for the most wealthy and influential

Scrolling Blog: August 2022

The original TDE blog format. Stacked, sundry, and short for swift scanning since 2004.

A Rambling Column Resulting from a Bushwhacked Week

Ah, the life bushwhack. When I wore a younger man’s clothes, I thought the bushwhacks would go away. I’d get my seven kids out of constant-crisis mode (making sure they didn’t wander away, fall down the steps, or get eaten by a dog), then I could return

Scourging of Shire Scoured from YouTube

Silicon Valley Eye August 1, 2021 SAN JOSE.  A happy ending in JRR Tolkien's popular story turns out not to be happy after all. At issue is a chapter known as “The Scourging of the Shire,” in which a band of hobbits (small, half-person creatures) kills and rebels

How To Halt or Disengage From an Overtalker

From Well + Good

The Conservative Mind, by Russell Kirk

A Micro-Review/Essay

Experts Killed Ethnic Neighborhoods in the Name of "Progress"

It also killed Polish, Maltese, Italian, and pretty much every other ethnic neighborhood. "Dwight Eisenhower, who had admired Hitler's autobahn and got one of his own: the tellingly titled National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. Cohesive working-class neighborhoods in countless American cities were sacrificed to the

Joseph Bottum and Postmodernism

I frequently wondered what happened to Jody Bottum. I hear he was forced out of First Things after Fr. Neuhaus died. Wikipedia says it was an argument over funding and the direction of the journal. I've liked to speculate it's because he wrote a surprising piece

Distributism is the Economic Sphere Revolt Against Modernity and Left-Hemispheric Hegemony

Unfortunately, it doesn't work in the modern world without big government, and big government is the celebration of the left hemisphere. Still, it's worth pondering, just as I think it's worth pondering anarchism. Neither will be attained in my lifetime, but I think such

Philip Seymour Hoffman's Rare Talent

From City Journal

When Did Cheerfulness Get So Miserable?

From The Spectator

Epstein on Small Talk

Small talk is best thought of as an art, a minor but nonetheless real one.

The End of Christendom, by Malcolm Muggeridge

That guy trying to eat your brains? He didn’t survive the zombie attack.

Past Lives of the Paragraph

From The Hedgehog Review

William Bonner and Lila Rajiva, Mobs, Messiahs, and Markets: A Micro-Review

Bonner is either the most frustrating or most entertaining non-fiction writer I’ve ran across. He loves anecdotes and detours. He loves making a larger point by illustrating with an even larger story. At times, I want to scream, “Get to the point!” At other times, I’m saying, “Take

How Teapots Spread Soviet Propaganda

From the BBC

The Restoration of Christian Culture, by John Senior

A Micro-Review/Essay

Sundry Drinking Items: Alpena, Michigan; Bar Fees; Can Shortage; Orange Wine

Random drinking items for your weekend recreational consumption

The Old Course Stands the Test of Time

From the Associated Press

Some Surprising Good News: Bookstores Are Booming

From the New York Times

The Empire the Aztecs Couldn't Conquer

From the BBC

UATX’s Forbidden Courses Program

Something new is stirring in Austin

Stream of Consciousness

William James' stream of consciousness addresses that fundamental fact of our mental world: thinking cannot be stopped. We "think" like we breathe. James' observation, says Jacques Barzunm "explains without moralizing what that wonderful self-observer Montaigne found as the chief mark of man: he is [diverse

Ludwig Wittgenstein’s war on philosophy

Wittgenstein was an intriguing combination of monk, mystic and mechanic. . . . He preferred cowboy movies and detective stories

Bottled and Unsalivated

From The Lamp

In the House of Tom Bombadil

From Front Porch Republic

How Fitbit has stolen your soul

From UnHerd

The strange underground economy of tree poaching

From NPR

Elvis: An Effusive Mini-Review

Wow. I loved this movie.

Our Man in Paris: Why Tocqueville Still Matters

From VoegelinView

Suggestion: Bookmark the Scrolling Blog

Start at the Scrolling Blog

A Tribute to Washington Irving

From City Journal

Why It's Rude to Stare

Staring is a special kind of vision, in itself predatory: left hemisphere attention gets locked onto its target. The Matter with Things

Our Universities Need a Revolution

From UnHerd

The Violent Bear It Away, by Flannery O'Connor

A Micro-Review/Essay

7 Literary Pubs Where You Can Drink Like Your Favorite Authors

From Matador Network

Invasive Crabs Become Whiskey

From the AP Press

Scrolling Blog: July 2022

The original TDE blog format. Stacked, sundry, and short for swift scanning since 2004.

The growing movement to restore classical education

Chesterton articulates so well [this vision] of education being the soul of a society as it passes from one generation to the next

What Did the Classics Do to Christianity?

Specifically, what did the Humanists' emphasis on the Classics do to Christianity at the beginning of the modern world?

Every Town has a Story Worth Saving: A Review of Hello, Bookstore

Is there another art form as dependent on chance as the documentary film? In 2019, director A.B. Zax set out to capture the story of the appropriately-if-unimaginatively-named The Bookstore, a fixture of Lenox, Massachusetts owned and operated by its proprietor Matthew Tannenbaum since 1976. With the arrival of COVID-19

The Day Mozart Stole Music from the Vatican

From VoegelinView

Heartland Manufacturing Renaissance

From City Journal

New Elvis Film Reveals Why He’s Still Idolized as the King of Rock ’n’ Roll

By Joseph Serwach

Frank Sturgis: The Shadowiest of the Shadows?

From The Wrap

Great Books Podcast Episode

Roosevelt Montás on Rescuing Socrates - EconlibHow do books change our lives? Educator and author Roosevelt Montás of Columbia University talks about his book Rescuing Socrates with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Drawing on his own educational and life journey, Montás shows how great books don’t just teach us stuff–

The “Czech Bach”: Who Was Jan Dismas Zelenka?

From VoegelinView

Tired of Being Chumps

What happens when the people who have been the backbone of America realize the system is rigged against them and stop supporting it?

St. Thomas Aquinas: “The Dumb Ox," by G.K. Chesterton

A Micro-Review/Essay

Wokeness, the Highest Stage of Managerialism

From City Journal

On Working without Working. Or St. Terese's Little Way. Or Zen Work.

"There is no greater pleasure in ordinary life, so-called, than to see a bus-conductor, a teacher, anybody, really engrossed in his work, with no thought of its relative or absolute value, with no thought of its interest or profit to himself or others." R.H. Blyth, Zen in

Dreiser, Cather, Stevens

From The Tablet

Libertarian Biographies

Brad Birzer reviews a new book about major figures in the libertarian tradition. Needless to say, I now want to buy it, but I'm holding back. I had a drink with one of Birzer's friends a few weeks ago. I think he's probably less

‘Metaphysical Animals’ and ‘The Women Are Up to Something’: A Philosophy of Their Own

From the Wall Street Journal

Jack Dorsey's Decentralized Web

From Bitcoin Magazine

Joseph Epstein's Four Volumes of Mini-Biographies

Joseph Epstein's four volumes of literary mini-biographies: Plausible Prejudices: Essays on American Writing (1985) Partial Payments: Essays on Writers and Their Lives (1989) Pertinent Players: Essays on the Literary Life (1993) Life Sentences: Literary Essays (1997)

Expect Complete Chaos if You’re Heading to Europe This Summer

From Fodor's

The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft, by George Gissing

A Micro-Review Essay

Was the Episcopalian Judy Garland Too Jewish for Her Own Good?

From Forward magazine

Drunk and Driven

My pursuit of drunken perfection (humor) I’m thinking about becoming an alcoholic. Beer and wine are my favorites, so I’ll drink a lot of them. I don’t like hard liquor, but I’ll drink it if that what it takes to realize my ambition. Unlike some people

A Writer’s Misadventures with a Cancel-Minded Mob on Goodreads

From City Journal

Scrolling Blog: June 2022

June 30, 2022 Classical Education is Coming Back It must be "Classics Thursday." The Washington Examiner has run a great opinion piece about the salubrious return of classical education, with a GKC kicker. What is now commonly referred to as a “classical” or “liberal arts” education has been

Mystery: Numinous, yet decipherable

From the Hedgehog Review

The Many Traditions of Tolkien

From Front Porch Republic

Anthony Bourdain: The Enigma of Cool

From City Journal

The World of the Polis, by Eric Voegelin

A Micro-Review/Essay

Classic Dalrymple

From Taki Mag.

Punt, Pass and Kick

💡When I moved from my house of 30 years, I threw out all my trophies, except four that were special to me. I am now throwing out those four, taking the expert de-hoarder advice to take a picture of things that are special but useless one step further by blogging

High Average

💡When I moved from my house of 30 years, I threw out all my trophies, except four that were special to me. I am now throwing out those four, taking the expert de-hoarder advice to take a picture of things that are special but useless one step further by blogging

The New Right Surges . . . in Lower Manhattan?

From The New Statesman

How to Survive the Atheistic Hurricane

Raskolnikov to the Demons, with the Underground Man topping it off.

How America Sold Out Little League Baseball

From America Magazine

Plato and Aristotle, by Eric Voegelin

A Micro-Review/Essay

On Stalin’s Library: A Dictator and His Books

From The New Criterion

There's No Fix for the Student Loan Debacle

From Public Discourse

Why Joseph Smith Matters

From The Marginalia Review

Historians can be divided into followers of Herodotus (the storytellers) and Thucydides (the fact-grubbers)

From the The Wall Street Journal

Jean-Paul Sartre: In Brief

Sartre denied that we have any natural traits (i.e., essences, characteristics). Instead of such essences, Sartre said, we have existence, and that’s it. Our essences don’t really exist. At best, they have a secondary reality because we first exist, then select our essences. In his words: “[M]

How I Use the Gardening Blockchain Crypto-Johnson Rod Algorithm to Deal with the Modern World

Confused and Contented in the Garden

The ESB Project at 100,000

I don't count the number of essays in the Project, much less the number of words, but I realized this morning that the Project probably stands at 100,000ish words. It's nearing the finish.

P.G. Wodehouse Referenced Booze . . . A Lot

Ah, yes. Three of my sons, post-wedding Mass last Saturday. It was, after all the struggles and cost, a glorious day. That's Alex, the groom, to the far left, then Michael and Jack to the far right. The other three guys are school chums. Yes, "chums."

About the One-Thing Files

“The One-Thing File” is a practice I learned from Econtalk. It's the practice of writing just one thing (okay, maybe more than one) that I learn from a book, essay, documentary, podcast, whatever. For younger TDE readers, think of it as Reddit's “Today I Learned” feature.

Free Seeds . . . at Your Public Library?

From Civil Eats.

How a Talisman Works

All forms of magic have this in common: they try to manipulate the spiritual to direct the material.

Seven Great Quotes About Money

Emperor Vespasian famously said, “Money has no smell” when questioned about his decision to tax urinals. The folks here might disagree.

The musical note that can trigger cold sweats and sightings of the dead

From The Spectator

On Small Talk

Small talk. I dislike it. It can be argued that it is part of the lubrication that keeps social wheels moving smoothly, but I'm not talking about cordialities ("Hi," "How are the kids doing?" etc.). I'm talking about extended conversations that are

Sigrid Undset’s Kristin Lavransdatter Turns One Hundred

From Plough

Scrolling Blog: May 2022

Scrolling Blog Entries: May 2022

I Spent Wednesday Evening with a Bottle of Gin and a Pile of Old Magazines, Wasting Time on a Stupid Task

It was a delightful waste of time.

Solon, the Father of Democracy, was a Man of the Tao

💡Solon opened Athens to true order: the transformative order found through the Tao. Ancient Athens in the 600s BC Ancient Athens didn’t have a king. It was ruled by nine archons. These were men from the largest landowning families in Attica. When an archon finished his term, he became

How to Kill the Tao

The left hemisphere gets things done. The Tao isn’t concerned about getting things done. Let your left hemisphere dominate: you’ll never be bothered by the Tao again.

The Difference Between Rebelling Against the Establishment and Rebelling Against the establishment (small "e")

My Dad was fiercely conservative. A full-blown WASP, albeit of the first-generation sort, his parents having migrated from Russia shortly before 1917. We used to drink beer at a local dive bar and discuss sundry (and sudsy) topics. During one conversation, I told him I was reading On the Road

Leisure, the Basis of Culture, by Josef Pieper

A Micro-Review/Essay

Enemies of the Permanent Things, by Russell Kirk

A Micro-Review Essay

The Spokane Word

From Taki Mag

Edward Frenkel on Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy

"Nietzsche wrote this book called The Birth of Tragedy and he presented this theory . . . of two sides of a human. One that comes from Apollo, and that's the left brain so to speak: everything that has to do with logic, and reason, and analyzing, dissecting, conceptualizing. And

Life and Times of Booth Tarkington

From The Worthy House

Michael Polanyi's Personal Knowledge Anticipated Iain McGilchrist's Hemisphere Hypothesis

A few notes (a half-baked short essay) about the Hungarian chemist/philosopher and the English psychiatrist/philosopher

“Live in the Now” is Bad Practical Advice

But it’s good existential advice Do you want a piece of advice that I’ve seen recommended by sages in virtually every spiritual tradition? Live in the present moment. I don’t care if it’s a Muslim Sufi or a Christian mystic or an Indian yogi or a

Who is Sohrab Ahmari?

From Ouillette

McLuhan Sighting

"Philosophize This" dedicates an episode to Marshall McLuhan. It's very good. The podcast is here. The transcript to the podcast is here. You ask people that question what would you rather be? Blind or deaf? And 99% of people say they'd rather be deaf.

I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead: The Dirty Life and Times of Warren Zevon

From The Worthy House

A Room with a Feud

Literary criticism used to be terribly clever and terribly savage.

Ukraine: Against History and Geography

From The Hedgehog Review

The Fable Behind The Master and His Emissary

The Master and His Emissary takes its title from a story by Nietzsche (McGilchrist, humorously, drops a footnote and says he can't remember where he saw it . . . and apparently the editors at Yale couldn't, either). It goes like this: A wise spiritual master ruled a small

Was Descartes Nuts?

The Cartesian view of the world adopts a stance normally found only in patients suffering from schizophrenia. Referring to a famous passage from the Meditations on First Philosophy in which Descartes describes looking out of his window and seeing what he knows to be people passing by as seeming to

Orban’s victory might not make sense to the West. But it’s what Hungary wants.

From the Washington Post

Feeding the Poor with Food, not Energy Drinks and Kentucky Fried Chicken

From The Daily Yonder

How Can You Cure Yourself of Modernitis?

You're soaked in modernity. You think like a modern. It's not good. Consider doing the opposite of whatever your rationality tells you to do.

Where Are the Earlier Entries?

Are you looking for earlier scrolling blog pieces? I’m afraid you’ll have to search for each one individually. Why no scrolling blog, even though the tagline says “since 2004”? Simply because all blogs were scrolling (“stacked”) back in 2004. That was the only format, which made sense (blog

If You Want to Flourish, Develop Your Router

Insane people often have impaired right hemispheres. Unfortunately, we probably all have impaired right hemispheres.

Shift in Drinking Habits

It seems alcohol is reeling. Every week, I see stories about another industry that's hurting, but few stories point to the culprit: legal marijuana. In my generation, I see many adults who drink far less but smoke far more (or eat edibles). I've known at least

The Continuing Importance of Thomas Sowell

From Imprimis

Transmitting Philosophical Symbols

In order to appreciate what the sage is saying, a person must have already had a parallel experience of some sort. After I was done writing the Russian monk piece last week, I pulled Sergius Bolshakoff’s Russian Mystics off the shelf. It’d been years since I read it,

All Gnostics are Left-Hemispheric, but Not All Left-Hemispherics are Gnostics

The difference between political gnosticism and cultural gnosticism

We Need to Resist the World of Pure Action

Last week, Michael Osterholm went on the Joe Rogan Experience for the second time. Osterholm, some might recall, went on Rogan early in the pandemic. Later Rogan guests decried him as a “chicken little” who was just trying to hawk his book. Osterholm said things that turned out to be

Invasion of the Fact-Checkers

From the Tablet

An Anthology, by Josef Pieper

A Micro-Review/Essay “The possibility of incurring guilt is the ultimate existential threat for every person.” There are some authors who make you think, “I could just read this guy for the rest of my life. He’d bring me to greater and greater levels of wisdom and understanding.” Pieper

Disney Queers Children, Says Disney Exec

From The American Conservative

Albert Camus Knew the Left Hemisphere was Missing Something Crucial

He approached his philosophy of the absurd with the left hemisphere rationalist approach, but at least he recognized the rationalist's problem.

We live in a nation of strangers. That needs to change

From Deseret News

The Black Arts Have No Nonsense About Them

Black Magic, Witchcraft, and Other Dark Responses to Challenge

Chesterton and the Millennial Nun

In an essay that appeared some years back in the Huffington Post, Eve Fairbanks asked why after fifty years of decline, millennial women were discovering religious vocations. Fairbanks is not alone in her confusion. Many Catholics are also puzzled: not long ago, traditional women’s religious life, with all the

Footnote

The Internet is a machine designed for the efficient, automated collection, transmission, and manipulation of information, and its legions of programmers are intent on finding the “one best way”—the perfect algorithm—to carry out the mental movements of what we’ve come to describe as knowledge work. . . . What Taylor

Jacques Derrida Dismantles Modernity

Jacques Derrida revealed modernity's dirty secret: It was always just another religion . . . or rather, a series of religions, just like the Christian sects it scorned.

Cancel Culture: A Young Person's Game

Photo by Jievani on Pexels.com [https://www.pexels.com/photo/holiday-people-vintage-letter-8185593/]The clash between socialist and liberal economics defined the late twentieth century, and this century brings a cultural version of that struggle. Today’s culture wars pit advocates of equal outcomes and special protection for identity groups against

Modern Existentialism is the Rejection of Modernity's Extreme Essentialism

Modernity is rejection of the Tao (the "Great Rejection"). Existentialist movements throughout the past 200 years have rejected the rejection . . . and proven wildly popular.

Big Market for Composting Worms

Wriggly, voracious Eisenia fetida — red wiggler worms — could be the new livestock for Southern California gardeners ... if only they were easier to find. The demand for composting worms skyrocketed during the pandemic, when people stuck at home discovered (or rediscovered) the joys of gardening. On top of that, a new

Can Dryland Farming Help Growers Endure Increasing Heatwaves and Drought?

From Modern Farmer

Russell Kirk: The Anti-Modernist Cerberus

The author of The Conservative Mind opposed modernity in at least three ways Russell Kirk hated modernity. He rebelled against it his entire life. He hated the automobile, calling it a “modern Jacobin.” He wouldn't allow a TV in his house (though he let a hobo named “Clinton”

Four Quirky Post-WWI Utopians

Utopian irrationalism flourished after World War I. Here's a glimpse at four such reformers.

The Revolt Against Essence

Getting to know the most popular philosophy of the 20th century

The Zen of Littleness: St. Therese's Way

💡This isn't the second part of a 2-part series, but readers might want to read or skim this previous piece before reading this one. Dogen, the father of the Soto School of Japanese Zen, is arguably the most significant intellectual in the Zen tradition. As a young man

Why We Will Save California

Photo by Tae Fuller on Pexels.com [https://www.pexels.com/photo/golden-gate-bridge-san-francisco-california-1141853/] In October, HarperCollins published [https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0063093626?pf_rd_r=F2HSAY31EYE6EV5KQK4D&pf_rd_p=8fe9b1d0-f378-4356-8bb8-cada7525eadd&pd_rd_r=d8fc4e5e-411e-413a-bcc4-c7e9700ef5d4&pd_rd_w=r9nFn&pd_rd_wg=CyRop&ref_

This Monk Understands David Foster Wallace

And people who reject the unholy Trinity of Rationalism, Empiricism, and Progressivism.

Orwell Was Right

From free speech to "spheres of influence" to our passion for endless war, we've become the doublethinkers 1984 predicted. Matt Taibbi Photo by Markus Spiske on Pexels.com [https://www.pexels.com/photo/poster-of-1984-is-now-paste-on-street-post-3671145/] This weekend I re-read 1984, a book I tend to reach for

The Vertical Farming Bubble is Finally Popping

Adele Peters at Fast Company

The Plague of Thoughtlessness

Photo by Vishnu R Nair on Pexels.com [https://www.pexels.com/photo/people-at-concert-1105666/]Sometimes modern perplexities call for ancient wisdom. Today, St. Thomas Aquinas’ warning about the vice of “thoughtlessness” may shine a light on contemporary discourse—if trite prattle even qualifies as discourse. More to the point, we

Hope in Human Nature Springs Eternal

Photo by Yaroslav Danylchenko on Pexels.com [https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-in-brown-dress-holding-white-plastic-bottle-painting-4113084/] In our school parents’ WhatsApp group last month, a petition was making the rounds to do away with masking our children. Some of the supporters were parents who, just a few months ago, aggressively backed any and

Spiraling Violence in Chicago: Causes and Solutions

There’s violent crime aplenty in Chicago. But punishment? Not so much. Photo by Chait Goli on Pexels.com [https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-buildings-1823681/]Murders nationwide in 2020 rose a stunning 29.4 percent over the previous year, the largest annual increase since the FBI began tracking that data

Therese Lisieux's Little Way is Exquisitely Post-Modernist

Another postmodernist existentialist revolt against the left hemisphere and its suffocating emphasis on essence

Neo-Prohibitionists Now to Turn to Science

The Anti-Neo-ProhibitionistsActually, I don't believe my own title, but the entire flip-floppy nature of scientific research regarding the effects of alcohol should discredit science in general. One study says a little alcohol helps; another says it hurts. One says small amounts help the heart; others say that'

Don’t Crowd Me?

SenecaA few years ago, I went to the local high school’s first home football game, which, like most home openers, was well-attended. Afterward, I was exhausted. I mean, absolutely exhausted, like I had lead around my shoulders. I’d had a hard week at work, but the level of

Mystics and Zen Masters, by Thomas Merton

A Micro-Review/Essay

Many Predicted NATO Expansion Would Lead to War.

Photo by Jakson Martins on Pexels.com [https://www.pexels.com/photo/soldier-holding-gun-2230885/]I'm not a huge fan of the Cato Institute, but this is a good piece: Russia's military offensive against Ukraine is an act of aggression [https://www.19fortyfive.com/2022/02/russia-war-on-ukraine-what-does-putin-hope-to-achieve/] that

Why soil is a surprisingly noisy place

The first time that Marcus Maeder stuck a noise sensor into the ground, it was on a whim. A sound artist and acoustic ecologist, he was sitting in a mountain meadow and pushed a special microphone he'd built into the soil. "I was just curious," says

Anchor Bags for the Low Tunnels

I mentioned earlier that I'm erecting a bunch of low tunnels to keep insects off my spinach crops. I bought 100 76" wire support hoops and 500' of Agribon floating row cover. Now I just needed something to anchor down the fabric. Most resources caution against

Jack Kerouac: The Tao on Steroids

Kerouac rejected The Great Rejection

Louis Markos

Louis Markos is one of the most engaging lecturers I've ever listened to. If you get a chance to pick up his lectures at The Great Courses or otherwise, I highly recommend him. He's also responsive to emails. He has given me invaluable guidance in forays

The Free Market is Anti-Gnostic

That's why I'm always drawn to it. It doesn't deny or decry a structure of oppression. It just says, "That's the way things are; deal with it." The gnostic says, "I hate the way things are, so I'

California, I Barely Knew Thee!

Riddle: What do you get when you combine great weather and great social welfare programs that make it feasible to live outdoors with a housing inventory that isn't nearly sufficient to accommodate the throngs of people who want to live in the same place? Answer: California. Geographically, it

Is the New Left the Old Occult?

The supernatural and paranormal. Postmodernism and critical theory. What could be the connection?

On the Road, by Jack Kerouac

A Micro-Review/Essay “We’ve finally got to heaven. It couldn’t be cooler, it couldn’t be grander, it couldn’t be anything.” The elves of Middle Earth longed for the sea, even if they didn’t know it. A wood elf might spend his entire eviternal existence without

The World of Meditation is Here

Get ready for “Six-Minute Hesychasm” and “How to Get as Mentally Jacked as Jack Kornfield”

These May Be The World's Most Unusual Booze Brands

Arkhi Vodka Once upon a time in ancient Mongolia, the nomadic horse tribes began fermenting mares' milk to make a drink called airag, a product similar to the drink we know as kefir. At some point, they started taking this fermented mares' milk and distilling it to make

Dorothy Parker was a Brilliant Slut and Four Other Sundries to Entertain Your Friends at the Bar Tonight

The godfather of modern libertarianism, Albert Nock, was in his prime during Prohibition. Needless to say, he railed against it, noting once that it’s absurd to regulate something that, in nature, flows as freely as water. He’s right, of course. And the fact that it flows as freely

Late Winter is a Great Time to Let Your Right Hemisphere Out in the Garden

Plus: Seven Things I Did in the Garden this February

Will Putin Use Nukes?

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com [https://www.pexels.com/photo/grayscale-photo-of-explosion-on-the-beach-73909/] From his principal avenues of attack on Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin began this war with three strategic goals. Send an army south from Belarus to capture Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and replace the government. Send forces into

The Javelin is Wrecking Putin's Tanks

Photo by Andy on Pexels.com [https://www.pexels.com/photo/a-woman-throwing-a-javelin-6271998/]Ukraine is a highly devout country – about 87% of its 41 million citizens practice Christianity. So it's notable that, to many Ukrainians, Mary Magdalene now has a new moniker [https://www.euronews.com/next/2022/02/

Artificial Intelligence Doesn't Have a Right Hemisphere

Language is the prime material of logical constructions. Owen Barfield, Poetic Diction (1928) Large language models are trained on human data from the Internet. Lex Fridman, #370, Edward Frenkel (37:30) "AI Might Eliminate Us, but It Can't Replace Us." Anonymous

Rubio, Sanders, CNN, and CIA All Align

Photo by Donald Tong on Pexels.com [https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-camera-recorder-66134/]It is genuinely hard to overstate how overwhelming the unity and consensus in U.S. political and media circles is. It is as close to a unanimous and dissent-free discourse as anything in memory, certainly since the

The United States is Weak and Corrupt. Russia and China Know It

I think that's what Rod Dreher is saying here. I don't disagree. Photo by Matti on Pexels.com [https://www.pexels.com/photo/young-girl-protesting-against-war-in-ukraine-11284548/] I’m getting a lot of blowback in the comments section from people who are appalled that I’m not spending all

How to Brand Yourself Today

Pick Four Traits. One of Them Must be “Victim”

Machiavelli Would've Used the N' Word (if It Would've Advanced the Prince)

Machiavelli was probably the first person to advocate a rationalist system in contradiction to irrationalist norms.

How Do We Account for Thomas Merton?

Thomas Merton started as a writer, became a Trappist monk with genuine insight into the spiritual life, and then wrapped himself in worldly activism. What happened?

Neil Young Never Hated the Man

He just hated THAT man

Montaigne: The Godfather of 4Chan?

💡Montaigne was the godfather of modern skepticism. His was a “negative skepticism,” which disturbed Descartes enough to prompt him to come up with a positive response, which in turn gave us modernity, its fierce subjectivism, and the parade of “little gods” that have marred the last 200+ years. "In

Why David Hume is Important

💡Within 100 years, the Cartesians used impeccable logic derived from Descartes' I think there I am to reach two conclusions: there is no earthly agent of movement and there is no matter. There is only God and mind. Hume yanked God and mind out of these conclusions and the

The Gnostic is a Believer

Part III of an Analysis of Eric Voegelin's Six Gnostic Traits

150 Years that Shook Europe

The years 1309 through 1453 made Europe redefine itself.

If You Meet the Buddha, Kill Him

J.D. Salinger hit the jackpot in 1951. At age 32, he published The Catcher in the Rye, a novel about an alienated teenager named “Holden Caulfield,” and it became an immediate bestseller. He was a success. But the novel met with considerable resistance from parents who thought it was

Do You Have a Totalitarian Impulse?

Drinking with friends and the Diocletian Test Do you have a totalitarian impulse? Ask yourself: "Do I think the government's goals or aims should take priority over human nature?" Put another way: "Do I think the government's noble end justifies a bad means?

When Western Civilization Submitted Itself to a Lobotomy

Descartes' dualism was obviously wrong, but it won over western civilization.

Descartes Praised Lycurgus. It’s Our Earliest Glimpse of the Problem with Modernist Thinking

There’s a direct line between Descartes’ admiration for Lycurgus and modernity’s parade of love affairs with strong leaders who would use rationality to impose their subjective reality on the world.

An Unjust Law is No Law at All

Photo by Kindel Media on Pexels.com [https://www.pexels.com/photo/hand-of-a-person-with-handcuffs-7773264/]It has become something of a habit in both the American and Canadian media to insist that the Canadian trucker protest against vaccine mandates is an "illegal protest." They are "illegal border protests [https:

A Dozen Quotes from Prometheus Bound: A Play about Spiritual Disease

Prometheus' proud defiance of the divine order made him into a raving maniac. He lost his connection to the Tao: the transcendental router.

The Secret Life of Philip Rieff

By Blake Smith, at The Tablet

Supply Chain Problems Favor Amazon and the Big Boxes

SMALLER RETAILERS SIMPLY CANNOT COMPETE with their bigger rivals in a supply chain scramble. A case in point: Giants like Walmart, Home Depot, and Dollar Tree have chartered their own cargo ships to sail to smaller ports like Houston, Texas, and Everett, Washington [https://gcaptain.com/reluctant-merchants-embracing-amazons-charted-ships-and-global-shipping-services-this-holiday-season/] , avoiding weeks-long waits

The Gnostic Hates the Structure

Part VI of an Analysis of Eric Voegelin's Six Gnostic Traits (Part I, of Two Parts)

Howard Stern Has Left the Building

Howard Stern was never just another entertainer. For millions of (mostly male) fans—first in New York, and later, thanks to syndication, in markets around North America—he was the guy who helped get them through the day and rise above their mundane frustrations, with his irreverent humor about politics

Keep Sweet and Have Sex

Like those renegade Mormons, we all put things on the shelf when they don't fit into our system.

The Gnostic is Never Satisfied

Part I of an Analysis of Eric Voegelin's Six Gnostic Traits

The Art of Ghosting (First Take)

Don't tell them "goodbye" It’s not often that I read something at Slate and say, “Rat own!” But this guy pretty much nails it, even if he doesn’t go quite far enough in my opinion: Don’t Say Goodbye. He advocates a thing called

When the World First Started to be Aware of Transcendence

Ten of History's Greatest Seers All Lived Around the Same Time

The Art of Ghosting (Second Take)

Ghosting. The Irish Goodbye. The Drunken Magician. All synonyms for my favorite drinking move: Leaving the gathering without saying goodbye. I know it’s socially unacceptable. It even rises to the level of rudeness if it leaves your friends with concerns that you might be hurt (like the time I

How to Write for Surfer Dudes

I spent last summer, taking digital essay lessons. They were part of a series that I call, “Learning to Write for Morons,” by Medium.com. I learned a lot, but I can condense the lessons into one premise: If you're writing online articles, you have a split second

English Drunks, Both Fictional and Not

I linked to The Guardian’s obituary of Wilfrid Sheed (1940-2011) yesterday. Sheed’s first book was A Middle Class Education (1960), which was apparently semi-autobiographical, much like Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. The Guardian notes that there’s a lot of drinking in Middle Class: Owing more to Kingsley

Why the Marxist Kicks You in the Groin

The objection to a Communist always resolves itself into the fact that he is not a gentleman. It is not possible to engage in controversy with him as one engages in controversy with other men. He invariably hits below the belt if he can; indeed, his resentment is not so

Mystical Sex, Theft, and Violence

One of the most perplexing groups in medieval history got strong in the 1300s.

Please Don't Think I Can Judge Anyone's Soul, Especially a Genius Like Merton's

I want to point out: This essay is conjecture. In a way, I "work backward" from a lifetime of reading and admiring Merton's writings, combining them with biographical details, adding my understanding of Gnosticism and the Hemisphere Hypothesis, and coming up with this explanation of the

Why Francis Bacon is Properly Considered a Founding Father of Modernity

It’s no wonder the poet William Blake wrote of Bacon’s essays, “Good advice for Satan’s Kingdom.”

Introducing Eric Voegelin

The Metaxy: A Primer

Christianity says life is hard because of Original Sin. Eric Voegelin would say it's hard because we live in the metaxy. METAXY: The permanent in-between structure of existence. Sometimes referred to as the between or in-between, meaning that humans live in a structure of reality that is between

Top Ten Mystics of the 14th Century

They were the rock stars of late medieval Europe

The Gnostic Never Blames Himself

Part II of an Analysis of Eric Voegelin's Six Gnostic Traits

Southern Life, Agrarian Vision: The Apprenticeship of Andrew Lytle

By Mark Malvasi at The Imaginative Conservative

You See What You Are

"[E]ach man judges others by his own state, that is, by what he is himself--in virtues or sins." Symeon the New Theologian. Many thinkers, such as Marcus Aurelius, made this same observation. The Amazon link takes you to an excellent book about Symeon. Like all books in

Everything You Wanted to Know about Bohemianism

But were afraid you'd get an erection

Voegelin’s New Science of Politics Put Gnosticism Back into Our Awareness

💡If you want to understand how gnosticism flourishes in our modern world, you need to understand why it developed in the ancient world Time magazine ran a peculiar feature in 1953. It used a five-page analysis of The New Science of Politics to celebrate the magazine’s 30th anniversary, stating

The Modern Gnostic Wants His Structure to Control

Part VI of an Analysis of Eric Voegelin’s Six Gnostic Traits (Part II of Two Parts)

From Renaissance "Follow the Magic" to Modernity "Follow the Science"

The Renaissance Believed in Magic Like Moderns Believe in Science

The Gnostic Believes His Paradise is a Historic Inevitability and His Movement Will Bring It About

Parts IV and V of an Analysis of Eric Voegelin's Six Gnostic Traits

The Homeless are Now Early Morning Risers

My entire life, I've been taught early risers have a head start on success. Rise and shine! Get a jump on the day before it gets a jump on you. The early bird gets the worm. ' Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy,

Sacred Cow Homeless (Continued)

Maybe those folks in Thailand have a better way of dealing with our sacred cow homeless. Cambodia Lets Tourists Shoot Cows With Rocket Launchers - Cambodia Expats Online: Forum | News | Information | BlogCambodia Lets Tourists Shoot Cows With Rocket Launchers Trevor KucheranAugust 9, 2018 Travel News For the Right Price Tourists

Why Gnosticism is Left Hemispheric

Gnosticism is logical. In fact, it can be argued that logic and rational conclusions are the gnostic's gods. The gnostic uses rationality to construct abstract ideas of how the world works . . . of what full reality is. The gnostic then embodies these abstract ideas into structures (the belief in

Seven Early Symptoms of the Mental Disease “Modernitis”

“Modernitis”: A mental disease, rarely diagnosed, marked by intuitive confidence in one’s ideas and the findings of science

These Six Traits Make a Person a Gnostic

A Diagnostic of the Gnostic Eric Voegelin was to modern gnosticism what Knute Rockne was to Notre Dame football. Rockne didn’t start the ND football program and Voegelin didn’t discover modern gnosticism, but they took their subjects to much higher levels. The Swiss theologian, Hans urs Von Balthasar

Those Hippy Puritans

Exploring America's Millenarian Movements 💡The Puritans were Gnostics. If you understand Puritans, you start to understand modern Gnosticism. If you understand modern Gnosticism, you begin to see the glaring problem that is modernity. We are a nation held together, paradoxically, by the agonism of conflicting millenarian projections: communists,

How Alcohol Fuels Civilization

Gonna pick me up a six-pack of art this evening Marshall McLuhan made himself a household name, writing about media. Media are tools, things that extend ourselves: a hammer extends our fist, flashlights extend our eyes, etc. I'm not sure he ever considered whether alcohol might be a

The Elf Lays Down His Harp to Kill an Orc

A few notes on the Inklings, Iain McGilchrist, and Poetic Language

What’s that Twitter Imp Up to?

From the Archives (January 2021)

Thomas Aquinas: Pinnacle to Obsolescence in 200 Years and Why It Matters

Aquinas knew there was something prior to essence and being. Western culture lost sight of it.

Are You Engaged in the Act of Existence? Then You’re a Man of the Tao

Introducing "The Reality Spectrum"

Tao: The Transcendental Modem

For the fortunate few, that router is hard-wired with fiber optic. Most of us only get a wireless connection, and a wobbly one at that.

How to Break on Through to the Other Side

The Doors released their first single in 1967: “Break on Through (to the Other Side),” a tribute of sorts to Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception. Huxley had been trying to break on through to the other side for years. He put together a splendid book in the 1940s

How to Start Detaching the Door of Reality from Its Hinges

You Need to Deal with the Survival Paradox The man who invented the calculator, you might imagine, was pretty freakin’ smart. But he apparently didn’t understand some really freakin’ fundamental things. He one time wrote: “I know not what is good or bad in anything. I know not which

Neil Young Never Hated the Man(son)

The song Neil Young wrote about the infamous murderer Charles Manson Neil Young and Charles Manson have a bizarrely intertwined history. The two men once shared a jam session at a time when Manson was an up and coming talent, one that had started to make waves in California and

The Left Hemisphere is a Paradox Moron

It is very possible that "paradoxes are actually fundamental to reality. . . . We exist in a world, of not forms, but of paradoxes." Lex Fridman (Edward Frenkel, #370), 1:10:25

We Golf. Therefore, the Tao Is.

We intuit the Tao. That’s why our active hobbies engage us.

How to Escape the Selfishness Paradox

Hint: Stop Thinking About It The word “selfish” trended strongly over the past few years. People who wouldn’t lock down: selfish. People who wouldn’t get the vaccine: selfish. People who rail against economic inequality: selfish (manifested in envy). The problem with alleging selfishness, though, is that every human

McConaughey on His Way to Rome?

Recommended: Joe Rogan's engaging interview with Matthew McConaughey Delightful interview from Austin, Texas, with Matthew McConaughey at the Joe Rogan Show. I listened to it yesterday while using my new nifty leaf mulcher to create some great winter beds for my garden (the mulcher is great, but (i)

How to Kill that Feeling of Thankfulness

Exploring the Thankfulness Paradox I live in Michigan. A lot of people think October is the prettiest time in Michigan (“fall colors!”), but I’m not so sure. “Michigan in May,” I tell people, “is one of the best places.” Dozen hues of green, pink cherry blossoms, purple lilacs, tulips

Blaise Pascal: The Mathematical and the Intuitive Mind

Nayeli Riano at the Imaginative Conservative

The Pseudo-Dionysius and the Tao

The Satoshi Nakamoto of Mysticism. This dude first articulated the western mystical tradition. Like the inventor of Bitcoin, we don’t even know who he was. But he pointed to the Tao.

Dr. Faustus and Mr. Lao-Tzu

When Dr. Faust insulted the Tao, the devil emerged.

A Local Bar is a Good Place to Be

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette ran a splendid ode to local bars last week [https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/insight/2022/01/09/A-good-place-to-be-A-local-bar-can-be-more-than-a-place-to-get-a-drink/stories/202201090022] . Two people, neither from Pittsburgh, recommended it to me. It's the type of thing that could only be written by someone with a Catholic

How to Break a Maniac

My daughter sent that comic to me. The whole thing shows three ancient philosophers competing in the Philosophy event at the Greek Olympics: Thales, who declares everything is water. Zeno, who declares motion is impossible. Socrates, who declares they’re full of bulls***. Socrates won. But of course, he didn’

Microgreen Experimentation Goes Well

Welcome to the "Earthy" Side of TDE TDE's current tagline, "Earthy Catholic Commentary," has two meanings. (1) Ribaldry: subject matter and terminology that one priest friend once referred to as "earthy." The context: "He's a big jovial guy whose

The Great Reset is State-of-the-Art Hudge and Gudge

"Stakeholder capitalism" is big business with government shareholders . . . and it'll be wicked G.K. Chesterton wrote about "Hudge and Gudge": Big Business and Big Government. Here's how the American Chesterton Society describes these two GKC characters: Chesterton introduced these two in his

The World is Ending. Make Your Own Fertilizer

How to use dandelions to make a good, cheap fertilizer

Preliminary Notes Re: Focus

I will be exploring the difference between the left hemisphere's method of focus and the right hemisphere's. For now, I only note that a cottage industry has risen around focus, concentration, meditation, and the desire to rid ourselves of distractions. It's a good thing,

Terry Teachout, RIP

Terry Teachout died [https://newcriterion.com/blogs/dispatch/terry-teachout-19562022]. It's a terrible loss. He was one of those writers that made you feel smarter and better. I first started reading him when I was in college. He was the first columnist I read when National Review showed up.

Urban Farms Are Stepping Up Their Roles in Communities Nationwide

Rachel Surls at Civil Eats

The Traditional DE Blog (est. 2004)

"Earthy" Catholic Commentary on Everything that Matters For the One-Thing File Only Albert Camus befriended Czeslaw Milosz during his lonely Paris years (1950s). Great Books Interview about "The Captive Mind" [https://www.nationalreview.com/podcasts/the-great-books/episode-218-the-captive-mind-by-czeslaw-milosz/] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- March 7, 2022 Five Pieces of Furniture for

Micro-Bio: Charles Bukowski

“People are strange: They are constantly angered by trivial things, but on a major matter like totally wasting their lives, they hardly seem to notice.” That’s Charles Bukowski. The Bard of Booze. Legendary drunk, cult favorite, darling of the L.A. literary underground. His true life stories fueled Barfly

New Catholic Journal is Lighting It Up

As long as I’m gushing about literary journals, I should mention The Lamp. This newcomer is smart, appears to be well-funded, and takes its Catholicism seriously without getting bogged down in it. Exhibit A: The review-essay from its current issue by Joseph Epstein that I wrote about last week.

We Don't Know What Consciousness is Because We Don't Know What the Tao Is

Your consciousness is what it’s like to be you. It’s your experiences of color and sound and smell; your feelings of pain, joy, excitement or tiredness. It’s what makes you a thinking, sentient being rather than an unfeeling mechanism. Philip Goff, Scientific American Science is stumped: It

When Drunkenness is a Mortal Sin Redux

Aquinas appears to make it pretty hard to get so drunk that inebriation, by itself, is mortal A reader sent this link to me. Is getting drunk a sin? [https://www.catholiccompany.com/getfed/is-getting-drunk-a-sin/] The site’s conclusion: Yup, getting drunk is a serious sin. But the site doesn’

Dorsey: Gudge Slayer? Hudge Crippler?

From the TDE Archives (early 2022)

A Narcissus at Christmas: Received: The Complete Guide to Middle Earth

Robert Foster: The Complete Guide to Middle Earth. My sons pooled their money to buy me this deluxe edition of Robert Foster’s classic Middle Earth reference book. I’m not even sure where they found it, but it’s a beautiful book. After opening it, I said, “Wow, I

A Narcissus at Christmas: Received: The Eighth Day Book Catalogue

The 23rd Eighth Day Books Catalogue. The retail price says “$7,” but the link says “$5.50.” It’s worth it either way. It came out in 2020, and my youngest daughter was pretty disgusted with Marie when it came in. “This is all I’m giving him?!?!” Marie assured

A Narcissus at Christmas: Received Jack Kerouac: Scattered Poems

Jack Kerouac: Scattered Poems

My Family Calls it "Exercise Bulimia"

People who work out regularly and are aerobically fit tend to guzzle a surprising amount of alcohol, according to a new study, well timed for the holidays, [https://journals.lww.com/acsm-msse/Abstract/2022/01000/Fit_and_Tipsy__The_Interrelationship_between.15.aspx] of the interplay between fitness, exercise and

Weigel and the Celebration of Christmas

A massive, sixteen-volume Lives of the Saints, first published between 1872 and 1877, informs me that, here in the Eternal City, the feast of Christmas first became a celebration distinct from the ancient feast of the Epiphany in the mid-fourth century—and that St. John Chrysostom, one of the four

Miscellaneous: My First Written Words about McGilchrist. Plus: The Golden Hour and Abstinence

Written and published on December 19, 2021

A Key Modern School of Philosophy Looked a Lot Like an Ancient School of Heresy

The pagan cosmic system of late antiquity put the earth at the center of creation, surrounded by eight heavenly spheres: (sun, moon, first five planets, and their stars). The ancient Christian heresy of gnosticism accepted this view of the cosmos but added a few things. The eight heavenly spheres, the

A Middling Way to Beat the Negativity Bias

You might not become a lovely person, but at least you won't be horrible Do you want to be a lovely person? Then entertain lovely thoughts. I think it’s that simple. You don’t need to try to be a lovely person. You just need to train

I Returned from my Annual Pilgrimmage to the Detroit Slums

Standing outside a gay bar in Highland ParkAnother whirlwind holiday weekend. I won’t bore you with the autobiographical details, but I made my annual daredevil trip down McNichols Road in Detroit, which is also known as “Six Mile Road,” which runs two blocks south of notorious Eight Mile. The

The Biggest Bar Night of the Year is Here

Just don't call it "Blackout Wednesday" It’s here! Black Wednesday 2021. My erstwhile traveling companion has the COVID, so he won’t be joining me, but I’ll have three sons in tow, thereby smashing the previous record held by my Dad (one son . . . me)

Hey, Another List Article!

I like lists, but the world of digital prose relies on them way too much. According to medium.com, articles that say, “Seven Things You Should Do Before You Die” or “Ten Signs Your Spouse is Cheating on You” or “19 Signs Your Genitals are Falling Off,” get more clicks.

How to Use a Fake I.D. to Find Happiness

That fake I.D. bought me many little bits of happiness and one big one Today is a Special Edition of BYCU. Part autobiographical, part inspirational, part drunken. Here goes. I met Marie 35 years ago today. She was 18. I was 20, but my older brother’s driver’s

Gin, Gin, and More Gin

After the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, Fields, concerned about rationing, took a hand truck to a liquor store and loaded it with six cases of gin. When someone asked him why he need 72 bottles of gin, he replied, “I think it’s going to be a short war.” I

Focus on the Need for Focus

"All of my time and attention are spoken for—several times over. Please do not ask for them." I took my advice [https://thedailyeudemon.com/54960/] and decided to finish Cal Newport’s Deep Work [https://amzn.to/3pzv8Ki], which I had started twice but abandoned because it’

State of the Booze Nation Upon Emerging from the Lockdown

I assume folks noticed my blog was attacked by a thing called a “PHP change.” It changed every apostrophe and quote mark into a series of four symbols . . . everywhere. The site has been a trainwreck. I.T. Max is working on it, but there’s only so much he can

Little Caesars to Change Slogan to Hot-N-Ready-At-Some-Indeterminate-Point-in-the-Future

The Detroit Times September 19, 2021 DETROIT: Pizza giant Little Caesars has announced a change to its trademarked slogan "Hot-N-Ready" to reflect the current economic milieu of labor shortages and supply chain interruptions. "It has become apparent," said a Little Caesars representative, that we rarely have

This Little Publication is Still in Business

The magazine is an absolute work of art. It’s absurd, funny, noir, colorful . . .  But it’s first and foremost a work of art. It’s the kind of thing I wish I could turn this blog into: a ridiculous little product that is done so well, people would have

Why Do Dudes in Vegas Look Like That?

Exploring the Vegas Bod When you think “Vegas body,” you probably think “sultry,” “skanky,” “sensual,” or “slinky”: what the showgirl looks like off-hours, like when a high school friend and I went to the Windsor Ballet 35 years ago and I swore that that woman walking in the mall the

House of Elrond: “Lindir is Out”

“We have no room in our house for such invidious statements” The Eriador Eccentric Fourth Age 221 RIVENDELL. A random exchange with the legendary Bilbo Baggins has cost Lindir his position in the House of Elrond. At issue is a half-joking exchange between the hobbit and the elf on October

Newest Candidate in Minas Tirith City Council Election Stirring Debate

Anfalas Times Fourth Age 165 MINAS TIRITH. Saul Khand's entry into the City Council race against incumbent Jack Imrahil has a lot of people excited. “I think it's great that a black man is finally breaking the white patriarchy in Gondor,” says supporter Lucy Fell. Others

California Nut Jobs

California "is a renowned haven for faddists, individualists and nuts of every kind. . . There's always some screwball out here who's got some new cult or ism working and a band of happy unrealistic acolytes around him who are now convinced that they've discovered

High Time Preference and Class

I remember my Dad telling me that time preference is the best measure of class. Class isn't based on race, nationality, religion, or money. The single-best determining factor of class is the ability to forego short-term pleasure for the sake of long-term gain. He told me that a

Pressure Mounts on Tolkien Estate to Finish Legolas-Gimli Tale

LGBTQI+: “It's time to make explicit what everyone has always known” Januay 25, 2023 PORTLAND. The greatest love story of Middle Earth has been repressed long enough. So assert members of the LGBTQI+ Tolkien community who believe the love affair between Legolas the Elf and Gimli the Dwarf

Tolkien's Beorn New Symbol of the LGBTQI+ Movement

Golden Bear Gazette July 21, 2021 SACRAMENTO. A huge werebear created by JRR Tolkien after WWII has become the improbable emblem of the LGBTQI+ movement. “He's just perfect,” says Bruce Byrnes, local gay community activist. “He's a bear, but he's a man.” Beorn is

How the Establishment Went Radical Left

“Having set out from unlimited freedom, I have ended up with unlimited despotism.” Shigalev (the intellectual of the revolutionary group in Dostoyevsky's The Devils). In The Devils, Dostoyevsky tells the stories of young revolutionaries who are children of Socialists. Their parents wanted change. They passed their views down

The Leek: Catholic America's Finest News Source

"The Real O'Neals" Simply Points Out that Catholicism Sucks Executives at ABC are encouraged by criticism leveled at the network's upcoming sitcom, "The Real O'Neals." "It's not like we say the Pope denies climate change or opposes

The Three Ideals of the Enlightenment

Isaiah Berlin summarized the Enlightenment ideals in these three premises, which Enlightenment thinkers held with religious-like fervor (to David Hume's amusement and, later, to Dostoyevsky's disgust): 1. Every genuine question can be answered. If it can’t be answered, it’s not a genuine question. 2.

Wild Gardening Notes

Note One: I need to come up with a better name than "Wild Gardening" I'm greatly encouraged by my wild garden experimentation. But I need a different name. "Wild gardening" is already being used, and it generally denotes something different (lots perennials, edible weeds,

Diabolical Ontological Monism

The best description I've found about the historical, practical, and logical hell that is ontological monism is provided by Warren Carroll, The Founding of Christendom (Christendom Press, 1985). In the first chapter, he writes about the Harappan civilization: its doctrine of reincarnation, cult of Thug stranglers, horned gods,

The Chicken Heart that Sucks Out Our Souls

Photo by Changbok Ko [https://unsplash.com/@kochangbok?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral] on Unsplash [https://unsplash.com?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral]The great Stoic Epictetus pointed out that education is the means to freedom. Unfortunately, education today frequently becomes the means of slavery. Everyone

Dostoyevsky's Possessed in Modern Day America

"Peter Verkhovensky meet John Styn. John, Peter is the descendant of godless liberal enlightenment thinkers who now wants violence and revolution. Peter, John is the descendant of an ex-Baptist minister who likes to hug a lot." That's what went through my mind a few years ago

The Hemisphere Hypothesis Briefly Collection

Re: Evelyn Waugh

When someone called his attention to a typographical error in one of his books, he replied that one cannot get any decent proofreading now “that they no longer defrock priests for sodomy.”******* While serving in the British army in Yugoslavia during World War II, he spread the rumor that Marshal

Carting Away Hobbits

I've started to re-read The Lord of the Rings. While listening to Brad Birzer's three-part interview on the National Review “Great Books” podcast, I realized that I had forgotten a lot of things about the books. More troubling, I had forgotten a lot of the charming

The Real Transylvania

From the One Thing File “The One Thing File” is a practice I learned from Econtalk. It's the practice of writing just one thing (okay, maybe more than one) that I learn from a book, essay, documentary, podcast, whatever. For younger TDE readers, think of it as Reddit&

What the Frick, Amazon?

I just watched The Fight of Our Lives [https://amzn.to/3cQUVHq]. It's a thoughtful yet unequivocal attack on the far left ideas that every Democrat and Republic ought to resist. It explains the problem with postmodernism, Marxist infiltration of the universities, safe spaces and cancel culture, declining

Libertarian and Conservative to Cuff One Another on Live Video

Photo by Roland Samuel [https://unsplash.com/@rosam2020?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral] on Unsplash [https://unsplash.com?utm_source=medium&utm_medium=referral]In this threatening age of The Great Reset and leftist rage at four years of Trump, the debate between conservatives and libertarians seems

Diagnosing James Martin Way Ahead of Time

Okay, I'm no seer, but I was pleased with myself when I found these notes from 2009 that I wrote after reading James Martin's My Life with the Saints: "I wasn't bowled over by the book, and Fr. Martin is, I fear, a

Getting Naked with Old People and Consulting Young People

Our topsy-turvy world Photo by Roy Reyna on Pexels.com [https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-woman-holding-tennis-racquet-3007761/]I ran across two items about age in the past 24 hours. The first is the story about the (previously) gorgeous Paulina Porizkova posting naked pictures of herself at age 55 [https://www.yahoo.

Three Things We Know About the Amazon LOTR Series

As long as I'm "on a Tolkien kick," I might as well mention that the Amazon series is apparently delayed due to COVID. People were estimating a 2021 release date, but now it appears it'll be late 2021 or early 2022. In the course

The Tolkien Companion

I earlier endorsed The Complete Guide to Middle Earth by Robert Foster. But if you're really into Tolkien and literary oddities, check out J.E.A. Tyler's The Tolkien Companion [https://amzn.to/3r68JBB] (as a matter of aesthetics, principle, and everything that is good on

"We cannot be happy unless we love." Dorothy Day

"We cannot be happy unless we love." Dorothy Day

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Choose Wisely

A man is at a cocktail party. An angel appears and reveals to the crowd that the man had recently risked his life to save a little girl. The angel announced to the man in front of everybody: “You may choose one: Greatest wisdom, greatest wealth, or greatest fame.” The

Philip Rivers Hangs with Eric Scheske

Thanks to Archangel Radio for having me on their morning show. The video is below. The interview starts at 5:40. Archangel Radio is also the home of the St. Michael's Cardinals football team, which is where Philip Rivers is the new coach. That, like, makes Philip Rivers

Looking for a Book Curator?

If you hadn't noticed, there are tons of books out there. It can be hard to find new stuff that's also "reliable" (whatever that means). I highly recommend Eighth Day Books out of Wichita, Kansas. They're devoutly Greek Orthodox and "reliable&

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Who is This Ennui Guy Anyway?

Any why is he such a dick? Reinhard Kuhn (the author of The Demon of Noontide: Ennui in Western Literature) defined ennui as “the state of emptiness that the soul feels when it is deprived of interest in action, life, and the world (be it this world or another), a

Johnson Rod

TDE readers will occasionally see a reference to a "Johnson Rod." For those uninitiated to Seinfeld, it refers to an imaginary thing that is important but too complicated for anyone to understand. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bu-A8YfC4w0

Dostoyevsky's Mock Execution

In 1849, political radicals were taken out of their jail to be executed. They were lined up in front of the firing squad. Right before the guns were fired, a courier galloped up with an imperial decree, commuting the death sentence to a term in prison camp. The whole thing

How to Live Like a Zen Master

Lessons from spiritual adepts from various traditions tell us the same thing: Cultivate the eyes of a child

Four reasons why the Right shouldn't be too distraught by the Capitol building violence

If you're like me, you're still embarrassed by the violent eruption at the Capitol building last week. I know, Trump didn't directly provoke it, but those close to him did, and Trump indirectly did. As I mentioned yesterday [https://thedailyeudemon.com/53037/], no one

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Orwell Anniversary, of Sorts

"A Farthing Newspaper," the very first of George Orwell's articles to appear in England, was published on December 29, 1928, in G.K.'s Weekly. [Michael Shelden, Orwell, London, 1991, p. 127]

The Forsaken Stans

What are the most God-forsaken ares on earth? I'm talking about barren areas. Relatively barren of natural beauty, of a beautiful cultural history, and of a beautiful contemporary culture. And menacing: in its vastness, perhaps, or its brokenness. There are plenty of contenders (western Australia, western China, northeastern

Seven Days Make One Weak

Yeah, I know: The weekly column is a day late. But I also know: I told you not to expect another 7D1W column this year, yet here I am. I just returned from a whirlwind trip to Detroit to see the in-laws. Some of the finest folk this side of

Random College Football Thoughts

Photo by David Morris on Pexels.com [https://www.pexels.com/photo/american-football-playing-2190159/]Notre Dame will apparently get the fourth spot, which makes me happy, but (i) I think Texas A&M is a better choice, and (ii) it annoys me that the ACC will get two teams into

The Joseph Epstein/Jill Biden Affair

My man Joseph Epstein made a flash a few years ago with his suggestion that Jill Biden drop the "Dr." from her title while she serves as First Lady. The uproar was pretty intense. I saw him referred to as a "misogynist," "bigot," and

From Johnson's Dictionary: Neckweed, Siren, Pudder

Neckweed: Hemp. To pudder: to perplex, to disturb, to confound. Couple-beggar: One that makes it his business to marry beggars to each other. Siren: a mischievous enticer.

GKC on Waugh

Evelyn Waugh liked to send out satirical Christmas cards, and the apex (or nadir] of this practice was reached during the Christmas season of 1929. Waugh's card that year consisted of extracts reprinted from unfavorable reviews of his first novel, Decline and Fall. The harshest passage of all

Legislative Process, the Left Hemisphere, and Hayek

F.A. Hayek looking ahead 75 years to the world of COVID: "[A] socialist government must not allow itself to be too much fettered by democratic procedure." F.A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom The parallel to the Hemisphere Hypothesis is stunning. The left hemisphere hates to be

St. John of the Cross Feast Day

He arguably wrote the most Zen-like passage in the Christian tradition To reach satisfaction in all desire its possession in nothing. To come to possess all desire the possession of nothing. To come to the knowledge of all desire the knowledge of nothing. To come to the pleasure you have

Prohibiting Things with the Experts

Question: What do government COVID lockdowns and Prohibition have in common? Answer: They were both advocated by “the science” and “the experts.” That's Jeffrey Tucker's point in a great essay he just published: The “Expert Consensus” Also Favored Alcohol Prohibition [https://www.aier.org/article/the-expert-consensus-also-favored-alcohol-prohibition/

Seven Days Make One Weak

The past 11 days made me weak. You might recall that I had COVID the first week of November. I didn't. Or if I did, I caught it again on December 1st. I got tested this time and it came back positive. Plus, I lost my sense of

Orwell Paints Abortion in the Soul

In Keep the Aspidistra Flying, Orwell describes the protagonist's reaction to the suggestion from the girl he impregnated that she get an abortion: "That pulled him up. For the first time he grasped, with the only kind of knowledge that matters, what they were really talking about.

L.A. Genocide

David Cole has written one of the most interesting and amusing essays of 2020. Bonus: It's about Los Angeles. Photo by Giovanni Calia on Pexels.com [https://www.pexels.com/photo/low-angle-photography-of-brown-building-with-los-angeles-led-sign-2181230/] Los Angeles has always fascinated me. Among U.S. cities, it's second only to

The 2020 Election and Men in the Gray Flannel Suits

November 2020: When holding leftist beliefs officially became a sign of monotonous conformist thinking How did Biden pull off his victory? He didn't do as well with minority voters as every presumed he would. The Catholic vote continued to hover around 50% like it has for 20 years.

Satanism is on the Rise

And he's not talking about BLM, transgenderism, that pitiful Vanderbilt place-kicker stunt, and couples wedding showers. He's talking about actual Satanic activity. Scary stuff at National Catholic Register this morning [https://www.ncregister.com/interview/longtime-exorcist-satanism-is-growing-in-western-societies] . "Satanism is now a reality for many young people,

The Arius Puncher: St. Nicholas' Feast Day

December 6: St. Nicholas's feast day. John Zmirak writes everything you need to know [http://www.takimag.com/site/article/the_real_st_nicholas/]. Excerpt: > The association of Nicholas with gift-giving isn't entirely arbitrary. Some of the earliest accounts of his life include the charming

$58 for an AOC Sweatshirt Isn't Too Much

But the mere use of a price at all is I found the uproar over AOC's $58 sweatshirt fascinating. I don't object to the price tag. It's no doubt pricey, but she's fundraising for her campaign. I frequently overpay for items when

What's Joe Epstein Been Saying?

A few choice passages from The Ideal of Culture (2018) and Gallimaufry (2020) The perennial need to be on the cutting edge: "Orwell wrote that liberals fear few things more than being outflanked on the left." Writing about his undergrad days at the University of Chicago, which was

Seven Days Make One Weak

Tolkien's House, Transgenders, and Timmerie There's not a single Tolkien center in the world. I was shocked to hear that. But it might change. A group is trying to buy Tolkien's old house in Oxford [https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/effort-to-buy-and-preserve-jrr-tolkien-house-in-oxford-39362] . The problem is,

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So, Were They Eating Pangolins or What?

Bric-a-Brac Thursday https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RePybi45jO0 Today's TDE entry is, well, brick-a-brac: a selection of items of modest value. If I make you laugh and give you one interesting piece of information, my efforts on this post will be gratified. The title reminds me of

Seven Days Make One Weak

The Great Reset, Bilderberg, Advent, and the Liturgical Year “The rational creature . . . cannot wish not to be happy.” STA The buzz phrase this week? “The Great Reset.” It's scary, but let's be clear: it's not a conspiracy. Folks like Justin Trudeau are declaring it

How to Pay for Thanksgiving Dinner

Are food prices soaring? Ever since the 2008-2009 crisis, the thinkers, pundits, and writers who ascribe to the Austrian School of economics have assured us that massive inflation was going to start. They assiduously refused to provide a date, but they assured us nonetheless, often suggesting we hoard gold and

Seven Days Make One Weak

Covid, Wikipedia, Experts, and Other Flotsam Sidney Powell made unequivocal and strong statements this week, claiming she has the proof that Trump won in a landslide and fraud prevented it. I don't know the woman, but John Zmirak and Trey Trainor vouch for her. Wikipedia doesn't

What's Going on at TDE?

Housekeeping matters What happens on Thursdays? At TDE, traffic plunges on Thursdays. I'm generally pleased with the traffic figures, but it has been erratic, with noticeable drops on Thursdays. Very odd. I decided to use Thursdays for this Housekeeping Matters column. It won't be a weekly

Let's Celebrate St. Albert

(Although, to be honest, I can't hear the name "Albert" without thinking about "Fat Albert.") November 15th: Feast Day of St. Albert. I've often wondered whether St. Albert was sad when his greatest student, St. Thomas Aquinas, died before him. Together, I

Seven Days Make One Weak

The Lockdown Death Rate, COVID hangovers, Kristi Noem, election recounts. “Strange days indeed. Most peculiar mama.” John Lennon It has been a crazy week, but do we have any others? COVID cases are soaring. Hospitals are filling up. People are panicking. The government is salivating. Imagine a Kennedy walking into

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Give Gloria! The Neo-Garage Rock Movement

My son turned me onto a musical movement that I'm not sure even has its own name A music revival took place from about 2000 to 2015 that didn't even have a name. Which is fitting, its eponymous grandfather wasn't given a name either,

Thaddeus Russell on His Way to Rome?

Alright, that headline is a gross exaggeration. It's downright clickbait, in fact. Clickbait for nerds, yes, but still clickbait. But you're going to be happy you clicked on it if you're a Catholic libertarian. Tom Woods recently appeared on Russell's “Unregistered” podcast

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How Much Liquor Can You Drink with COVID?

That's the question that faced me last night. I have COVID. I am in quarantine, along with Marie and our two youngest kids. I'm enjoying it. Max, the kid who tested positive, and I have made major headway on TDE (we hope you are enjoying the

Post-Election Wednesday

If polling is an art, not a science, the folks at Quinnipiac University use crayons. Criminy, they weren't even close, missing Ohio by 13 points. As of this typing, it looks like Biden is going to win the election, but polling as science, art, or even an educated

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I Don't Love the Nightlife and I Don't Got to Boogie (Published in 2020)

But I miss the bars: An Ode During COVID "There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn." Samuel Johnson Like Samuel Johnson and Alicia Bridges (see title), I like a good bar.

A Festivus for the Rest of Us

Yeah, I know: Festivus is a fake holiday created by Seinfeld in 1997, when Mr. Costanza told Kramer about the family holiday he created: Festivus. It was, Mr. Costanza explained, a “festivus for the rest of us.” It has since become a real “thing,” [https://time.com/4617553/festivus-holiday-origins-seinfeld/] with

Ten Catholic Drinking Costumes Guaranteed to Impress

Halloween lands on the weekend! Far out. If you have costume parties to attend, and you want to embrace your Catholicism, and you want to embrace the (drinking) weekend, I have ten great ideas. The Liberated Nun, circa 1518 This one might be hard to set up with your crowd,

The Downfall of Cecil Rhodes (11/26/2020)

Stefan Kanfer, in his book on the De Beers diamond cartel, gives Chesterton the last word on Cecil Rhodes, who instead of promoting Western values "illustrated almost every quality essential to the Sultan, from the love of diamonds to the scorn of women." The irony was, as Kanfer

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The Architecture of Speed

Thoughts build your everyday existence. Technology affects your thoughts. The implications? Ask Marshall McLuhan. Sometimes I’m Gothic. Other times, Tudor-ish. In the morning I might be Romanesque, but by the afternoon I’m Bauhaus. The architecture of my mind changes day-to-day, hour-to-hour, sometimes minute-to-minute. I generally want to live

Dalrymple Explores the Exploding Underclass (11/22/2020)

Everything--from the permissive culture, to mass immigration, to COVID--coalescing at once "I have encountered many alcoholic Sikhs, for example, who were among the most refractory with regard to abstinence of all my patients; I have encountered almost every kind of social pathology among Muslims, from incest to drug addiction.

The Left's Nightmare

The feel-good story of the day: Â The Biden campaign has been counting on Black and Latino voters to vote like they normally do, but recent numbers indicate that may not happen this time around. [https://www.zerohedge.com/political/will-black-and-latino-voters-deliver-another-trump-miracle-2020-numbers-suggest-it-could] It's about time. The Mexicans The Left

A Few Interesting Red-Blue Facts (11/21/20)

> In 1992, only 38 percent of American voters lived in a “landslide county,” a county that one party wins by at least twenty points. In 2016, that number hit a record 60 percent. Religion increasingly divides us: States with the lowest church attendance vote Democratic; those with the highest,

Bill Eerdman, RIP (11/21/2020)

I just learned that Bill Eerdman, long-time president of Wm. B. Eerdman's Publishing Co. in Grand Rapids, passed away a few days ago. Mr. Eerdman was the son of the publishing company's founder. He took theology and publishing very seriously: Once, at the last minute, he

Do You Rely on Your Doctor? (11/21/2020)

There's an old saying: "The only thing more foolish than listening to your doctor is not listening to your doctor." Nassim Taleb says those things can be reconciled by taking responsibility for your own health while you're well and not listening to the doctor

Don't Believe the Google Antitrust Suit

I have little doubt the search engine behemoth deserves to go down, but this probably ain't what it seems "Random Books Under Glass," by E. Studs MulliganSo, Google gets sued for antitrust violations [https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2020/10/20/google-justice-department-antitrust-lawsuit-explained-trump-barr/5992896002/] . I'

Negativity Bias Identified Long Before It was Identified (11/18/2020)

The minds of men always dwell more on bad luck. They accept ordinary prosperity as a matter of course. Misfortunes arrest their attention and remain in their memory. William Graham Sumner, Folkways A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals Just one of the hundreds

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Synopsis: 11/17/2020 Post

The Left, including Pope Francis, thinks savings and success are entirely or mostly the result of privilege and structural inequities, so it feels justified taking away the resulting wealth and giving it to those who weren't so privileged or to those on the wrong side of the inequities.

The Smithsonian's Assumptions of Whiteness

> In a weird revival of racist stereotypes, today's critical-race theorists see dysfunctional behaviors occasionally found among minority groups as being emblematic of those groups. In turn, traits that help people succeed–ones shared by cultures around the world–are stigmatized as typically “white.” Earlier this year, the

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Housekeeping Matters

If you're a regular reader of TDE, you'll notice that it has been undergoing a transformation. Part of the transformation entails longer, more thoughtful, posts. But don't worry. I know many readers like the short, bullet approach of the Miscellanenous pieces. Those are going

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The Senator Asked Barrett if She has Ever Committed a Sexual Assault

Oh, if everyone could just sit back and laugh at the idiocy spawned by our higher educational institutions Leftists crack me up: Senator Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, asked whether Amy Comey Barrett has ever sexually assaulted someone. It's this kind of idiocy that gets 75-year-old women searched at airports.

New Mother Cabrini Statue Next on the Hit List

Plus More HSP, Gardening Corner, and Louis Prima I'm impressed: New York City erected a statue of Mother Cabrini yesterday in Battery Park. I hope they put it behind a huge fence and appoint an armed guard to protect it. I mean, it's such a testament

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Epstein Corner

A joke from Joseph Epstein's entertaining essay, “You Could Die Laughing: Are Jewish Jokes a Humorous Subject?” “Walking along the beach, Goldstein finds a bottle, picks it up, and–surprise! surprise!–a genie emerges. The genie instructs Goldstein that he will grant him one wish, and one wish

Why You Should Never Use COVID as a Rationale

Plus: ACB Days and Highly Sensitive People Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com [https://www.pexels.com/photo/grey-ceramic-landmark-during-daytime-62318/]ACB Days start today. The Senate Judiciary Committee will start asking her questions. The left will scramble for anything they can to stop the confirmation from proceeding, including hauling in COVID

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From Johnson's Dictionary: Myrmidon

myrmidon. Any rude ruffian; so named from the soldiers of Achilles. (If you're interested in the Trojan War, this word isn't new to you. But it surprised me that it was apparently in currency during the 17th-18th centuries (probably 17th; Johnson refused to use books to

My Favorite South Park Skit

Humor often involves stark juxtaposition. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ga38oaFfeG8&feature=youtu.be The juxtaposition between the song's title and the song itself kills me.

Miscellany

England after 1688 and bears in the gay community Rise of the Moneyed I'm enjoying volume 4 of Peter Ackroyd's history of England: Revolution: The History of England from the Battle of the Boyne to the Battle of Waterloo [https://amzn.to/2GJFCCi]. I wanted to

The Ever-Elusive Economic "Third Way"

Man, great weather heading our way. And I just got a big pile of wood chips dumped in my driveway. Wood chips might be the magic bullet for the garden. They look nice, they suppress grass and weeds, they help plants retain moisture and block out freezing cold, they provide

Proto-Kerouac

D.H. Lawrence, writing in the early 1920s, about the poetry of Walt Whitman (1819-1892). “The Open Road. The great home of the Soul is the open road. Not heaven, not paradise. Not 'above'. Not even 'within'. The soul is neither 'above' nor '

Pray for the Sick

> During the past twenty-five years, study after study has shown that seriously ill patients who are prayed for”“including those who don't know about these prayers”“fare better than those who are not prayed for. The man who has done the most to integrate the results of

Hardy Hated GKC

For those who like to say that Chesterton never made an enemy, there is the fact of Thomas Hardy's very last literary work. In the final days before his death in 1928, Hardy dictated what biographer Robert Gittings describes as "two virulent, inept, and unworthy satirical jingles&

Heartwarming Football Story Featuring Al Davis

> Davis, as commissioner of the AFL, hired ex-Buffalo Evening News sportswriter Jack Horrigan as his PR man. When Horrigan was diagnosed with leukemia, writes Felser, “Davis, a Jew, bought a votive candle in a Catholic religious supply store. Back in his office, he lit the candle as a devotion,

Max Beerbohm

Max Beerbohm's older brother, Herbert, was a funny guy. Once, when a man walked past him groaning under a grandfather clock he was carting on his back, Herbert said, "My good fellow, why not carry a watch?" (Joseph Epstein, Partial Payments).

The Two Political Parties Born in the Same Womb?

> Two main kinds of people fled Europe to live in North America in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries: individualists who sought freedom from the political interference they were accustomed to dealing with in Europe; and religious zealots who sought to create and maintain a puritan theocracy on these

Bernays: Propaganda King

Tom Woods recently hosted Mark Crispin Miller, a NYU professor and expert on propaganda. He says the whole COVID campaign hits a lot of the basic traits of propaganda: stifling dissenting opinions, ignoring inconvenient facts. The whole thing reminded me of the Father of Public Relations, Edward Bernays. He wasn&

Print v. Pixel

A new collection of his essays came out in October 2020. I'm enjoying it. Epstein is perfect random-time reading: The great battle of the day is not the culture war, or the uncivil skirmishes between political parties, but what I think of as the serious conflict between pixels

From Johnson's Dictionary

macaroon. A coarse, rude, low, fellow; whence macaronick poetry, in which the language is purposely corrupted. > Like a big wife, at sight of lothed meat, > Ready to travail; so I sigh and sweat, > To hear this macaroon talk on in vain. Donne

Brews You Can Use, Philosophy Corner, and a Short Story for Halloween

"The Necessities," E. Studs MulliganBooze Coke I don't know if I'm surprised because it's Coke or because it's the first Coke product with alcohol: Coca-Cola launching its first alcoholic beverage next year [https://nypost.com/2020/09/29/coca-cola-enters-alcoholic-drinks-market-with-molson-coors/?utm_

Biden Will Pack the Court?

And why it's a really big deal Court Packing Man, scary stuff. Every right-of-center news outlet heard it: Biden refused to say he wouldn't pack the court. I didn't see a single mainstream news outlet mention it. I'm sure some did, but

Former NHL Goon Turns Catholic . . . After Winning All-Star MVP Honors

Photo byMatthew Fournier [https://unsplash.com/@mattyfours?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText] onUnsplash [https://unsplash.com/s/photos/hockey?utm_source=unsplash&utm_medium=referral&utm_content=creditCopyText]> “They challenged my manhood, challenged my role as a father. They were really

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https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1310981350275547136

Tuesday Miscellany

Software's Incessant Change Debate at 9:00 (EDT) tonight. The topics of the debate selected by moderator Chris Wallace: the coronavirus pandemic, racial unrest, the Supreme Court, the economy, and the integrity of the election. Biden has been preparing hard, presumably taking large amounts of memory supplements. Trump

Miscellany

Barrett, Prison Rape Bonanza, Lions I gotta admit: I'm proud to be an alumnus of Notre Dame Law School. I was in my third year of law school when Mrs. Barrett was a freshman in the undergrad so our paths would've never crossed, but I'

BYCU

Bachelor Party Drinking weekend. Alpena, on the shores of Lake Huron, eldest son Alex's bachelor party. I stocked the car last night with cornhole, frisbees, Can Jam, Spike Ball, dice, cards, and beer. Now I just need to make room for two passengers and our underwear. I'

News App

I've been looking to replace Drudge with something, so I'm auditioning a few news apps. The first one featured a story yesterday, to the effect that Jimmy Kimmel had a great insight earlier this week: Trump must be concerned he's going to lose in

Where Did Everyone Go?

The Shortage Where did all the people go? In our community, we have a lawyer shortage, a computer technician shortage, a construction contractor shortage, a doctor shortage, a substitute teacher shortage. And those are just ones I can think of without trying. Everyone is crazy busy; nobody has time to

Flash Fiction

Fiction for the Digital Age and Sowell There's Always Something New Under the Sun Department: Microfiction. It's a short story in 300 or fewer words. Or, according to Wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_fiction], 100 or fewer words. If you're wordy, you

BYCU

The Waiting Calm before the drinking storm. Free, sober weekend now. Liver Armeggedon starts next weekend. Next Thursday, I'm taking a virtual tour of a Bardstown bourbon distillery, complete with a gift box of bourbon delivered ahead of time, courtesy of my firm's library vendor. The

Sports Down

"Monday Night Football Ratings Crash," ratings "way down," "NFL ratings take a huge hit." It sounds like, if it weren't for Tom Brady's inaugural game with Tampa Bay, it would've been a catastrophic opening weekend for the NFL.

Miscellany

Rogan and Drudge So, Rogan left California and moved to Texas. I'm guessing Texas' income tax rate (zero) looks pretty good next to California's (12.3%). If he's bringing in $10,000,000 per year, that's $1,230,000 a year

Drudge

Everyone is "atwitter" about what has happened to Matt Drudge. The Jewish Drudge has always been friendly to libertarian and Catholic sentiments, with a conservative streak. Starting at the beginning of 2020, however, he turned hard left . . . or at least, "Hard Anti-Trump." His negative COVID reporting

Miscellany

Sports and Ghosts Ha. People said sports will never be the same. They were wrong. The Lions blew another big lead on opening day. I think this is the third year in a row. I hear the woke coverage of NCAA football was pretty bad on Saturday. I wasn'

From Correspondence

Me to a young man who read the McLuhan piece at Medium [https://medium.com/the-apeiron-blog/cell-phones-radio-driving-and-the-philosophy-of-marshall-mcluhan-9d0071c3eb53] (which is trending well, btw) and is interested in the effects of social media Given your interest in the effects of social media, McLuhan is probably right up your alley. VERY hard read.

From Medium

Garden Writing is About More than Plants The biographical, philosophical, meditational, and countercultural world of American gardening literature Riddle: What literary genre has historical roots that predate Socrates; features hundreds of American writers including Thoreau, Washington Irving, and Edith Wharton; and is a genre that you've probably never

White Culture

A long-time question of mine finally answered: Why Can't You Wear White After Labor Day? [https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/12424/why-cant-you-wear-white-after-labor-day] The article says that the number of rich Americans increased dramatically around 1900. In order to distinguish the old rich from the new rich, the old

BYCU

I Don't Love the Nightlife and I Don't Got to Boogie But I miss the bars “There is nothing which has yet been contrived by man, by which so much happiness is produced as by a good tavern or inn.” Samuel Johnson Like Samuel Johnson and

Gardening Journals

I grew tons of Roma tomatoes this year, specifically for canning. Marie made it clear that she didn't want to can. I made it clear that I would. Then things got crazy at the office and I ran out of time. It became her job to can tomatoes

Ouch

> Cold blooded interstate sign in Jackson, MS this morning. (Via @tcounts5 [https://twitter.com/tcounts5?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]) pic.twitter.com/7kKEk6P3zP [https://t.co/7kKEk6P3zP] > — Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) September 1, 2020 [https://twitter.com/ClayTravis/status/1300772814920785921?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Medium

My most popular essay at Medium delves into The Dumb Ox: Twelve Aquinas Aphorisms [https://medium.com/the-philosophers-stone/twelve-aquinas-aphorisms-ecf0ba9d9951] Simple observations from the medieval poster boy will give you new perspectives ”A brave man is also patient.” This is an uncomfortable truth in our modern world. Why are we rushing,

Politics

Politics are a Riot I'm increasingly impressed by The American Mind Podcast [https://americanmind.org/category/american-mind-podcast/]. It has probably become my favorite "news" podcast. Now, I typically don't listen to news podcasts, but as the riots heat up (though they'll probably

BYCU

Drinking for the Taste and Playing Poker for Funsies I gotta admit, I had no idea what this was about [https://www.foodbev.com/news/nestle-unveils-gin-and-tonic-flavoured-after-eights/] : > Nestlé is adding a limited-edition gin and tonic-flavoured variant to its After Eight range of fondant mints this September. > According to Nestlé

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> This is a great idea - a menu that lets you buy the kitchen staff a round of beers. pic.twitter.com/VE10Hk6JBJ [https://t.co/VE10Hk6JBJ] > — Eric Alper 🎧 (@ThatEricAlper) August 27, 2020 [https://twitter.com/ThatEricAlper/status/1299112064263303169?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Wokeness

Video Killed the Radio StarWokeness Killed the NBA Star Slate magazine struggles with the possibility that maybe, just maybe, the NBA's wokeness is contributing to its abysmal ratings. [https://slate.com/culture/2020/08/nba-tv-ratings-china-ethan-strauss-athletic.html] Well, yeah. I can point to a ton of anecdotal evidence that

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> A toast to the irish [https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/comments/ig900a/a_toast_to_the_irish/] from r/HistoryMemes [http://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes]

Gardening

It's Gettin' Hot in Here, so Take Off All Your Overalls I haven't had many garden posts. Part of the reason: it's been too hot. As I've gotten older, my heat tolerance has declined noticeably. In fact, I think it'

Miscellany

Fire Tornadoes Hit CA; Digital Tornado Hits TDE WAIT! Don't leave. Your browser didn't malfunction, you didn't click wrong, your eyes aren't deceiving you. You are at The Daily Eudemon. But reformatted. After 16 years. Back in 2004, I paid to have

BYCU

The Beer Site The number one beer website in the world is The Beer Advocate [https://www.beeradvocate.com/]. That, anyway, according to The Beer Now Conference [https://beernow.org/2014/01/the-20-most-influential-beer-websites-in-the-world/] .. Actually, it ranks The Beer Advocate second, but Heineken is number one, so I don't

Essay

Hesychasm My latest at Medium: How I Moved Beyond Stoicism: The largely-forgotten literary tradition that takes Stoicism to the next level [https://medium.com/the-weekly-eudemon/how-i-moved-beyond-stoicism-41f824a0b548] . Excerpt: I've long been a fan of the Stoics. Epictetus especially, but Marcus Aurelius' Meditations and the works of Seneca have

Midweek Miscellany

Cronies and Wolves and Higher Education The current Econtalk episode is pretty good [https://www.econtalk.org/michael-munger-on-the-future-of-higher-education/]. They talk about the future of higher education, in light of the fact that it appears that colleges can, indeed, work online. At least, that's what they now claim, in

Miscellany

Twitter Kills Bee! Google Raises ACT Scores! Taibbi Raises Glass and Kills DNC! I woke up to news that Twitter had suspended the Babylon Bee. It was going to be the final straw for any hope that the Big Tech will play halfway fair in the coming months. The Babylon

Miscellany

Pepsi Riots, the Hot Hand, and 33 Pieces of Advice Another of my emerging favorites at Medium talks about the great Pepsi Filipino riots of the early 1990s [https://medium.com/better-marketing/pepsis-40-billion-typo-caused-deadly-riots-3d671295d1bd] . Unbelievable story. It's unbelievable because (i) it happened, and (ii) I'd never heard

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> Objectively the best moment in Lewis' Space Trilogy is in the third book were the guy's PhD advisor is literally working for Satan. https://t.co/vbFVJJmckr > — The Distributist (@DataDistribute) August 13, 2020 [https://twitter.com/DataDistribute/status/1293933373883203584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] Related: The

Thursday

Click here [https://twitter.com/McCormickProf/status/1292929165658914817] if you haven't followed Professor Robert George's ongoing account of anecdotal evidence that it is increasingly necessary for people to write, Tweet, and blog under an anonymous name. I guess it's only a matter of time

From the Notebooks

Kuehnelt-Leddin There are thinkers who are so far to the left or right, they fall off the spectrum altogether. On the left, I put thinkers like Ralph Nader and Ivan Illich. On the right, I put a thinker named Eric von Kuehnelt-Leddin [https://amzn.to/3kBkptK], a man described as

Postmodernism/Critical Theory/Satire

Manly Math This is pretty funny: "College math prof says 'the idea that math is in any way objective is a MYTH' that 'reeks of white supremacist patriarchy [https://disrn.com/news/not-the-bee-college-math-prof-says-idea-that-math-is-in-any-way-objective-is-a-myth-that-reeks-of-white-supremacist-patriarchy] .'" The article is catalogued under "Not the Bee," meaning,

Boston

Bowling to Sharks My apologies for missing the past couple of days. I intended to blog from Boston, but only put out the single piece from Wednesday. Sightseeing got out of hand: candlepin bowling [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candlepin_bowling]; Salem; evening boat tour; walking around downtown and in

I Love that Dirty Water

Boston Massachusetts travel ban and Hurricane Isaias. Passed. I'm in Boston now, visiting my daughter. Okay, it's not Boston. It's Brookline. Technically, I suppose it's a suburb, but if you know Boston, such "suburbs" blend right into Boston proper. Think

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> 🗣SEND IT @gonepatrol [https://twitter.com/gonepatrol?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] (via ig:Gio_masters) > pic.twitter.com/443DZMpnwJ [https://t.co/443DZMpnwJ] > — Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) August 3, 2020 [https://twitter.com/barstoolsports/status/1290407303649386496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Monday

A Medium Monday The Medium.com experiment is going well. I'm getting articles "curated [https://findingtom.com/how-to-get-curated-on-medium-examples/]," which is important to reach other Medium subscribers and to earn a little beer money. I've found two writers I trust and enjoy reading: Ayodeji ("

BYCU

Barrel of Gifts The naked dude with a barrel really was once a thing. But it apparently wasn't for broke people, but for hungover people. If someone got really drunk, bosses from James I to Civil War commanders made the drunkards wear them as punishment [https://vinepair.com/

From the Notebooks

From the Gardening Journals Political discourse rarely interests me. Hollywood gossip bores me. Sporting events hold my attention as good as any pop culture event, but when I see the monstrosity that has become athletics, the entire arena baffles me, prompting me to go into shutdown mode, unable to muster

Wednesday

HIF My home Charter internet service has crashed. Just this for today: For fans of comedian Gary Gulman, the actor's brief cameo in a pivotal scene during director Todd Phillips' "Joker" must come as a complete surprise. What's even more surprising is that

Miscellany

Free Cardinal Newman Great find at Spotify: A high-quality recording of John Henry Newman's Apologia Pro Vita Sua [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apologia_Pro_Vita_Sua]. Completely free. It kind of blew me away to see someone put it out there like that, but I'm

Monday Miscellany

Urban Areas Man, LA is awful. Jack and Andrea just returned from his honeymoon that he ended there. This pic is from the alley that led to their Air B&B. They said the B&B itself wasn't bad, but the location wasn't in

BYCU

The Teetotaling Eudemon? The dog days of summer. It looks like the hottest (the doggiest) days are behind us, but it's still plenty warm. I don't know whether I'm getting old or worn out by the heat, but I need a break. How do

Misc.

Lines, Lines, Everywhere a Line This is the line outside a Gucci store at a Chicago mall. A similar line was standing outside the Nike store. Marie was told the wait was 45 minutes. To get inside a store. The mind boggles. This, no doubt, could serve as Exhibit A

From the Notebooks

20th Century Existentialism Four subjects that were wildly popular in the 20th century: Zen arose when Mahayana Buddhism merged with Taoism. Buddhism is steeped in a thing called “monism,” which teaches that all things are one. Individual things don't exist; individual classes of things don't exist.

CSL

Meilaender's in the House Gilbert Meilaender was recently featured on Mars Hill Audio [https://marshillaudio.org/people/gilbert-meilaender]. I haven't listened to the interview yet, but I will. I honestly didn't even know Meilaender was still "in the game," so to speak.

Miscellany

Uncut Crap Worst. Movie. Ever. Uncut Gems [https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/uncut_gems/reviews]. Actually, what I should say is, "Worst. Movie. Ever. That. Everyone. Is. Praising." I've heard this movie praised on podcasts. I've heard it praised in private conversations. It has

Developing a Sense for History

If you liked the podcast series, you might like this adaptation: If You Can Memorize Just Ten Years, You Can Develop an Historical Framework [https://medium.com/@ericscheske/developing-a-sense-of-history-ce1041f33af0?source=friends_link&sk=928341d7a186aa7dbc8388670bcacc15]

BYCU

Reasons to Drink I'll drink to that: San Buenaventura has been declared a minor basilica [https://angelusnews.com/local/la-catholics/always-forward-mission-san-buenaventura-gets-a-papal-upgrade/] . It's a lovely place. We stopped there last year during our spring break trip up Highway One. Which I'll also drink to: Highway

Name Change

Virtue Signalling, Episode 3,477,011 The Navajo Nation has an idea for the DC Redskins: “We strongly encourage the NFL Washington organization to rename their team in such a way that truly honors and respects the First Americans of this country. Renaming the team 'Code Talkers' to

The Symbolic Importance of the Battle of Marchfield Plain

Only coincidentally, but highly significantly on the symbolic level, the Minotaur started to grow quickly right after Thomas Aquinas died in 1274. In 1278, Rudolph von Hapsburg defeated Otakar, the King of Bohemia, at the Battle of the Marchfield Plain, thereby ushering in the greatest European dynasty of all time,

Current Events

The Senate and the Covid Trump ally Tommy Tuberville wins big in the Republican primary. I gotta believe he beats Doug Jones in November. Trump also appears to be rallying a bit [https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/polling/trump-rises-13-points-among-independents-june-shrinks-bidens-lead-overall] . The MSM better crank up the negative COVID reporting even more. I&

Three Ways Human Beings are Conducted, According to Foucault

The government of men: an activity that undertakes to conduct individuals. Pastoral power: concentrates the activity of conducting individuals in religious institutions. Governmentality: an activity that is located in the direction of political institutions. See Michel Foucault, Security, Territory, Population (Picador, 2007), xix (introduction by Arnold Davidson).

Miscellany

Wedding and Food Whew. Son's wedding Saturday. It was an incredibly busy three days, but it's over and everyone had a great time. The weather cooperated, their friends showed up, alarming amounts of alcohol were consumed. We celebrated until we couldn't celebrate anymore and

BYCU

Wedding Neareth Well, it's party time. My son's 400-person indoor reception has been moved outdoors to my backyard, with social distancing measures put in place. Not only are numbers slashed almost in half, but there will be two separate reception areas to allow greater spread. There

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> I just published If You Meet the Buddha, Kill Him https://t.co/WAVCqls6t4 > — The Weekly Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) July 10, 2020 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1281382695722012673?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

From the Notebooks

Thales He was born in 624 BC: just after Homer wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey and right before Judah would fall to the Babylonia in 589 BC to start the Babylonian Exile. It was the time of the great Athenian lawgiver, Solon, who, with Thales, is one of the

"I Was Born in a Small Town" John Cougar

Is the Move Finally On? I've been predicting this development for ten years. "A combination of the coronavirus pandemic, economic uncertainty, and social unrest is prompting waves of Americans to move from large cities and permanently relocate to more sparsely populated areas. The trend has been accelerated

Monday Miscellany

Microwaving Books and Protests Worried about catching Corona from a library book? You're skating on the irrational, but regardless, don't put the book in the microwave. The radio frequency identification (RFID) tag will catch fire. The public library will then fine you. A library patron near

BYCU

Drinking and COVID and the Great Outdoors Welcome to the Height of Summer. July 4th Weekend. An event that, I think, cracks the Top 5 on the drinking calendar: 1. Thanksgiving Eve 2. New Years Eve 3. St. Patrick's Day 4. Memorial Day 5. Fourth of July 6.

From the Notebooks

Mesopotamia Modern day Iraq. The birthplace of civilization. This is where writing and history began. That's why it's significant. The Tigris and Euphrates fertilize the area, making it reasonably fruitful, especially where the Tigris and Euphrates come a lot closer together . . . Which is where the great

From the Notebooks

Babylon The capital of the Empire of Babylonia, which crushed Judah in 589 BC, thereby ending the Promised Kingdom. It's been hated ever since. Back before there was Nazi Germany, people who disagreed with you might juxtapose you to Babylon. Martin Luther's famous “The Whore of

Miscellany

Hungary How's Budapest this time of year? I tell ya, the Magyars got it goin' on. A COVID per-capita rate well below the European average [https://www.statista.com/statistics/1111779/coronavirus-death-rate-europe-by-country/] , an ongoing resistance to Muslim immigration, and BLM movements under firm control [https://www.breitbart.

Malcolm

Random Today I Learned Malcolm X spent his youth in Lansing, Michigan, and he attended Mason High School for a short while. Both Lansing and Mason are less than two hours from me. My high school lost to Mason in the first round of the high school playoffs about seven

Better Drinking Through Science

Historical Liquor This is perhaps the neatest drinking story of 2020: Distiller using molecular science to hack the chemical codes of aged spirits and recreate them [https://www.smithsonianmag.com/travel/mad-scientists-booze-recreating-spirits-going-back-era-paul-revere-180971630/] . They're bringing back bottles that, today, costs thousands of dollars, if you can even find them,

Principle of Subsidiarity

What COVID Ought to Teach Us I'm back from vacation and catching up on COVID matters. I was greeted with news that COVID cases are spiking rapidly in my county, and one of my clients has it and is "not doing well." The developments fueled my

Blog Returns Tomorrow

I just returned from a short vacation. Blogging resumes tomorrow, with a solid BYCU in the wings for Friday.

Monday Moanin'

Miscellany I'm not sure it's terribly compelling, but these days, I eagerly gulp down every ounce of sanity I find: "Muhammad Ali's only biological son says that his father would be against Black Lives Matter, calling the movement 'racist' and the

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> June 20, 1980: 40 years ago, The Blues Brothers was released in theaters. #80s [https://twitter.com/hashtag/80s?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] pic.twitter.com/HlAgX0jlbv [https://t.co/HlAgX0jlbv] > — Old School 80s (@OldSchool80s) June 20, 2020 [https://twitter.com/OldSchool80s/status/1274334952461656067?ref_

Drinking Matters

Holiday Drinking! Juneteenth! The date in 1865 when word of the Emancipation Proclamation was formally announced in Texas [https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/cuomo-signs-order-making-juneteenth-a-holiday-for-state-employees] . A day to drink! If you don't drink a beer of color tonight, you're a racist. If you want to try such

Miscellany

Rambling Here's your big chance to be first: I've launched a site at Patreon [https://www.patreon.com/ericscheske]. Yeah, I'm not sure how it works either. I literally launched it fifteen minutes ago and am still learning. But hey, I've never

The Supreme Power

Supreme Corruption Something happens to conservative men when they reach the Supreme Court: Kennedy, Roberts, and now Gorsuch. I don't know if it's mere proximity to power that corrupts them (the "country club effect") or whether it's downright actual corruption. But it

The Post-Party

The Local Bachelor Party These broken chairs are just a snapshot of the fallout from an incredible bachelor party Saturday afternoon in my backyard. Everyone from son Max (16), who served as referee of the Beer Olympics, to us older guys in our fifties and sixties who merely watched and

Best Tweet of the Week

If we defund the police, who's going to take away the guns and plastic straws?

The Bird

On Mark Fidrych On days like that, you didn't dare drink too much beer in old Tiger Stadium. The place was packed and its limited bathroom facilities meant you missed two innings every time you needed to make a run. It was 1976, and the Tigers were horrible.

A Tale of Two Bishops

Pick One! I'm not sure I've ever seen such a clear illustration of the rift between the Left and Right in Catholic matters: > Vatican Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former Papal Nuncio to Washington, D.C., has written to President Trump, praising his leadership during

Pure Michigan

Pure Privilege This picture is Governor Whitmer marching. The following excerpt is from her executive order that was in effect when this picture was taken [https://www.michigan.gov/whitmer/0,9309,7-387-90499_90705-530620--,00.html]: "Outdoor social gatherings and events are permitted so long as people maintain six

Systemic

Where "Systemic Racism" Came From "I woke up and the world was systemically racist." Athanasius, circa 2020. But unlike Athanasius' experience with Arianism, it didn't happen overnight. A brief history: Summary: Systemic/institutional racism came in through Marxist critical theory, designed for one

Drinking Matters

Moving, Suspending, and Drinking Summer is in full swing. The lockdown has lifted. And I feel like a drink, but no: It's moving weekend. We moved into our new house in March. I got the most important things back then: about 3,000 books and 100 bottles of

Essay Excerpt

Chesterton and Shaw Atheist/Christian. Aquabib/wine drinker. Thin/fat. Vegetarian/meat eater. Socialist/Distributist. Shaw/Chesterton. They fought it out in print, they fought it out verbally. It would've been great to see those debates. But what made them so good? Chesterton's early biographer, Maisie

Random Thoughts

Riots, Shrine, Etc. Wow, so much to say, so hard to make it coherent. I'll just limit myself to a few random observations: I'm seeing increased evidence that the public, left and right and middle, are beginning to see that Antifa is the problem. If we

Michiganders Free

Free at Last, Free at Last Michigan has been set free. The uber-lockdown governor has finally relented and ended the lockdown. The new order [https://content.govdelivery.com/attachments/MIEOG/2020/06/01/file_attachments/1463964/EO%202020-110%20Emerg%20order%20-%20MI%20Safe%20Start.pdf] says, "You can do

Episode 77

New Episode Released Civil War, Restoration, Glorious Revolution [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2020/5/31/episode-77-civil-war-restoration-glorious-revolution] We left off Episode 76 with the Civil War, which the Roundheads, mostly Puritans, won decisively. There was a huge equality movement, you might say. Folks known as the “levellers” were ascendant, and

BYCU

Background music or TV with the sound on? The bar in English-speaking countries traces its roots back to Roman Britain where drinking establishments flourished. The establishments declined with Rome, but they came back in the Middle Ages, largely through the efforts of monasteries to provide for travelers. By the fifteenth

Drudge

Leaving I reached a momentous decision yesterday: I dropped the Drudge Report [https://www.drudgereport.com/] from my start-up pages in Google Chrome. I've for years enjoyed his libertarian leanings, with his kindly non-sectarian nod to the Catholic Church. He was, for me, what the Detroit Free Press

Coronabeer Miscellany

Face Masks in Northern Michigan Marie, five of our kids, and I took our annual trip to Alpena, Michigan for a long weekend. Five days. We normally go up in July or August for ten days, but weddings and other family exigencies have made the forecast pretty clear: virtually no

Essay Excerpt

And that's where Belloc sits with many. Ignored and neglected. He rubbed people the wrong way while he was alive, too. His nasty wars with H.G. Wells are legendary, but even before the nastiness started, Wells didn't care for him. Wells cherished Chesterton's

Abandonment

Virtue or Vice? When it comes to one's own death, when does a person cross the line from abandonment to God's will (the finest thing) to reckless disregard for one's own health and life (a potential sin . . . Catechism 2288 [http://w2.vatican.va/archive/

Miscellany

Emperors, Life, Other Another good post by Medium superstar writer Ayodeji Awosika: 10 Signs Your Life is Probably Better Than You Think It Is [https://medium.com/@Chef_BoyarDEJI/10-signs-your-life-is-probably-better-than-you-think-it-is-5cf16b845f46] . Number One: "You're alive. He bolsters his selection with a quote from Nassim Taleb: “We are quick

Trashy Tuesday

This Ain't Hard, People Crazy days. COVID, first grandchild, basement flood, habitual drunkenness. What's a guy to do? But I still have time to read tripe like this: “The last few months have laid bare the reality that, even before the pandemic hit, far too many

Episode 76

New Episode Released Arthur, Alfred, and Other Kings to 1649. Medium dot Com [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2020/5/17/episode-76-arthur-alfred-and-other-kings-to-1549-medium-dot-com] A quick overview of what we've covered in English history: First, Rome's conquest of southern Britain, and the withdrawal of its soldiers in 410,

BYCU

Bars Color me "out of touch." These are the five things people miss most [https://windfm.com/2020/05/5-things-people-miss-most-from-pre-covid-life/] from life before Coronabeer virus: 1. Having face-to-face interactions. 2. Celebrating big milestones with friends and family. 3. Hugging. 4. Having date nights. 5. Going to a bar

This has Gotta be a Sin

Peanut butter whiskey > I realllllly didn't think I'd like this. But its very tasty. pic.twitter.com/sMCMUwg114 [https://t.co/sMCMUwg114] > — Hawaiian Mark 🤙 (@Hawaiian_Mark) May 11, 2020 [https://twitter.com/Hawaiian_Mark/status/1259696875789139968?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Noir to Historical Fiction

Los Angeles Fiction Matthew Schmitz at First Things ties together Hollywood noir films to Christian theology [https://www.firstthings.com/article/2020/06/the-fallen-men-of-film-noir]. It's a neat overview of a film genre I've never tried (unless The Maltese Falcon counts as "noir"). The great

New Baby

Grandpa Jones I'm a grandfather! Edith "But I'm Not Jewish" Knoerl was born last night, around 8:00 PM. Mother, father, and grandfather are doing fine, but, after nearly killing Max with the cork from the first bottle of champagne, I engaged in celebratory

Accompanying Video of Sorts for Episode 75

Episode 75

New Episode Released Episode 75: Charles MacKay, Popular Delusions, Radical Spiritualists [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2020/5/10/episode-75] Some Protestant sects were freakish, whether the Anabaptists in Munster or those iconoclastic peasants who took craps in holy water fonts, the Reformation brought more freaks to the open than

Reasons to Drink

You Can Always Find a Reason Are you getting older but like to remain active? As a result, do you have aches and pains? That's me. I think I found the magic bullet: the foam roller. Jack and Meg have been using it for years, and I just

End It

Alternatives to Quarantine Joe Rogan has come out and said it's time to end the lockdowns [https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/joe-rogan-we-cant-sustain-efforts-to-quarantine-the-whole-country] : > The vast majority of people that are going to get this ... it's not going to be fatal," added Rogan. "We have

Miscellany

Pervs to Paintings Best line from my morning surfing: "Those who live in eternal fear are only replacing the Orange Man with the Gray Man [https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/joe-biden-could-sexually-harass-someone-in-the-middle-of-fifth-avenue/] ." It's an odd article, though. After that line in the tagline, the article talks about

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> pic.twitter.com/l0VthqVRN6 [https://t.co/l0VthqVRN6] > — The Weekly Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) May 5, 2020 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1257676598540750849?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] > pic.twitter.com/DO2fTzDpmP [https://t.co/DO2fTzDpmP] > — The Weekly Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) May 5, 2020 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1257676096738398210?

Commie Symps

The Establishment and the Left Another prominent voice says it's probable that Corona came out of a Chinese lab [https://www.dailysignal.com/2020/05/04/mike-pompeo-says-theres-enormous-evidence-that-coronavirus-came-from-wuhan-lab/] . Despite growing evidence, we know that the Establishment, from the NBA to Boeing, will resist the evidence so they can continue

Episode 74

New Episode Released Wicked Pope, Moors, Siege of Vienna [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2020/5/3/episode-74-wicked-pope-moors-siege-of-vienna] 1492. A threefer: 1. Muslims tossed out of Spain 2. Columbus 3. Alexander VI starts pontificate Okay, first the conquest of Grenada. This had been a Muslim stronghold for years, the southern

BYCU

On Needing a Drink Yesterday afternoon, the "currently-negative" Coronabeer headlines were back. Right-wing Michigan militia types stormed the Capitol [https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/hundreds-protest-michigan-lawmakers-consider-extending-governors-emergency-powers-n1196886] (each side has their embarrassments; the left's hold professorships and Hollywood contracts). Swaths of my truck-worn backyard are a mud

A Modest Proposal

Warning System The news headlines are veering more and more to future Coronabeer outbreaks. This tells me: the current crisis is passing. If there's not enough current bad news to keep readers engaged (scared), the media needs to focus on future bad news. The thing they're

Miscellany

Maris and Money The MLB is looking to a 100-game season, using a three-division, 10-team plan in which teams play only within their division [https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/mlb/columnist/bob-nightengale/2020/04/28/mlb-optimistic-about-starting-season-late-june/3039275001/] . Crazy times call for crazy solutions, but this doesn't strike

Iowa

Regionalism Redux It might be a good time to revisit Grant Wood's “Revolt Against the City" [https://medium.com/art-story/grant-wood-and-his-revolt-against-the-city-259968f55fb2] (PDF can be found here [http://interarts.org/CW%20Wood%20Essay%20Revolt.pdf]). The American Gothic artist wrote the essay in 1935, in the throes of

An Evergreen Piece

Humble Men Socrates was an ugly, poor man with no pretensions. In the eyes of the world, he was a misfit and fool, a constant butt of jokes around sophisticated Athens, but he didn't mind. He was very humble, thinking little of himself and caring little for his

Episode 73

New Episode Released 1400s, Florence Banking, Heroes, States Rights [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2020/4/26/episode-73-1400s-florence-banking-heroes-states-rights] We are at the 1400s. We are going to take this segment all the way to 1491. It is the penultimate segment of this historical survey. The Renaissance is in full swing.

BYCU

Top Gin Dang! I saw this article, The 8 Best Bottles Of Gin You Can Buy At Any Price Point [https://www.delish.com/entertaining/g32176644/best-gin-brands/], glanced at the picture and thought, "Wow, I've owned and drank every one of those bottles at least once."

Heroes?

The Noun Murderers Are medical personnel heroes? When our culture went gaga over the first responders (gender-neutral term . . . can't use "firemen") after 9/11, I went gaga too. Actually, I would start to cry a bit, thinking of all those young men charging up the towers,

Interview

I did my first podcast interview at TWE [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-blog-1/2020/4/22/bonus-episode]. Both technology-wise and interview-skill-wise, I have a ways to go, but thanks to Joe Condit for letting me experiment on him and Catholic Speakers Organization [https://catholicspeakers.com/inspireword]. Joe and I threw

BYCU

Cutting Edge, Me I might just now be watching the first episode of Tiger King. I didn't know who Ed Sheeran was until I watched (the enjoyable) movie Yesterday. I don't even recognize most of the names on the Billboard Hot 100 (when did it stop

Factory Farming

Strafing the Right Matthew Scully has made major inroads. Years ago (15, I'm guessing) he wrote a compelling piece for The American Conservative about the evils of factory farming. It convinced me. But TAC has always been an outlier of sorts. It has never tried to be conservative,

Information

Inflationary COVID Well, dang. I thought we had peaked late last week, based on good numbers over the weekend. Not true. We apparently set a new death high yesterday [https://news.trust.org/item/20200414214724-hfp57]. Of course, if a plane crashed and some of the passengers had COVID, they'

Evergreen Piece

Government Ain't Got No Soul Summary: Individuals can be touched by grace. Government can't. Grace tempers the individual. It can't temper the government. In June 2007, Michael Moore was promoting his movie Sicko. In an interview with U.S. News & World Report, he

On Drudge

Drudge Headlines Over the Past 12 Hours and My Reactions "All 50 states under disaster declaration for first time in history": That didn't happen when Masked Singer debuted? "Unclear whether patients are immune to second infection": And what, exactly, has been clear throughout this

Dystopian Us

Zero Hedge wonders whether there is a competition among governments to come up with the most dystopian over-reaction to social distancing problems. It suggests Tunisia has taken the lead by using an army helicopter to disperse a pick-up youth soccer game [https://www.zerohedge.com/health/watch-army-helicopter-used-disperse-youth-soccer-game-amid-virus-lockdown] . Tunisia has 707

Episode 71

New Episode Released Peak Crusades, Peak Middle Ages, Peak Mongols [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2020/4/12/episode-71-peak-crusades-peak-middle-ages-peak-mongols] I'm backtracking to 1190. I think you can call that “Peak Crusades.” You had the first crusade, which was pretty successful. They took Jerusalem and held it for nearly

Miscellany

Doomsayers, Triduum, Etc. 2.2 million dead. That's what the models said. The models now say 60,000. Apparently 80,000 Americans died of the flu in 2018. Rush Limbaugh breaks it down in this monologue [https://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2020/04/08/death-model-reduced-90-since-we-heard-2-2-million/] . He's

Cliched Music

Banned Wedding Songs The wedding season nears. And so does that venerable tradition: Couples deciding what songs to ban from the DJ's playlist. According to "Mental Floss," these are the 34 songs most frequently banned [https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/604597/frequently-banned-wedding-songs]. Something I find interesting:

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> pic.twitter.com/BDAQTwTHm5 [https://t.co/BDAQTwTHm5] > — The Weekly Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) April 8, 2020 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1247687094388101120?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Ignorance is Us

We Know Nothing "Pretense of knowledge." That's one of Hayek's key phrases. It's one of my favorites. What, exactly, do you really know? What does your neighbor really know? What does every person who wants to influence your life, from your friends

The Coming Week

Which Week? Hell Week? Or Holy Week? They're predicting the next two weeks will be the worse for the United States [https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8189153/Coronavirus-peak-death-rate-strike-U-S-11-days-2-644-people-die-24-hours.html] . NYC peaks this week; the rest of the nation next week. I'm predicting the next six

Episode 70

New Episode Released 1000 AD to 1200ish: Seljuk Turks, Crusades, St. Francis, Cluny [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2020/4/5/episode-70-1000-ad-to-1200ish-seljuk-turks-crusades-st-francis-cluny] We left off last week at the end of the 900s. Europe was taking shape. It was mostly Catholic, Russia having converted officially in 988. With a notable

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Three truths: 1. You'd have to be a full-on moron to hate Chinese people because of Corona. 2. You'd have to be a full-on moron not to recognize this problem is because of the Chinese. 3. This problem wouldn't have gotten so bad if

BYCU

Too Much Alcohol? "I don't agree with hitting women but I understand it. I know what turns Mr. Hand into Mr. Fist" Sam Kinison. Unfortunately, I suspect there's at least one point of correlation between these stories: Booze Sales Surge During Coronavirus Outbreak [https:

Miscellany

Shortages? They say a food crisis looms [https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/30/coronavirus-food-crisis-looms-as-farms-idle-countries-hoard-supplies.html] . This site [https://www.hortidaily.com/article/9204726/corona-update-sharp-increases-and-shortages-of-fruit-and-vegetables-in-us/] says it appears lettuce is running out. I have 400 lettuce plugs started. My youngest son jokes, "Nice calorie-dense food, dad." Okay, so

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> Study: COVID-19 Impacts Men, Women More Than All Other Genders Combined https://t.co/Udb9AJ1Rps via @TheBabylonBee [https://twitter.com/TheBabylonBee?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] > — The Weekly Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) April 1, 2020 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1245440705008451584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

New Piece at FPR

Just in time for spring, my latest: Confused and Contented: On Gardening [https://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2020/04/confused-and-contented-on-gardening/] .

The Jesus Prayer

Washin' and Invokin' Washing your hands. It's all the rage. OCD Nirvana. And you're not just supposed to wash them frequently. You're supposed to wash them long. Frequent and long, like visits from the in-laws or Oscar Wilde's bouts with

Me: Celebrity

Shelter and the Extrovert This left-tinted article [https://dnyuz.com/2020/03/30/celebrity-culture-is-burning/] alleges something I long suspected: Ellen DeGeneres is a nasty person. "[C]omedian Kevin T. Porter solicited stories from service workers and Hollywood peons who had experienced run-ins with DeGeneres, whom he called 'notoriously

Urban Farming

We Don't Need No Rural Hicks My aunt sent me this article [https://greenlivingaz.com/pure-greens-changing-the-way-to-grow-food/] about a hydroponic gardening company in Arizona. The title is "Changing the Way We Grow Food." This change has been coming for a long time, at least a decade. The

Episode 69

New Episode Released The Dark Ages. Charlemagne and Vikings and Magyars Too [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2020/3/29/episode-69-the-dark-ages-charlemagne-and-vikings-and-magyars-too] This period is the Dark Ages, and it's fascinating. Partly fascinating because of the lack of historical evidence, so much so that there is a cadre of

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> I'm not a dude but if I were, I'd hope this urinal arrangement is permanent. pic.twitter.com/aoUUhEsN7Q [https://t.co/aoUUhEsN7Q] > — Melissa Chen (@MsMelChen) March 27, 2020 [https://twitter.com/MsMelChen/status/1243627358864707585?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

BYCU

Drinking in the Age of Social Distancing LeBron tweeted this week that he needs a wine-drinking partner [https://fadeawayworld.net/2020/03/16/lebron-james-i-need-a-vino-drinking-partner/] . Apparently, he's running out of them. First, he faced a backlash when he mentioned that he lets his sons (ages 14 and 11) have

Obscenity

Comedy and the F Word Hats off to the Mormons. They've taken comedy to a cleaner level: Dry Bar Comedy [https://www.drybarcomedy.com/]. I've downloaded the app. I'll let you know soon how I liked it. If the comedians are half as funny

The Flees

The Corona and the College One thing is certain: City dwellers are fleeing municipal areas and flocking to the countryside. Link [https://www.thehour.com/news/article/Gov-DeSantis-derides-those-bringing-the-virus-15154853.php] , link [https://nypost.com/2020/03/24/people-leaving-nyc-metro-area-urged-to-self-quarantine-for-14-days/] , and more links [https://www.thewesterlysun.com/news/covid-19/some-destinations-are-worried-about-people-fleeing-the-cities/article_acfa1296-6b03-11ea-9e18-b7c805a4

Lockdown Tuesday

1929 Redux? That's my new shed. The siding on the front portion is clear, giving it a greenhouse effect. It's not very big. The "greenhouse" side is about 90 square feet, but that's big enough to hold ten large self-watering containers [https:

For Your Shut Down Consideration

Leisure, the Basis of Culture [https://amzn.to/3dlPmP1] by Josef Pieper And "Leisure in a Time of Coronavirus" [https://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2020/03/61513/] by Nathan Schlueter

Episode 68

New Episode Released Constantine to Justinian (and an extended Lightning Segments) [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2020/3/22/episode-68-constantine-to-justinian] The year to remember is 313. That's the year the Emperor Constantine declared religious toleration . . . And although he did not make Christianity the religion of the Empire, it

Reminder

If you could access Amazon from this site, it helps me defray the costs of operating this site and The Weekly Eudemon podcast site [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/]. Many thanks for making the extra effort during these stressful times! Kindly Click Here When Going to Amazon [https://amzn.to/2vDSDYT]

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> It's a good world after all https://t.co/z1yAdyWByi > — The Weekly Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) March 20, 2020 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1241135625379753984?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

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> Another vote for embracing the solitude and clam of the shutdown. https://t.co/2udKuCH76p > — The Weekly Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) March 21, 2020 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1241428776975773696?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

BYCU

Corona Wine Are you abstaining from alcohol, knowing that it can weaken your immune system? Well, I wouldn't let that stop you. Just don't drink every day or nearly every day. That, anyway, is how I read this article from the Cleveland Clinic [https://health.clevelandclinic.

Fathers' Feast Day

Welcome to the Feast Day of St. Joseph. One of my favorite shows, Fr. Matthew's St. Joseph's Workshop [https://relevantradio.com/listen/our-shows/st-josephs-workshop-with-fr-matthew-spencer/] , gets my nod today. Yesterday, he said St. Joseph reminds fathers that they need to do what they can in these uncertain

Whatta Hogg

The Young and the Leftists No one would consult a teenager for advice on their taxes, their construction project, their estate plan, or their health. Yet the Left trusts teenagers for advice on public policy. In fact, the Left loves teenagers' advice on public policy. Her questionable message aside,

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> In a time of pandemic, churches must not join the stampede of fear. https://t.co/LByR9c7frT > — First Things (@firstthingsmag) March 17, 2020 [https://twitter.com/firstthingsmag/status/1239915642406371328?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Marcus

Tuesday Ramblings In this week's podcast, I urge everyone to read Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. I read it years ago and have frequently dipped back into it over the years. I considered myself well-versed. Not so, at least compared to Ryan Holiday, The Stoic Dude, who read it

Episode 67

New Episode Released Marcus Aurelius, Pax Romana, Beginning of Christianity [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2020/3/15/episode-67-marcus-aurelius-pax-romana-beginning-of-christianity] 27 BC to 313 AD We're at the year 27 BC. Octavian wins the Civil Wars. He becomes the first emperor of Rome. The Roman Republic was dead. Plenty

BYCU

Party Down on Corona Well, the Joe Rogan episode about the Coronavirus was a bummer [http://podcasts.joerogan.net/podcasts/michael-osterholm]. It turns out, the assurances of all our young people to the contrary, the virus is a real threat. Moreover, there's no vaccine and there's

Wednesday

Midweek Ramblings I saw an interesting Tweet this morning. It was to the effect, "Coronavirus is everywhere, so there's no use trying to avoid it." I wouldn't be surprised if the sentiment is accurate, but in the details, it's surely lacking. I

Corona

Coronarambling Man, there's so much "news" out there about Coronavirus. As most of you know, I put very little faith in the news, but as my loved ones know, I'm hopelessly self-centered and freak out at things like epidemics. At times like these, mine

Episode 66

New Episode Released The Death of Socrates and the Rise of Rome [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2020/3/8/episode-66-the-death-of-socrates-and-the-rise-of-rome] Show Notes 399. Socrates is forced to drink hemlock. This is one of those things that deserves a lot of attention. The mere mention of the death of Socrates

BYCU

Uses for Booze I see Bill Clinton has bared his soul about the Lewinsky standard, stating that he allowed Monica to serve him in order to alleviate the pressures of the job [https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8078733/Bill-Clinton-says-having-sex-Monica-Lewinsky-manage-anxieties.html] . He said it took his mind off the presidential

7 Habits

Decent Self-Help Advice I normally don't find articles like this terribly helpful: The 7 Habits of Highly Ineffective People [https://medium.com/mind-cafe/the-7-habits-of-highly-ineffective-people-44b0ff317be] . I tend to find the advice either blase or informed by a bad worldview ("You have to be a winner!"). But this

Victor Joe

The Close Talker Congratulations to Joe Biden. The Establishment has their candidate in the driver's seat. I look forward to the "Sleepy Joe" references, the close talking, the awkward touching, and a #MeandJoeToo movement. There is one thing I despise: unwanted touching and close talking. I

Super Tuesday

Screwing Up the Binary Narrative Welcome to Super Tuesday. Yeah, I don't really care either. The Establishment has spoken: Biden gets to win. Of course, I wasn't thrilled at Bernie winning, and Buttigieg makes me . . . uncomfortable. But I'm not an establishment guy at any

New Episode Released

Autobiographical Rumblings [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2020/3/1/episode-65-autobiographical-rumblings] Abbreviated episode. I've been moving into a new house. Things have been a bit crazy. Show Notes are sparse, to say the least: My family moved to a new house today. The future looks bright (cue Timbuk

BYCU

Moving Bottles Moving weekend. Whew. I've taken care of all the things I care about: my books, my liquor, and my gardening stuff. But Marie is now demanding that I help with the non-essentials, like food and furniture. It's going to be a long weekend. But

Sleeping

Sleep Trick I rarely fall asleep while listening to anything, but I've long used some sort of recorded narrative to get back to sleep after I wake up in the middle of the night. Marie once asked me why, and I said, "I listen to semi-boring stuff.

The Lawyer and the Dead: Joke

A man spoke to each of his three sons when he sent them to college. "I feel it's my duty to provide you with the best possible education, and you do not owe me anything for that. However, I want you to appreciate it. As a gesture

Ash Wednesday

Lent and the Babylon Bee Welcome to Lent 2020. It's a season of penance, renewal, and grace. It don't get no better than that. Of course, it's also the season of the coronavirus, a collapsing stock market, and a Socialist front-runner, so maybe the

Moneyme

GoFundMe I'm a big fan of GoFundMe. As a rule, I try to donate at least a few dollars to any campaign that helps a person dealing with a mortal situation, as long as I have any corroborating evidence that the cause is legit. There are too many

Episode 64 Show Notes

Gnostics v. Metaxy, GMO v. Non-GMO, Athens v. Sparta [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2020/2/23/episode-64-gnostics-v-metaxy-gmo-v-non-gmo-athens-v-sparta] Gnosticism matters because it has heated up lately. Heck, that's an understatement. It was simmering in the 18th-19th centuries. It boiled in the 20th centuries. In the 21st century, it

BYCU

Outlaw Drinking This is probably the most interesting alcohol news of the year: El Chapo is launching a beer . . . from prison. Technically, that's not accurate. His daughter is launching the beer [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-beer-el-chapo/drink-like-a-mexican-kingpin-el-chapo-beer-launched-by-daughter-idUSKBN1ZG04Z] , but she's capitalizing off his name and likeness.

Floating Sex

Forms of Captivity Are those folks still quarantined on the cruise ship? No fear: Porn is here. Porn Company Offers Free Webcam Sessions To Quarantined Cruise Passengers [https://www.oddee.com/porn-company-offers-free-webcam-sessions-to-quarantined-cruise-passengers-51566/] . It's not often you see such magnamity and twistedness in one gesture, kind of like when

Zuck and Soros and Don and Pete

Geek, Red, Orange, Gay I don't know what Zuckerberg did, but he has really gotten George Soros' pants in a bunch (a sensation I'm guessing Soros hasn't experienced for over a decade now). Soros wants Zuck removed from control of Facebook [https://www.

Murder and Sin in LA

Murder in Hollywood Hills Death is always tragic, but some deaths provide a lot of unfortunate humor material. "Playboy model-turned-Hollywood sex therapist Dr. Amie Harwick murdered by ex-boyfriend who threw her off third floor balcony' - two weeks after his restraining order expired [https://www.dailymail.co.uk/

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Monday

Show Notes from the Current Episode [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2020/2/15/episode-63-gnosticism-fake-religion-moses-achillesjoshua] First Segment. What is the Primary Ingredient of Gnosticism? We've all heard the saying: Life's hard. And it's not just a saying. It's a fact. We must

Southern Literary Figure Hated Confederate Statues

Will Percy (Walker's cousin and guardian) was no fan of the Confederate monuments, saying they're so pathetic, they don't even qualify to be ridiculous: [Y]ou will find in any Southern town a statue in memory of the Confederate dead, erected by the Daughters

Friday

Brews You Can Use What does a reprobate do when he's hungover? He smokes weed. It doesn't cure his symptoms, but it does a great job of masking them and, let's face it, when you're really hung over, you don't

Thursday

The Disabled and the Disgruntled Well, good news for my wife: Having an optimistic partner may stave off dementia. [https://news.yahoo.com/having-optimistic-partner-may-stave-off-dementia-study-113659893.html] Everyone who knows me says, "Man, that guy, he has such a sunny disposition! His wife is never going to have Al Whathisface."

Wednesday

Porn x (1) = 0 Penis The porn culture continues to raise its ugly head(s): It's killing marriages and killing penises: First, the marriages [https://verilymag.com/2017/07/causes-of-divorce-effects-of-watching-pornography] : > In an informal meeting survey in 2002, the American Academy of Matrimonial Lawyers questioned 350 divorce attorneys

Tuesday

Sleeping with Others It appears nearly 25% of married couples don't sleep with each other anymore, opting instead for separate beds [https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2020/02/09/separate-beds-married-couples-can-help-relationship-experts-say/4657215002/] . The phenomenon goes to the upper echelons of society: "From Queen Elizabeth II and

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> Ilhan Omar Accused Of Appropriating Alabama Culture By Marrying Relative | The Babylon Bee https://t.co/U6Yg7lmvKB > — The Weekly Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) February 10, 2020 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1226954123771351040?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Monday

Show Notes from the Current Episode [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2020/2/8/nbjs6v0ekb04k7c56hhyws0yxqbv7g] Cultivating Historical Perspective: Ten Years to Remember to Form a Framework I mentioned last week that I ought to do a podcast segment on 20 or 30 dates you should know in order to get

Friday

BYCU Albert Jay Nock once remarked that it's ridiculous to try to prohibit/circumscribe something like alcohol, which in nature runs as freely as water. His point was illustrated this week in India: "Residents of an apartment building in southern India were left in shock after a

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling Blasted snow! I was supposed to go to Hillsdale College to watch Meg introduce a speech by Jacob Howland [https://www.jacobhowland.com/]. Alas, the second winter storm of 2020 sidelined me. Curses, curses, and more curses. As of this writing, I don't know how her

Wednesday

The choice (if it can even be called a choice, since it's not intentional) that most people make to delve into all the banality is ridiculous, but it has become the crux of contemporary living: The harshness of reality articulated by Camus, smoothed over by the banalities that

Camus on Nihilistic Man

European travel, elections, mass media, and other “gloriously normal” things might sustain the rest of society because society has effectively given up on meaning and has therefore settled for such things in substitution, but they are shallow and hence aren't fit for a sensitive soul like Franny'

Monday

Episode 61: Psychological Disruptions and the Reformation and Alexander the Great Show notes here [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2020/2/2/episode-61-psychological-disruptions-and-the-reformation-and-alexander-the-great] . First Segment: The Rise of Gnosticism Did you know all reformers were born after the year 1480? I'm talking about the Reformation of 1517, when

Friday

Brews You Can Use My apologies for the lack of posts this week. Marie and I are moving into my parents' house. We have a lot to do in order to get it ready. She's been carrying the bulk of the load, but this week, I had

Salinger's Nihilistic Man

Like Camus' hero Sisyphus, Salinger's two novels look at nihilistic man, the man who has given up the possibility of finding a meaning–a response–from the universe's wall of indifference. The novels are based on the condescending, though largely accurate, presumption that modern society

Monday

SHOW NOTES First Segment I'm working my way through Lawrence Cahoone's 700-page anthology of postmodernism. He starts the book out by excerpting key passages from writers who helped frame the modern mind, whose main gist, as I read Cahoone is: Modernity was obsessed with reasoning. Rationality.

Choose Wisely (a joke)

A man is at a cocktail party. An angel appears and reveals to the crowd that the man had recently risked his life to save a little girl. The angel announced to the man in front of everybody: “You may choose one: Greatest wisdom, greatest wealth, or greatest fame.” The

Friday

That scene was shot at Neir's Tavern in Queens. It might be the oldest bar in New York City. It almost shut down, but thanks to some help from the City, whose red tape was apparently indirectly forcing its closure, it's going to stay open. You

Thursday

Gay Thursday I discovered this evening that my backyard might be responsible for the stunning victories of the LGBT movement over the past 10 years. The Stryker Corporation out of little Kalamazoo, Michigan, is largely to blame [https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2020/01/the-billionaires-behind-the-lgbt-movement] . It's a stunning

Wednesday

A few semi-noteworthy tweets from my surfing last night. The sad thing is, I found only three such semis in 20 minutes of scrolling through Twitter. Learn something new every day: There's a wild horse problem out west. I saw at Twitter [https://twitter.com/PERCtweets/status/1207746954467430400]

Camus: The Myth of Sisyphus

At the end of The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus meditates on the “absurd hero” Sisyphus, a character from Greek mythology. Sisyphus was a crafty man who repeatedly betrayed and disobeyed the gods. As punishment, he was sentenced to an eviternity of rolling a huge rock to the top of a

Sunday/Monday: New Podcast Episode Released

Show Notes Today is the feast day of St. Macarius of Egypt. At least with the Eastern Orthodox. I don't believe the RCC recognizes him as a saint. He is one of the men who followed St. Anthony into the desert that we talked about in the last

Friday

BYCU Mid-January. Winter storm warnings afoot. What else is there to do but drink? Apparently, Anheuser-Busch agrees. For every inch of snow that falls, it's offering $1 off select Busch products in these cities [https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/food/2020/01/16/busch-beer-snow-day-promotion-beer-prices-drop-per-inch-snow/4496855002/] : Des Moines,

Thursday

When the full truth and weight of the absurd hits a person, the result can be dramatic. A person might stand against the wall and wail, like H.G. Wells' frustrated utopian expectations giving way to defeatist whimpers at the end of his life in Mind at the End

Wednesday

Rambling Whew. The new-year blitz is over. Three closings in 12 days. For the non-lawyers out there: Closings are when a business or piece of real estate changes hands. First, you sign a purchase agreement. Then the buyer does his due diligence and various other negotiations and issues are addressed.

Camus on the Absurd

“There is only one really serious philosophical problem, that of suicide. To judge that life is or is not worth the trouble of being lived, this is to reply to the fundamental question of philosophy.” These words stand at the beginning of Albert Camus' philosophy. The question of suicide

Monday: Episode 58 Released

Show Notes St. Anthony the Great Feast Day Coming Up. This Friday. Keep in mind where you are in history. The Roman Empire converted to Christianity/Catholicism. Constantine ended persecution and himself converted. NOTE: He did not make Christianity the official religion. That happened about 75 years later under Theodosius,

Friday

BYCU Oh my, the drinking world is collapsing. First, I haven't yet had a drink this decade. And now the next most-manly guy in the world is drinking non-alcoholic beer: Daniel Craig's James Bond prefers non-alcoholic beer over a martini (shaken, not stirred) in a new

Nock Summary

Re: Albert Jay Nock's Our Enemy, the State. I think this minor classic boils down to a handful of points: 1. State power comes at the price of social power. If the state will take care of something, then people won't. As social power collapses, so

Wednesday

Dalrymple Jeremy Corbyn's pledge to "resist" the democratic results isn't a mere semantic problem. It points to the problem with socialists in general: They aren't interested in democracy. They are interested in power. Central power. Theodore Dalrymple lays it out in this

Tuesday

What happened Sunday night? Gervais' monologue blew me away. What blew me away even more: quite a few cheers from the audience. More groans than cheers? Possibly, but quite a few cheers nonetheless. Joe Rogan observed recently that Hollywood has no soul, and Hollywood is slowly coming to the

Monday: New TWE Episode, with Show Notes

I was reading David Mikics biography of Jacque Derrida [https://amzn.to/2MZTxV0] . He points out that the first large urban civilizations–like Babylon and Egypt–“used writing as an elite mechanism for social control. The secrets of the realm remained in the hands of the few who had knowledge

(Untitled)

I asked my daughter to bring me the newspaper. she said I'm too old fashioned and brought me her iPhone. Not getting too much into details, the fly is now dead, the iPhone is broken and my daughter is crying.

Friday

Brews You Can Use Whew. The holidays come to a close. There are lots of downsides to leaving childhood, but this time of year isn't one of them. When I was a kid, I'd have the post-holiday blues. As an adult with a frantic need for

Christmas

“He rules the world with truth and grace.” –Isaac Watts ++ “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.” –Charles Dickens ++ “The Incarnation”¦illuminates and orders all other phenomena, explains both our laughter and our logic, our fear of the dead and our knowledge

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A guy bought his wife a beautiful diamond ring for Christmas. After hearing about this extravagant gift, a friend of his said, "I thought she wanted one of those sporty four-wheel-drive vehicles." "She did," he replied. "But where was I going to find a fake

Friday

Brews You Can Use Bless the Varidesk [https://amzn.to/2PHnUBE]. Bless work. Bless gin. Bless Jim Lowe. Allow me to tie that all together. I've previously pointed out that if, all is play, even work becomes play. Play occurs in that crucial EXISTENTIAL GAP, that area between

Thursday

The Flies Sartre's play, The Flies, dramatizes the Greek legend of Orestes, a man who murders his mother and her husband. Normally, a person in Orestes' situation would quake as he awaited divine punishment, but not Orestes. He rises above such fear, shouting at Jupiter: “I am

Cancel Netflix

https://twitter.com/hashtag/boycottnetflix?lang=en I'm not a big boycott guy, but Netflix has simply crossed the line too many times. And now a gay Jesus. And it's Christmas. I ain't gonna judge you if you don't cancel, but: you

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> Seattle's homelessness crisis shows no sign of subsiding. Meanwhile, an agency tasked with tackling the issue spent taxpayer dollars on a strip show. @JasonRantz [https://twitter.com/jasonrantz?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] https://t.co/3pwG0NyQaG > — Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) December 17, 2019 [https://twitter.com/dcexaminer/

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Monday

More Sartre So what did Sartre say? Basically, he simply denied that we have any natural traits (i.e., essences, characteristics). Instead of such essences, Sartre said, we have existence, and that's it. Our essences don't really exist. At best, they have a secondary reality because

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It's Friday the 13th. Avoid ladders, black cats and ridiculous superstitions.

Friday

Office Party Night Office party tonight. There'll be a lot of drinking and, no doubt, the stereotypical office party drunken antics, including the woman who drinks too much, flirts outrageously with the boss, then goes home with him, leaving me to deal with the fall-out later. Fortunately, that

Wednesday

Jean-Paul Sarte is also significant because his immense popularity offers further proof that there is something about existentialism that appeals to modern man. In 1945, after Sartre's philosophy began to filter through Paris' streets, he scheduled a public lecture. Although it was not widely advertised, by the

Monday

The Catcher in the Rye is one of the few books that I've read twice. The narrator and protagonist, Holden Caulfield, is a teenage jerk, but his constant, pointed criticisms of the shallowness of modern life make me laugh. Holden punches and weaves through everyday banalities that most

Friday

Brews You Can Use My small town has a great event planned this evening for downtown shopping. My office is located in the middle of it all, thereby enabling me to have a few drinks, venture out and check out the sites, go back and have a few drinks, venture

Thursday

The Stranger The whole attitude of existentialism is perhaps best seen in the most-popular existentialist novel of the twentieth century, Albert Camus' short book, The Stranger [https://amzn.to/2sNUVD9], which I'll summarize in hopes of giving the reader a good “feel” for existentialism. The hero of

Wednesday

The experts often disagree about the definition of existentialism, but in general, the term refers to a type of thought that emphasizes existence rather than essence. Here's how one scholar put it: “[G]enerally we can describe thinking as existentialist if it makes existence rather than essence the

Tuesday

Existentialism and the Modern Man There is one good religious projection in particular that has been spraying for the past one hundred years in one form or another and has cropped up occasionally with tremendous popularity, though few recognize it as a religious phenomenon. It has been a spiritual artesian

Monday

Monday Miscellany If you're looking for this week's podcast, there isn't one. The Thanksgiving Holiday weekend proved too much. Look for it to resume on December 8th. I would hope to keep it regular from that point forward, though the Christmas weekends could prove

Friday

BYCU Pain x Resistance = Suffering. That's a mindfulness axiom. Pain is unavoidable, but our resistance to it is. If you practice yourself into complete acceptance, the result is no suffering. Anything multiplied by zero is zero. This obviously parallels Christian experience and practice, especially as taught in de

Happy Thanksgiving

“Thanksgiving Day originated in New England when the Puritans realized they had succeeded in exterminating their neighbors, the Indians, instead of getting exterminated by their neighbors, the Indians.” Mark Twain “Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.” Samuel Johnson “Beggar that I

Wednesday

Black Wednesday Ah, Black Wednesday. I've been black on this Wednesday before there was Black Wednesday. I remember speculating with friends back in the 1980s that it might be the biggest bar night of the year. It was like, nobody had become fully cognizant that this evening had

Tuesday

In 1927, G.K. Chesterton spoke in the Great Hall of University College, London. The topic: “Culture and the Coming Peril.” People probably thought he was going to talk about Bolshevism, but he didn't. The peril isn't Communism, Chesterton said, it's vulgarity: “To put

Monday

Many writers talk about religious “currents,” but I think that term is too generous. The term “current” implies something sustaining and capable of moving things forward in a meaningful way. It implies the existence of a stream or river–something steady, often deep–where it can run. That type of

Friday

BYCU Blogging has been light. Okay, non-existent. Lots of life changes, shifting priorities, moving parts . . . whatever. I'm in a transition area, with a pretty firm idea of projects I hope to launch next year, but I need to finish this year's priorities first. But regardless, I

New Episode Released

Monday

The Border [https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/how-the-sinaloa-drug-cartel-clobbered-the-mexican-army/] Let's hope the war not spilleth over. While American media outlets have been trashing the Trump administration over its abandonment of America's “noble Kurdish allies” in Syria, they have paid little attention to an extraordinary and alarming development

Happy Halloween

Nothing scarier than this: > “Guys, I got a great idea. Let's go out, get a couple beers... “ > “No. I got got a better idea! Are you wearing loose clothing? > “Oh. I know what you're thinking. This will be so fun!” https://t.co/

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Great book for Halloween: Monsters from the Id [https://amzn.to/2JGiBz1].

Friday

Brew Rambling Auto-Drunk [https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2019/10/24/he-was-acting-drunk-swore-he-was-sober-turns-out-his-stomach-was-brewing-its-own-beer/] Thing is, I can't figure out if this is a bad thing or a good. Then researchers discovered the unusual truth: Fungi in the man's digestive system were turning carbohydrates into alcohol – a rarely

(Untitled)

> He's Got To Save His Beer pic.twitter.com/8uLc1jj7nj [https://t.co/8uLc1jj7nj] > — Football Laughs (@FootbalILaughs) October 25, 2019 [https://twitter.com/FootbalILaughs/status/1187628630958063616?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Wednesday

Nostalgia [https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/dlmp4c/til_that_childrens_tv_host_soupy_sales_during_one/?utm_medium=android_app&utm_source=share] Children's TV host Soupy Sales, during one of his programs, asked children to send him the "funny green pieces of paper

Monday

Lonely Car Candy-O [https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/the-mystery-of-ric-ocasek-900031/amp/] I was a big fan. I still think "Best Friend's Girl" is one of the greatest songs of the decade. The Mystery of Ric Ocasek: 'He Tried for Happiness, But Underneath Was a Lot

Friday

For the Bar Tonight As Radical as Its Eponym [https://www.foxnews.com/food-drink/sam-adams-utopias-illegal] Sam Adams' newest beer is illegal in 15 states. And not because it uses the word "fag" in its advertising or anything sinister like that. Utopias is described as a “barrel-aged extreme

Climate Protesters in London's Rougher East End

> Who's not proud to be British when they see this?! Protest, resolution & celebration in 60 seconds. > pic.twitter.com/iV07qiiiYe [https://t.co/iV07qiiiYe] > — DD (@DemocracyNotEU) October 17, 2019 [https://twitter.com/DemocracyNotEU/status/1184726434708971520?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

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> "Today, many on the Left have become so hateful of religion that Barr's speech strikes the ears of people like Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman as the handiwork of a Cossack propagandist." https://t.co/NKnPHVCEdz > — The American Conservative (@amconmag) October 16, 2019 [https:

New TWE Episode Released

Episode 48: Stillness [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2019/10/13/episode-48-stillness]

Monday

Hungry Like the Wolf [https://www.wsj.com/articles/wolf-resurgence-in-washington-state-tests-limits-of-civility-11570885202] When conservationist efforts are too successful . . . or too ideological. I can guarantee you this is a war between Seattle and eastern Washington. The wolves, nearly nonexistent in the northwestern state for almost a century, have grown in numbers about 28%

Tuesday/Wednesday

Ghost Soldier [https://www.military.com/off-duty/2019/10/02/was-there-really-exorcism-fort-bragg.html] Director Osgood Perkins is set to begin production on a new horror movie called "Incident at Fort Bragg." The studio has announced that it's based on a real-life incident involving Catholic priest Malachi Martin

Monday

Getting Poked Over the Coals [https://www.theringer.com/2019/10/4/20899034/poker-cheating-mike-postle-stones-gambling-hall-twitch-no-limit-holdem-sacramento-veronica-brill] I'm not a big poker fan, but this story is pretty interesting. How a Twitch-streamed no-limit hold'em player found himself at the heart of one of the most fascinating gambling controversies in

Tuesday

Focus, Man, Focus! [https://www.quantamagazine.org/to-pay-attention-the-brain-uses-filters-not-a-spotlight-20190924/] One of my favorite quotes: "In the intellectual order, the virtue of humility is nothing more nor less than the power of attention." Simone Weil Attentional processes are the brain's way of shining a searchlight on relevant stimuli

Monday

The Blog and Podcast Return Today. Just in time for . . . Pot Cafe Opens Today [https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/miley-cyrus-backed-cannabis-cafe-brings-amsterdam-to-hollywood-1.1323335] I favor legalization, especially when I've seen first hand people benefit from marijuana's medicinal capacities, but I can't get rid of the feeling that

Monday

Note: A death in the family has derailed TWE temporarily. Give me a few days . . . Baptisms at Practice [https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2019/sep/18/dabo-swinney-christianity-clemson-football-recruiting] Dabo Swinney's faith has aided in the recruiting that's made Clemson a college football powerhouse, while drawing the ire

Thursday/Friday

Family matters are taking me out of commission for a few days. Enjoy this mix of regular stories and drinking stories. Priests Spray Drunks with Holy Water from Plane [https://abcnews.go.com/International/russian-priests-spray-holy-water-plane-stop-alcohol/story?id=65668588] I'm absolutely fascinated by this ongoing tornado born of Holy

Wednesday

Abortion Mysticism [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/17/opinion/pete-buttigieg-abortion-democrats.html] Douthat is the man . . . The unapologetic grisliness of a Klopfer, or a Kermit Gosnell before him, haunts a Buttigiegian abortion politics more than it does a “safe, legal, rare” triangulation, because it establishes the most visceral of contrasts

Tuesday

Catholic Intelligentsia Waging War [https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/20190912-academias-holy-warriors?key=mi0Bff1vaLHL09_no2EmgyubkYGaE_Z0wYeVvMXRpBMlzD16oZl7OvOuo9-6VB1CQ1pUYTE5WnhOR1J5VUFMaG1lRk1TdExEQ1VIbkRnQXRiYkZkdzh4VER0MA] Let's be a part of the Catholic Dark Web that must emerge in order for this to succeed. As Deneen was speaking, blueberry pie was served to an audience that included Rod Dreher, the

New Episode Released

Dan Aykroyd, Podcasts and John Senior, LSD and Shifting Consciousness [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2019/9/15/episode-45] Or:

Monday

Paid to be a Jerk [https://melmagazine.com/en-us/story/ryan-gunderson-washington-generals-harlem-globetrotters-stories] Gunderson survived what many might consider the worst job in professional sports: playing for the Washington Generals. He was the team captain and starting point guard for a team whose sole existence is to lose to the Harlem Globetrotters.

The Weekend Eudemon

Marco . . . Polo [https://www.nationalgeographic.com/archaeology-and-history/magazine/2019/09-10/explorations-of-marco-polo/] Western civilization's first secular bestseller. The world-famous explorer Marco Polo is credited with many things, but perhaps the greatest is compiling one of the world's first best-selling travelogues. Published around 1300, the book chronicles his

Friday

Brews You Can Use Friday the 13th. Harvest Moon. You better drink heavily. E-Drunk [https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2019-08-29/e-scooters-plus-drinking-a-fast-pass-to-the-er] I like the new e-scooters. I like drinking. I also like to combine them, but it's not advised. Drinking and driving an electric scooter doesn&

BTW

TDE is now "simulcasted" at eudemonpodcast.com [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-blog-1]. Same content, different format. There are no plans to abandon this site, but I am struggling with how to make this site look better. TDE is one of the oldest blogs on the Internet, and it&

Thursday

Taki Thursday Gay Penguins? [https://www.dailywire.com/news/51657/theyre-turning-frickin-penguins-gay-michael-j-knowles] Yes, of course. This Daily Wire (Ben Shapiro) article is annoyed that the SJWs have misappropriated penguins to advance their alphabet cause (LGBTQUIA . . .), but I say, "The penguins be your poster child." If the reasoning is, "

Wednesday

Happy 9/11 Day. Reminder to my right-leaning readers: "God Bless the U.S.A." is not the national anthem. Rare Harvest Moon [https://www.prevention.com/life/a28980703/harvest-moon-2019-september-friday-the-13/] This Friday Before fall's official arrival on September 23, a rare sighting of the Harvest Moon

Episode 44

Tuesday

Burning Man and Econ Man [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/05/upshot/paul-romer-burning-man-nobel-economist.html] Interesting piece. Romer was on Econtalk last April [http://www.econtalk.org/paul-romer-on-growth-cities-and-the-state-of-economics/] . I can virtually guarantee you the NYT gives a leftward slant to Romer's views, but the piece is still worth

Monday

New podcast episode posted: Nietzsche [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2019/9/8/episode-44-nietzsche] . Nietzsche and Slave Morality Nietzsche and Detachment Nietzsche and Zen Lightning Segments White Privilege II

Monday

Mr. Rogers/Hanks' Neighborhood [https://apnews.com/5af277479f6b469e8f3e8f22c6978d84] I have mixed feelings about this movie. Rogers was a wannabe Catholic . . . maybe (link [https://angelusnews.com/news/mike-aquilina/the-catholics-in-mister-rogers-neighborhood] ). “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood,” starring Hanks as the host of “Mister Rogers Neighborhood,” premiered Saturday night at the Toronto

The Weekend Eudemon

Find Your Own Calcutta [https://i.redd.it/33ypjh24p2l31.jpg] A Mother Teresa pic and quote. Channeling Joseph Pieper [https://thepointmag.com/2019/criticism/idleness] With male labor-force participation rates in decline and the concept of universal basic income nudging into the mainstream, idleness has taken on new political urgency.

Friday

21 My middle child, Michael, turns 21 today. He's a great kid, albeit an aloof kid. While growing up, I'm afraid he thought his middle name was "Michael" and his first name was "WTF". Take it easy tonight, Michael. The Real Relief

Thursday

Michigan becomes first state to ban flavored e-cigarettes [https://beta.washingtonpost.com/health/michigan-becomes-first-state-to-ban-flavored-e-cigarettes/2019/09/03/34f234c6-ce4c-11e9-8c1c-7c8ee785b855_story.html?outputType=amp] Morons beating on morons. I think vaping is stupid . . . I rank it with slamming one's genitals in the car door on purpose. But hey, it'

Wednesday

Understandable [https://www.yahoo.com/news/vegan-woman-sued-her-neighbors-140715647.html] A vegan woman has filed a suit against her neighbors in the Australian supreme court after complaining about the smell of meat and fish emanating from their barbecues. Study Performed in Our Basement [https://www.studyfinds.org/hurry-up-modern-patience-thresholds-lower-than-ever-before-survey-finds/] Patience is a virtue,

Tuesday

Why Does Saying “Flip Flop” Feels More Correct Than “Flop Flip”? [https://www.scienceabc.com/social-science/ablaut-reduplication-why-does-saying-flip-flop-feels-more-correct-than-flop-flip.html] There are many words that we use in our daily language that seem alright when spoken in a particular way, but somewhat weird when said in the 'wrong' order. There

The Weekend Eudemon

This is the best of American wine country [https://www.10best.com/interests/drinks/2019-winners-for-the-best-of-american-wine-country/] This boutique hotel in Northern Michigan features just 32 guest rooms in a lakeside setting that'll make you feel like you're stepping back into the early 20th century. Nearby Walloon Lake

Friday: BYCU

Winos Once Every Two Weeks [https://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2019/08/27/red-wine-good-gut-lowers-cholesterol-need-fortnight/] ed wine is good for gut health and can lower cholesterol, but you only need it once a fortnight, a new study has found. The first major research of its kind found significantly higher diversity

Thursday

Dalrymple on Dealing with Deviants [https://www.city-journal.org/british-criminal-justice-system] There certainly seem to be those who, from an early age–indeed, from the earliest age at which independent action is possible–behave in a way that most people would deem evil. As soon as they are able to pull

Wednesday

Subsidies: F to the Fourth. Food Stamps, Farmers, and Fast Food [https://www.history.com/news/food-stamps-great-depression] The U.S. food stamp program was launched at a time when the nation was facing a tragic paradox: As millions of Americans suffered from hunger during the Great Depression, the country'

Tuesday

Hatred of the Middle Class [https://www.city-journal.org/young-radicals-war-against-middle-class] In some ways, the current age of victimhood has roots in the excesses of Second Wave feminism of the 1970s. The theme of Flora Rheta Schreiber's bestselling Sybil (published in 1973) was that some American women were so

Monday

Not Sure Who the Defendant Is [https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/woman-denied-housekeeping-work-church-over-priests-kinda-racist-dog-153228523.html] A Tennessee woman is speaking out after she alleges a Catholic priest and parish staff denied her work due to the color of her skin. However, the church and the Catholic Diocese of Memphis deny any wrongdoing,

The Weekend Eudemon

A Bit Too Harsh for Comfort [https://spectator.org/why-pope-francis-hasnt-visited-argentina/] My principal purpose in visiting Buenos Aires is to learn about its not-so-favorite son, Jorge Bergoglio, who still hasn't visited Argentina since becoming Pope Francis. During my first few days here, I asked every Catholic I met to

Friday

83 Michigan Counties, 83 Bars [https://www.mlive.com/dining/2017/10/best_bars_in_each_of_michigans.html] It's no lie, we have a pretty great bar culture here in Michigan. From the down and dirty dives, to high end classy affairs, there is somewhere for everyone,

Thursday

Back Row America [https://www.firstthings.com/article/2019/06/back-row-america] I first walked into the Hunts Point neighborhood of the Bronx because I had been told not to. I had been told it was too dangerous and too poor, and that I was too white. I had been told

Wednesday

Tips to Return to Serious Reading Again [https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2019/aug/14/how-to-restore-your-books-habit-reading-social-media] In 2019, books are not just a last resort when the wifi is down. There are Instagram accounts, podcasts and even subscription boxes dedicated to reading. Chances are you've noticed your

Tuesday

'I don't smell!' Meet the people who have stopped washing [https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2019/aug/05/i-dont-smell-meet-the-people-who-have-stopped-washing] David Whitlock has not showered or bathed for 15 years, yet he does not have body odour. “It was kind of strange for the first few months,

Monday

The Comfort Animal Insanity Grows [https://www.foxnews.com/travel/miniature-horses-allowed-fly-service-animals-dot] The U.S. Department of Transportation has announced that miniature horses are still officially allowed to fly as service animals in all cabins of commercial planes, in a statement aiming to define the guidelines regarding protections for emotional support

Friday

Great Pics; Great Descriptions [https://detroit.eater.com/maps/best-new-cocktails-bars-detroit] There was once a time in Detroit when craft cocktail bars were so few and far between, nearly every one seemed noteworthy. That, thankfully, is no longer the case. With more and more bar-goers developing a palate for crafty drinks,

Thursday

Archie Bunker is in the 1%? Homer Simpson? [https://www.investopedia.com/articles/personal-finance/050615/are-you-top-one-percent-world.asp] An income of $32,400 per year would allow someone to be among the top 1% of income earners in the world. To reach the top 1 percent worldwide in terms of wealth–

Wednesday

See The World of Total Work Podcast Episode [https://lifeandmyfinances.com/2018/11/7-reasons-why-you-should-have-multiple-streams-of-income/] 7 Reasons Why You Should Have Multiple Streams of Income: (5) Allows You To Be Creative. Having multiple streams of income isn't all about the money. In fact, sometimes people start a side hustle,

Tuesday

Poland, Europe's Last Hope, Episode 58,239 [https://catholicherald.co.uk/news/2019/08/09/polish-archbishop-vows-to-resist-lgbt-ideology/] The president of the Polish bishops' conference confirmed the country's Catholic Church will resist “LGBT ideology” as equality campaigners demanded the dismissal of an archbishop who branded gays and

Monday

The Story [https://beta.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/08/10/jeffrey-epsteins-apparent-suicide-is-unfathomable/?outputType=amp] For anyone familiar with Bureau of Prisons standard operating procedures, Jeffrey Epstein's apparent suicide is more than mysterious; it is unfathomable. The 66-year-old accused sex trafficker was found dead in his prison cell at the

THE WEEKEND EUDEMON

The Story [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/09/us/politics/joe-biden-poor-kids.html] Joe Biden Says 'Poor Kids' Are Just as Bright as 'White Kids' The Satire [https://babylonbee.com/news/biden-apologizes-for-racist-gaffe-i-like-all-races-even-the-bad-ones] "Rest assured," Biden said. "I like all races, even the bad

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New podcast released [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2019/8/4/episode-40-the-world-of-total-work] : G.K. Chesterton: His cause of canonization has been rejected. I understand why, but the charge of anti-semitism is ridiculous. And unnecessary to raise. Maybe the bishop was virtue signalling. Lighting Segments: The notecard, beer markets, Europe'

BYCU

BYCU-like podcast: Socialism Sucks: Two Economists Drink Their Way Through the Unfree World "Ben Powell returns to the show to discuss his new book with Bob Lawson, in which the two economists visit various unfree places around the world and share their observations. (It turns out that alcohol, and

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> How will Alabama recover from this? [https://www.reddit.com/r/rareinsults/comments/cjthxh/how_will_alabama_recover_from_this/] from r/rareinsults [http://www.reddit.com/r/rareinsults]

Weaver

Richard Weaver, professor at the University of Chicago fifty years ago, wrote of “the Great Stereopticon,” a term roughly equivalent to what many call “mass media.” It is the technology that reaches out to everyone in western culture and tells us “the time to laugh and the time to cry.

"It!"

In today's idiom, it is common to use the word "it" when describing the sexual act or related things. It reminds me of beatnik hero in Jack Kerouac's On the Road named Rollo Greb, a “wild, ecstatic” man who “didn't give a

Sunday

You can trace almost every Protestant sect today back to five branches: 1. Lutheran 2. Reform 3. Radical 4. Anglican 5. Pentecostal The first three were in existence within a few years after 1517 and had already started splintering among themselves a few years after that. Anglican in less than

Thursday

H.I.F. A rumor on Twitter says Mister Rogers, a Presbyterian minister, took last rites from a monk. This article by Mike Aquilina [https://angelusnews.com/news/mike-aquilina/the-catholics-in-mister-rogers-neighborhood] offers details about Mister Rogers' extensive ties to Catholicism, but doesn't say he converted on his death

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Friday

I'm posting this simply because I really like the picture. It's pretty: > This is what happens when you don't renew @DavidWondrich [https://twitter.com/DavidWondrich?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]'s contract: @esquire [https://twitter.com/esquire?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] has the

Thursday

From the Notebooks While returning to Europe with Sigmund Freud from a conference in the United States in 1909, Carl Jung had the most-famous nocturnal dream of the twentieth century. He dreamed he was in a medieval house. He went down into a vaulted Gothic room, then into the house&

Wednesday

NEW PODCAST EPISODE RELEASED: Detachment. The first rule of the spiritual life. [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2019/7/14/episode-38-detachment]

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> A quiet day at the mall. Walking around, unnoticed, until someone yells, “Hey, it's Pat Sajak!” Then pandemonium: handshakes, pictures, autographs. I'm almost sorry I yelled. > — Pat Sajak (@patsajak) July 15, 2019 [https://twitter.com/patsajak/status/1150866959212433410?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

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> On July 16th, 1212, at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa, King Alfonso VIII “the Noble” of Castile led an outnumbered Catholic coalition to victory against the Almohad Caliphate–marking a turning point in the Reconquista. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/cdvqci/on_july_16th_1212_

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling The French Revolution ate its own. Zmirak thinks the same thing might be happening with today's left [https://stream.org/justice-democrats-have-stormed-the-bastille/]. Let's hope he's right. Excerpt: > Ocasio-Cortez was put in place by the quasi-Marxist faction the “Justice Democrats.” One of its

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> The theatre of Taormina is an ancient #Greek [https://twitter.com/hashtag/Greek?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] theatre, in Taormina, southern #Italy [https://twitter.com/hashtag/Italy?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw], built in the third century BC. #Archeology [https://twitter.com/hashtag/Archeology?

I believe it

> A new study has showed that labeling food choices in a hospital cafeteria with simple “traffic-light” symbols indicating their relative health value was associated with a reduction in calories purchased by employees, and that the dietary changes were sustained over two years. [https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/

Pretty Much How Central Government Works

A golfer walks into the pro shop and asks the golf pro if they sell ball markers. The golf pro says that they do, and they are $1.00. The golfer gives the golf pro a dollar. The golf pro opens the register, puts the dollar in, and hands the

Call the Social Justice Warriors

> TIL that along with blacksmiths, there are "whitesmiths" who work with tin or other light metals and "brownsmiths" who work with brass or copper. [https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/ca1skk/til_that_along_with_blacksmiths_there_are/] from r/todayilearned [http://www.reddit.

Helpful

> This general store sign showing that there is actually a difference between jelly and jam [https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/c9lexn/this_general_store_sign_showing_that_there_is/] from r/mildlyinteresting [http://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting]

Fever (When You Hold Me Tight)

Brews You Can Use Well, this is disappointing. I bought a chunk of this stock last summer: Fevertree Erases Year's Gains as Analyst Warns of 'Gin Fatigue' [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-07-04/fevertree-erases-year-s-gains-as-jefferies-sees-gin-fatigue] . Then again, I bet on Fever Tree because I thought the

Offered for What It's Worth

EVERYTHING YOU SHOULD BINGE OVER THE JULY 4TH WEEKEND [https://www.wired.com/story/july-4-binge-ing-guide/]. Wired.

Great Assortment for Your Holiday Weekend

TEACHING GIRLS TO MASTURBATE, Libby Emmons Orgasms can be pretty powerful things, but are they magic? In a new article, Teen Vogue, that bastion of wisdom for preteen girls, offers some odd advice. In “How to Use Sex Magic to Manifest Your Best Self,” resident bruja Lisa Stardust details how

Ginappointment

I found a new tonic: Zevia. Half the price of Fever Tree. Zero calories. No artificial sweeteners. All natural. Its secret? Stevia. I was stoked. I bought two six packs. I tried it last night. Disappointment. The stevia taste comes through, pretty strongly. It's not terrible, but it&

Walter Williams Dismantles the Stupid Reparations Issue

Several Democratic presidential hopefuls are calling for Americans to make reparations for slavery. On June 19, the House judiciary subcommittee on the constitution, civil rights and civil liberties held a hearing. Its stated purpose was “to examine, through open and constructive discourse, the legacy of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, its

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> This building on the back trails at the monastery. Hermit in there? pic.twitter.com/wE5cHXPvB1 [https://t.co/wE5cHXPvB1] > — The Weekly Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) June 21, 2019 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1142150258018979842?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Saturday

Back from my stay with the Trappists: > Main entrance pic.twitter.com/Eb9Y3tRGWw [https://t.co/Eb9Y3tRGWw] > — The Weekly Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) June 21, 2019 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1142150524231409665?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

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> Very long escalator at the subway station in Chongqing, China [https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/c050y3/very_long_escalator_at_the_subway_station_in/] from r/mildlyinteresting [http://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting]

Father's Day Gift

for that debonair gin drinker in your family > Hendrick's seasonal, a must. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Gin/comments/byxeco/hendricks_seasonal_a_must/] from r/Gin [http://www.reddit.com/r/Gin]

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> Make sure your kids are NOT reading these books this summer. Courtesy of Slate: Books your kids should read this summer: https://t.co/gWZ3xflm2x via @slate [https://twitter.com/Slate?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] > — The Weekly Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) June 11, 2019 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1138252783403110400?

Wednesday

Or maybe news from 1974? It seems we've been told for nearly 50 years that eggs are bad for your heart. I'm not sure I believe it, but it seems like that's what I've heard my entire life. > Straight from 1989:

Tuesday

I add copious amounts of compost to the asparagus bed twice a year. I get scores of these. > This massive asparagus spear pic.twitter.com/HrYb94lXdB [https://t.co/HrYb94lXdB] > — The Weekly Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) June 3, 2019 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1135669216739241984?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

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Excellent piece, though I think the writer could've made his point more bluntly, which is (I think): Hume didn't believe we can know anything, so if we can't know anything, we better preserve our traditions since they developed over time through forces we can&

Friday

BYCU I'm not sure what to do with this information, but it strikes me as nifty: The most commonly searched beer in every state, according to Google [https://www.groundreport.xyz/the-most-commonly-searched-beer-in-every-state-according-to-google/] . Most states are searching mainline denominations (and way too many are searching for Corona . . . awful stuff)

Thursday

> My Marshall Plan: On the Goodness of Justice Thurgood's Approach https://t.co/9FBiq6W86I > — Bird, Scheske, Reed & Beemer (@sturgiseric) May 30, 2019 [https://twitter.com/sturgiseric/status/1134058206534217728?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Well, summer is here. I had a very good weekend. The forecast called for rain throughout the weekend . . . and we only got a little. Actually, we got quite a bit, but it came at night or in big dumps, so 90% of the weekend was open for outdoor

Happy Memorial Day

The new podcast episode is up: Episode 36: Memorial Day Weekend, Drinking in Mexico, Catholic Church and Divine Corruption. Enjoy. [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2019/5/24/episode-36-memorial-day-weekend-drinking-in-mexico-catholic-church-and-divine-corruption] May 25 Episode 36: Memorial Day Weekend, Drinking in Mexico, Catholic Church and Divine Corruption Memorial Day Weekend: A tradition has

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> Zalipie is a small village in #Poland [https://twitter.com/hashtag/Poland?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] that's well-known for its beautifully painted flowers all over homes & folk art. pic.twitter.com/0QgJoC5IiE [https://t.co/0QgJoC5IiE] > — European Beauty (@MagicalEurope) May 25, 2019

Friday

BYCU My two oldest sons have been in Oaxaca, Mexico for the past four weeks. They're taking "immersion classes," which means, "Do everything in Spanish for four weeks." They live with a Spanish mom, take Spanish classes in Spanish, take excursions in Spanish . . . and

Thursday

From the Notebooks The four courts: Court of Law, Court of Religion, Court of Morals, Court of Taste and Manners. (Referred to on page 30 of Nock's Memoirs) It seems the culture wars should be fought first in T&M, and then Morals. Too many of us

Wednesday

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 file full

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling The farming crunch is on. Seedlings are going into the ground faster than cocktails into a Kennedy's gut. Two dozen flower seedlings yesterday; a dozen more today, plus six tomato seedlings. More go in tomorrow. I would've put more in today, but it was

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling The new podcast is up: Episode 35: Mental Exercise, Predictive Genetics, Hook-Up Software at Ivy [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2019/5/17/episode-35-mental-exercise-predictive-genetics-hook-up-software-at-ivy] Mental Exercising: Everyone seems to agree: It's crucial we exercise mentally, normally in the form of meditation. Meditation, even the most secular,

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> The Meteora is a very big #Orthodox [https://twitter.com/hashtag/Orthodox?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] Monastery in Central #Greece [https://twitter.com/hashtag/Greece?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]. It was built on sandstone rock pillars. pic.twitter.com/vvPfPnZJbs [https://t.co/

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> Translation of this mezcal bottle: for sacred consumption, all excess is profane pic.twitter.com/BW5ISwY16Z [https://t.co/BW5ISwY16Z] > — The Weekly Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) May 16, 2019 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1128837025334009856?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

BYCU

Brews You Can Use Man, I feel like drinking today. Unfortunately, Meg has her regional track meet, which means I probably won't get home until late tonight, and the high school frowns on people bringing alcohol into the stadium, even if I have it stored in one of

Thursday

Rambling Toward the Weekend Glorious weather. I spent nearly four hours at the produce site, trying to do a week's worth of work in one afternoon. It didn't quite work out. I got a lot of the (most excellent) Salanova lettuce planted, but otherwise, I just

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> Supply & demand [https://www.reddit.com/r/Anarcho_Capitalism/comments/boxikd/supply_demand/] from r/Anarcho_Capitalism [http://www.reddit.com/r/Anarcho_Capitalism]

Wednesday

> "The high-school English teacher will be fulfilling his responsibility if he furnishes the student a guided opportunity, through the best writing of the past, to come, in time, to an understanding of the best writing of the present." Flannery O'Connor #FlanneryOConnor [https://twitter.com/hashtag/

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Great weather returns. Finally. Man, it's been a brutal spring. With the exception of, maybe, five days, it's been terrible weather. It's been so cold, even my lettuce production has been slow. I, however, counted over 75 "volunteer" lettuce plants

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling New episode of TWE is out: Brian Sims and Nuts on Both Sides, Fleeing California, E.F. Schumacher [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2019/5/10/episode-34-brian-sims-and-nuts-on-both-sides-fleeing-california-ef-schumacher] . Brian Sims: Yup, he's a hateful nut. Yup, the Right has hateful nuts too. The thing is, the Right

Saturday

I gotta agree. A few podcasts ago, I wondered how so many committed Catholics can watch that show. It's a show I would love, and I tried to get into it, but I simply had to stop after the first four episodes because it was, literally, pornographic. Granted,

BYCU

A new beer mile world record. I would vomit after 200 meters.

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> Why don't transsexuals organize their own athletic events? Why destroy women's sports by having men who think they are women outrun, outlift, outwrestle and beat up women who are obviously weaker than they are? > — Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) May 2, 2019 [https://twitter.

Wednesday

Midweek Rambling I started dieting on January 1st. I dropped from 200 to 190 pounds within weeks. After that, it got hard. Very hard. I was Auschwitzing myself but couldn't drop below 190. After two months of zero progress, I went Bobby Sands for three weeks and dropped

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling I'm a sucker for Michigan in May. The past two days have been simply gorgeous. I've spent a lot of time in the garden, taken walks, played frisbee golf with my two youngest sons, practiced tennis with Max twice, watched part of Tess'

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling New TWE episode posted: Noise, Max Picard, George Gissing, and Cardinal Sarah [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2019/5/2/noise-justice-stegall-and-hangovers] . Noise. Our culture is too tolerant when it comes to noise. I explore it. Noise Part II: Silence and Russell Kirk, Max Picard, and Cardinal Sarah. Lightning

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> "In recent years, Christian restaurant chains, bakers, and high-tech executives have fallen prey to campaigns to chase them from the economy, a kind of professional execution in a capitalist society." https://t.co/9DerRgO7m1 ”¦ > — The American Conservative (@amconmag) May 5, 2019 [https://twitter.com/amconmag/status/

Friday

BYCU I got my weight down to 185. I started the year at 200 (freakin' 200 pounds). I have rewarded myself by wading back into hard liquor. Specifically, the gin and tonic . . . just in time for warm weather. Gin and tonic is good for weight loss, as pointed out

Twitter Thursday

> There's no point blaming the tragedies of socialism on the flaws or corruption of particular leaders. Any system which allows some people to exercise unbridled power over others is an open invitation to abuse, whether that system is called slavery or socialism or something else. > — Thomas

Reddit Stuff

Life is going to have me in a headlock for the next six weeks. Daughter Meg has 14 functions over the course of 28 days, starting this Saturday. Daughter Tess has her parochial school graduation and a few tennis matches. And, oh yeah, daughter Abbie is getting married in early

Tuesday

> Censorship changes with the times [https://www.reddit.com/r/Libertarian/comments/bi5c6g/censorship_changes_with_the_times/] from r/Libertarian [http://www.reddit.com/r/Libertarian]

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling The new podcast is up: Episode 32: LGBTs in the Work Force, Easter, and College Loan Forgiveness [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2019/4/26/episode-32-lgbts-in-the-work-force-easter-and-college-loan-forgiveness] . Show notes: LGBT at Work: The Supreme Court has taken three LGBT discrimination cases. It's evidence that Derrida has won:

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> It all makes sense now [https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/bi8xu4/it_all_makes_sense_now/] from r/funny [http://www.reddit.com/r/funny] > 7 things every kid needs to hear. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Libertarian/comments/bhzv4s/7_things_every_kid_needs_to_

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> There's nothing I really like about this comment except that I'm forced to concede I agree with it. https://t.co/GoI1cY1R6V > — Steve Skojec (@SteveSkojec) April 25, 2019 [https://twitter.com/SteveSkojec/status/1121528930719002624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Great BYCU Pic

> Four pillars Gin tasting board from Hemingway's brewery, Port Douglas Australia. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Gin/comments/bhiv04/four_pillars_gin_tasting_board_from_hemingways/] from r/Gin [http://www.reddit.com/r/Gin]

Friday

Brews You Can Use One of the most interesting drinking pieces of the year: Hangover Inc.: The Companies Getting You Over Last Night [https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-04-12/best-way-to-cure-a-hangover-these-companies-have-ideas] . The gist: Companies are offering I.V.s and oxygen boosts to get people over their hangovers quickly: >

Thursday

> ~ Henry Hazlitt ~ [https://www.reddit.com/r/Anarcho_Capitalism/comments/bgvjqd/henry_hazlitt/] from r/Anarcho_Capitalism [http://www.reddit.com/r/Anarcho_Capitalism]

Wednesday

Reddit Miscellany "On any given day, 1 in 5 American youngsters don't drink any water at all, finds a new study of US children and young adults in JAMA Pediatrics, and those who don't end up consuming almost twice as many calories from sugar-sweetened beverages.

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling I released the first TWE bonus episode yesterday: Gnosticism [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2019/4/21/bonus-episode-gnosticism] . It's all five segments that I did on Gnosticism, combined into one episode. I'll probably produce more bonus episodes using a similar approach (gathering similar subjects

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling New TWE podcast posted: Tiger Woods, Seven Nation Army of Actuaries, Twitter's Narrative, Grand Narratives and Post-Modernism. > Tiger Woods: Congratulations to Tiger and congratulations to golf. > Tiger and the Press: Tiger the Philanderer . . . covered up by the press. A small example of a much

Happy Easter

"When the disciples saw the risen Christ, they beheld “him as a reality in the world, though no longer of it, respecting the order of the world, but Lord of its laws. To behold such reality was different and more than to see a tree or watch a man

Good Friday

“The Son of God suffered unto the death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like His.” George MacDonald "The cross cannot be defeated. . . For it is Defeat." G.K. Chesterton On those who hate Christianity: "They do not dislike the Cross

Maundy Thursday

“[I]n the agony of Gethsemane the ultimate consequences of our sin had their hour. . . . God permitted his Son to taste the human agony of rejection and plunge towards the abyss. . . Gethsemane was the hour in which Jesus' human heart and mind experienced the ultimate odium of the sin

Wednesday

From the Notebooks The examples of Russia's tendency to absorb other cultures are numerous. The earliest years of Russian history show an influence from Finnish races, steppe peoples, the Greeks, Persia, and the Vikings. Ibid. at 5. After Prince Vladimir's baptism in 988, Russia became heavily

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling When I was in high school, my friends and I went on a Whopper kick. We would sometimes get two Whoppers each. They got theirs with triple ketchup, which was absolutely disgusting, but we were all kind of pigs. Needless to say, my Whopper days are history. Or

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Way to go, Tiger! I'm not a huge golf fan, but I follow the Majors: The Masters, the PGA, the US Open, the British Open. And this is one of the best golf stories ever. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I was kind of blown away by

In Honor of Today's Epic Sporting Event

> 16 USC §5305a makes it a federal crime to attempt to sell a product derived from a tiger. > — A Crime a Day (@CrimeADay) April 14, 2019 [https://twitter.com/CrimeADay/status/1117498465892933634?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Wow

> Benedict XVI spoke the truth. God bless him for it. Truth always harms the stratagems of ambiguity and mendacity. https://t.co/3m9BzPSMpc > — Patrick Madrid ✌🏼 (@patrickmadrid) April 13, 2019 [https://twitter.com/patrickmadrid/status/1117156676879171584?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Friday

Brews You Can Use Alright, my last BYCU of the Lenten season. Good Friday is obviously a poor day to celebrate drinking, and it's not like I want to start priming all of your drinking pumps on Holy Thursday or Saturday. That being said, I'm often

Thursday

> When asked by @tedcruz [https://twitter.com/tedcruz?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] if a quote by Mother Teresa was "hate speech," two Public Policy Directors from Facebook and Twitter were left speechless for 12 SECONDS. > When Twitter's director spoke up, he tried to dodge

Wednesday

I'm kind of stunned by this video: But I'm not stunned for the reason stated by lifesite news: "Fr. Larry Richards condemns parents of large, daily mass going families." I don't think he is. I think he is singling out one family

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling A few interesting tidbits from Reddit's "Today I Learned" feature: "TIL Mount Everest is so inundated with waste, including 26,500 lbs of human excrement, each season that the Nepalese gov't now requires each climber to pack out 8 kg

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling New episode posted: California [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2019/4/5/california]: LA, Santa Monica, Malibu, Ventura, San Simeon, Monterey, Santa Cruz, Soledad, Altadena, Pasadena, Beverly Hills, Venice Beach, Anaheim: The entire podcast episode is dedicated to California. Well, the entire podcast, minus a few detours. Youtube

Saturday

> "Conservatives who took in free-market ideology with their mother's milk should strongly reconsider their views....The stale old GOP view that Big Business Is Always Right And Big Government Is Always Wrong is completely idiotic today." https://t.co/zsww6t6XeO > — The American Conservative (@amconmag)

Friday

The main meeting room at the Hearst Castle is set up like you might find it if you were walking in for a gathering in the 1920s, including this tray of cocktails. > A cocktail setting, circa 1920s, at the Hearst Castle pic.twitter.com/KWGTC2mv5q [https://t.co/KWGTC2mv5q]

The Return Eudemon

We got back last night at midnight from a packed trip to California. We spent time in LA, Santa Monica, Malibu, Ventura, San Simeon, Monterey, Santa Cruz, Soledad, Altadena, Pasadena, Venice Beach, and Anaheim. An endurance test or a vacation? I'm still trying to decide. > It'

Wednesday

From the Notebooks Marx prohibited any discussion of first things, realizing that they ineluctably lead back to God. Marx was so fearful of questions about transcendence that Eric Voegelin described him as a spiritually diseased man who suffered from “logophobia.” Eric Voegelin, From Enlightenment to Revolution (Duke University Press, 1975)

Tuesday

From the Notebooks The examples of Russia's tendency to absorb other cultures are numerous. The earliest years of Russian history show an influence from Finnish races, steppe peoples, the Greeks, Persia, and the Vikings. After Prince Vladimir's baptism in 988, Russia became heavily influenced by Byzantium.

Hippies in Northern California: Living Off the Grid

Though professing to be radicals, many hippie women proudly recalled their lives as similar to the experiences of the paragon of American conservative virtue: the pioneer woman. Ayala Talpai, who lived off the land with her husband and five children, remembered that when it was “time for supper, I’d

Monday

From the Notebooks Dr. Carroll published the first volume of this projected-seven volume set in 1985. Called The Founding of Christendom, it took the reader from Genesis to Emperor Constantine, whose conversion in 313 made Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire and brought Christianity to center stage. The

Saturday

> George Orwell: The Forgotten Prophet (essay by Joseph Pearce) https://t.co/FlQ1QWf08p > — ImaginativeConservat (@imaginativecons) March 22, 2019 [https://twitter.com/imaginativecons/status/1109145315117027328?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Friday

BYCU A TDE reader sends along perhaps the best Lenten BYCU piece of all time: Man does 46-day beer fast [http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/02/25/my-take-what-i-learned-from-my-46-day-beer-only-fast/?fbclid=IwAR1N3h8KzgNTUKRvmhTIqCO00FTU35jKDKpfvT9zIF6OMk0pW-F_dLRUZ3I] . When I saw the title, I thought it was going to be about a guy who gave up

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling Good to hear: MSNBC's ratings have taken it in the shorts since its sham fear-mongering has been exposed: Maddow, who has consistently vied for the first or second top-rated cable news program, was sixth on Monday evening, down almost 500,000 total viewers from the previous

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> Breaking News @AOC [https://twitter.com/AOC?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] claims she found a way to end world hunger pic.twitter.com/57alYs6pjc [https://t.co/57alYs6pjc] > — Terrence K. Williams (@w_terrence) March 25, 2019 [https://twitter.com/w_terrence/status/1110324797806919680?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Wednesday

Midweek Rambling The New York Times opens up a promising op-ed feature: religious philosophy wars. It runs a wholly one-sided op-ed that ridicules the idea of a God that philosophy can reason to [https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/25/opinion/-philosophy-god-omniscience.html]. I assume the Grey Hag will give

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Man, for some reason, that Trump dance video really cracked me up yesterday. I'm a little embarrassed to admit it, but I think I watched it ten times. Matt Taibbi, far from a conservative the last I checked, breaks down the farce that was RussiaGate. It&

RussiaGate

> Okay who did this 🤣💀 pic.twitter.com/bYe5jI8S2h [https://t.co/bYe5jI8S2h] > — Cliff Sims (@Cliff_Sims) March 24, 2019 [https://twitter.com/Cliff_Sims/status/1109962032995069952?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling New TWE episode posted this weekend: Episode 27: Postmodernism and a Soviet Philosopher, Postmodernism and Brahman, Stylites [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2019/3/21/c7eipocxiqh83fts4by4mgw0pmq5ik] . Click the link to listen, or go to Stitcher, iTunes, etc. It's also posted below in a Youtube format. >

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> "While World War II may have been necessary, it was not good. It was an epic tragedy from which Americans can learn much with relevance to the present day. But learning assumes a willingness to see beyond myths. Charles Beard shows us where to begin." https://t.

Friday

Brews You Can Use March isn't good for losing weight. The weather isn't warm enough to get a lot of movement outside, birthdays, and now March Madness. Tonight (actually, this afternoon) calls for my third day of drinking this week. I'll be at a

Thursday

From the Notebooks Brownson said, on a speaking tour on “The Church and the Republic” that every society is exposed to two opposite dangers: absolutism of the state and absolutism of the individual. In order to mediate between the two dangers, and give each, the state and the individual, their

Wednesday

> “People who pride themselves on having ideas often fail to understand that only after ideas have been filtered through real-world experience do we know whether they are right or wrong. Most turn out to be wrong.” > — Thomas Sowell (@ThomasSowell) March 17, 2019 [https://twitter.com/ThomasSowell/status/1107397245987684358?

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling The Tournament neareth. My 28th Annual NCAA Basketball Tournament Auction is tonight. I ought to post a commemorative BYCU, but the circumstances don't permit. Humorous story of the month: Their Street Is Famous on Instagram, and They Can't Take It Anymore [https://www.

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Rough Sunday. My Wolverines couldn't win their third straight conference tournament championship. Terrible reffing down the stretch, but I can't say that because UM fans have a bad reputation for whining about the officiating. The turning point came when MSU's McQuaid got

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> MAN DOWN pic.twitter.com/CEZBACDCDu [https://t.co/CEZBACDCDu] > — Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) March 17, 2019 [https://twitter.com/barstoolsports/status/1107354321593790464?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Happy St. Patrick's Day

For the Great Gaels of Ireland Are the men that God made mad, For all their wars are merry And all their songs are sad. GKC, The Ballad of the White Horse

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I like this painting: > Behold the Demon: Nietzsche as Destroyer ~ The Imaginative Conservative https://t.co/eupy5hoPkc > — Bradley J. Birzer (@bradleybirzer) March 16, 2019 [https://twitter.com/bradleybirzer/status/1107020157245931522?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Friday

Brews You Can Use Whew. The onslaught continues. Work flows in faster than urine through a frat boy. I need a lots of drinks. I'm only part-way through it, but this episode of Our Fake History is pretty good so far: Episode #84 ”“ What Was the Vodka War?

Thursday

> “I'm Dominating” pic.twitter.com/e3wzzal947 [https://t.co/e3wzzal947] > — The Weekly Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) March 6, 2019 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1103290798874021888?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Wednesday

Birthday Rambling Yup, it's my birthday. Happy birthday to me. All the great saints are commemorated today: Gerald of Mayo, Roderic, Solomon of Spain. Giants, all of us. It's been a terrible birthday week. I don't know what my problem is, but I'

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Feast Day of Gregory the Great today. I've read very little, if any, of his works. It's definitely a lacuna in my learning. According to his Wikipedia, pretty much everyone recognizes him as a saint: the Orthodox, Anglicans, even some Lutherans. A client was

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Whew. Late winter blitz at the office. The phrase of the work week: catch as catch can. The fever pitch flurry of projects is numbing. Fortunately, none of it is particularly stressful, and all of it pays, so I shrug and shoulder through long hours that take me

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Surely, the anti-Social Justicers at 4Chan could meme this into something hilarious: > TIL that koalas have one of the smallest brains in proportion to body weight of any mammal. They are so dumb, that when presented with leaves on a flat surface instead of on branches, they are unable

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> The free market and free society don't pretend to solve all problems. They just prevent famine and tyranny. All the other effects of the Fall are still with us, and are for the Church (including every baptized Christian) to solve. > — John Zmirak (@JZmirak) March 9, 2019

Friday

Brews You Can Use This is interesting: A massive malted barley facility is moving to an area 40 minutes east of me [https://www.marketscreener.com/ANDERSONS-INC-8374/news/Andersons-Investment-group-Andersons-team-up-for-malted-barley-facility-28117117/] . Maybe I should get into the barley-growing business. Unfortunately, I don't have the space, but I am still mulling

Thursday

Stoicism The Stoics did not have the benefit of Christian revelation. Stoicism has been called the “porch” of Christianity. Its resignation and detachment take a person to the threshold of Christianity, but don't take him all the way into the house. Although the Stoics taught belief in a

Ash Wednesday

Someone once asked a monk what they do all day in the monastery. The monk replied, "We fall down and get up, fall down and get up." It's an apt description of every earnest life, especially during Lent, which might be called "the layman'

Ten Things that Struck Me About Miami

Miami is pretty wild. I was shocked by the Hispanic influence. Heck, you can't even call it "influence." The place is, culturally-speaking, a foreign country, no exaggeration. Every person in my group that I spoke with said they felt like they were in, say, Guatemala or

Tuesday

From the Notebooks Black magic increased during the late middle ages, and not just in the imaginative zeal of inquisitors. "There is ample evidence that witch beliefs and practices did exist and that [the social pressures of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries] worked to increase the actual level of

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Things have been a whirlwind since returning from Miami. I was able to produce the podcast, which you can listen to here [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2019/3/1/episode-24-miami-the-historical-buildup-to-akempis-and-miami-beach] or below, but the Show Notes are pretty lame: > The Imitation of Christ. What do I

Art Deco Saturday

The filming scene of the famous hotel chainsaw scene in Scarface is now a CVS: > pic.twitter.com/usWwvc8Zpd [https://t.co/usWwvc8Zpd] > — The Weekly Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) February 25, 2019 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1100078685401612290?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] > pic.twitter.com/4olKIMezsL [https://t.co/

Friday

BYCU: Mojito Man Welcome to March. That's a reason for a celebratory drink or two. Of course, we have record lows coming in a few days . . . Whew. Miami was tough on Mr. Liver: mojitos and gin and tonics. I've been detoxing all week. I haven'

Thursday

Look Homeward, America, Bill Kauffman. ISI Books, 2006. Strong, deep, readable, desperate, fun. All those adjectives–even those that trip over one another–fit this book. It's such a good book, it made me want to quit writing. “If someone like Kauffman, with his erudition and talent, isn&

Twitter Wednesday

> When political correct ideology trumps reason and seeps into our culture you end up with silly headlines like this. The fact is, regardless of my opinion about my biological gender, age, ethnicity, family lineage, personal history, etc...they simply are what they are. https://t.co/o1PWAMnR8p > — Fr.

Tuesday

Miami Rambling Before I do the Miami rambling, please note that I was able to get a podcast episode into the pipeline before I left. You can listen to it below. You can find the show notes here [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/blog/2019/2/17/episode-23-dumplin-defecating-in-public-seinfeld-and-entertainment-in-the-abyss] . Miami is pretty

Monday

I returned from Miami Beach today. It was bachelor party weekend for my future son-in-law. Here I am, crashed yesterday at the remarkable Wynwood Walls Urban Graffiti art exhibit in Miami [http://www.thewynwoodwalls.com/]. Regular blogging resumes tomorrow. You can find more Tweeted pics at The Weekly Eudemon Twitter

Saturday

> Remembering The Road to Serfdom (essay by Bradley J. Birzer) https://t.co/SIbpol4R2z > — ImaginativeConservat (@imaginativecons) February 19, 2019 [https://twitter.com/imaginativecons/status/1097971637704642560?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Friday

Yikes, this sounds awful: > Arriving fingers crossed tomorrow (8.2.19) New Lemon Grass Gin #excited [https://twitter.com/hashtag/excited?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] #free [https://twitter.com/hashtag/free?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] #tasting [https://twitter.com/hashtag/tasting?src=hash&

Thursday

From the Notebooks Every form of state action has the effect of reducing human cooperation. If the state will take care of it, why meet my buddy at the end of the street to take of that flooding problem that's hurting our lawns? If the state will take

Wednesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Shew. Crazy days. Lots going on . . . on all fronts. I'm also sensing spring in the air. Marie says I'm hopelessly optimistic when it comes to spring, but I can sense it. I tell you, I can sense it. A man died after catching fire

Tuesday

It's not the urbane humor I fancy myself bringing to TDE, but it cracked me up: > Home Depot 'bomb threat' turns out to be man warning of 'blowing up' bathroom https://t.co/FMRe4tsOf4 via @local4news [https://twitter.com/Local4News?ref_src=twsrc%

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling The new podcast is up: Episode 22: History of the Old Testament in 8 Minutes, Gin and Tonics, Three Ho-Hum Derrida Conclusions [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2019/2/16/episode-22-history-of-the-old-testament-in-8-minutes-gin-and-tonics-three-ho-hum-deconstructionist-conclusions] . Show Notes: The Old Testament. I summarize the OT in about eight minutes. The segment is closer

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> Ocasio-Cortez Declares Victory Over The Modern-Day Equivalent Of Slavery: Jobs https://t.co/xZQBTG0nvP pic.twitter.com/KsW5d0Ttpp [https://t.co/KsW5d0Ttpp] > — The Babylon Bee (@TheBabylonBee) February 15, 2019 [https://twitter.com/TheBabylonBee/status/1096465412277952512?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Friday

Yup, they have a point: > You might be cool, but you'll never be Frank-Sinatra-stepping-out-of-a-helicopter-with-a-cocktail-cool. #goals [https://twitter.com/hashtag/goals?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] pic.twitter.com/LseXgbdIEn [https://t.co/LseXgbdIEn] > — Drunken History (@DrunkenHistory) February 10, 2019 [https://twitter.com/DrunkenHistory/status/

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling The nineteenth-century glory of Catholicism rises to sainthood: Pope Francis approves canonization of John Henry Newman [https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/pope-francis-approves-canonization-of-john-henry-newman-34200] . I read that article yesterday, shortly after reading a series of Drudge splash headlines about the new expose book on homosexuality in the Vatican: Explosive new

Twitter Wednesday

> Oh sure she gets tenure at Cambridge and a BBC interview, and when I take off my clothes to protest the long line at the Walmart checkout I get another 3 days of psychiatric monitoringhttps://t.co/6zXTey9oHQ > — David Burge (@iowahawkblog) February 12, 2019 [https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling Interested in listening to The Weekly Eudemon but aren't sure where to start? My 20-something kids tell me these are the ones to try: Episode 17: Nock, Deconstructing the Family, Mindfulness [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2019/1/12/episode-17-nock-deconstructing-the-family-mindfulness] Episode 12: Midget Wrestling in

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling New podcast posted: Episode 21: Sex in the Stall, Deconstructionism on Display, Gay Gnostics, Joseph Epstein [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2019/2/8/episode-21]. Show notes: Sex in the Stall. A couple allegedly has sex in the bathroom stall at a NFL games. That's unbelievably

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> These icicles that froze orange because of the sap concentration in the tree... [https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/aopm0y/these_icicles_that_froze_orange_because_of_the/] from r/mildlyinteresting [http://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting]

Friday

Brews You Can Use Slow drinking news out there these days. There's this: Hill Farmstead Named Best Brewery in the World (Again): For the fifth year in a row, this Vermont brewery takes the top spot. [https://www.thedailymeal.com/drink/hill-farmstead-best-brewery-world/013119] And this news about the

Thursday

Rambling Hey, quick reminder. I appreciate it if you use the Amazon links here or at The Weekly Eudemon "Show Notes" page [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/blog/2019/2/2/episode-20] to enter Amazon. The royalties help keep me motivated . . . then again, depending on your perspective, that might

Twitter Wednesday

> If the Pope were to deny Christ publicly, there would be at least one theologian - and probably many more - who would find a way to create an illusion of 'developmental continuity' with previous Church teaching. > — Radical Catholic (@RadicalCath) February 5, 2019 [https://twitter.com/

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Spring neareth. I walked in 50-degree weather yesterday . . . drizzling rain, but 50 degrees. It felt great. I also got my first trays for transplanting under the lights last weekend. I planted 32 cells with snapdragon seeds for Abbie's wedding in early June, and I planted 32

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling New podcast episode posted: Episode 20: Fulton Sheen, Modernity as Gnosticism, an Apologia [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2019/2/2/episode-20-fulton-sheen-modernity-as-gnosticism-an-apologia] . Show notes: > Fulton Sheen. Bishop, Emmy award winner, adviser to the rich and famous, and making serious inroads to canonization thanks to a stunning 2010

Amen

> We condemn this radical and extremist law in the strongest possible terms. https://t.co/wblOc44HkT > — First Things (@firstthingsmag) February 1, 2019 [https://twitter.com/firstthingsmag/status/1091366816901820416?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Friday

Marie saw this last week while was in Denver. She now has the distinction of being (surely) one of the few people who have seen Cheers from the inside and out. We saw the outside of Cheers last September while in Boston. I loved that show. I remember one of

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling The cold blast continues. I ginned it off last night, now I'll use it to blast off my hangover this morning. I suspect I shiver it off on my trip to the office in a few minutes. This is interesting: "A growing body of research

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> What does the #PolarVortex [https://twitter.com/hashtag/PolarVortex?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] look like from space? This satellite image was taken over the U.S. Midwest and Great Lakes regions. Stay warm out there. https://t.co/X0tS0h7PWB > 📸 NOAA pic.twitter.com/67FwVQBndC

Wednesday

Midweek Rambling Coldageddon arrives. Today's high: Minus 12. Accompanied by wind. I've never seen it like this. I went for a walk last night after work, enjoying the seven degrees and stiff wind, telling myself I was walking in Antarctica. It was fun for the first

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Whew. Winter Hell Week. Minus 20 tomorrow. That'll be the coldest I've ever felt. I'm kind of looking forward to it. Man, Dante needs to come up with another circle of hell for these folks: People robbed of winter coats at gunpoint

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling The new podcast is up: Episode 19: Introverts, Deconstructionists, and Gnostics [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2019/1/26/episode-19-introverts-deconstructionists-and-gnostics] . It's one of my favorites, even if the deconstructionist piece gets a bit thick at points. Show notes: > Introverts. An introvert is not a shy

Saturday

I've always enjoyed walking, even as a kid, and I've always found it puzzling (and revolting) how suburban planners after WWII totally jettisoned the feet in favor of cars when they laid out their communities. > This Suburb Won't Become a Pedestrian Paradise | The

Friday

This is great to see. I received a bottle of this stuff for Christmas. I haven't tried it yet. 92 Proof. Yowza. > I found this gin through this board and it has quickly become my favorite [https://www.reddit.com/r/Gin/comments/aj3j0o/i_found_this_

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More from St. Phillips. The mind boggles: > “I asked the young man this question. I'll ask you the same thing”¦Should you have walked away?” @savannahguthrie [https://twitter.com/SavannahGuthrie?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] to Nathan Phillips > “That's what I was trying to do.

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling A long week nears its end. I've been covering for a partner at the office and my domestic partner (Marie) at home. Marie returns shortly from Colorado, where she is getting my daughter, Abbie, situated in Denver to take graduate classes in theology at The Augustine

Wednesday

Midweek Rambling Tom Woods takes apart the Covington Catholic "news" coverage [https://www.lewrockwell.com/2019/01/thomas-woods/the-truth-about-that-native-american-man-and-those-students/] . I didn't realize Phillips claimed the boys were chanting "Build the wall." I've read enough coverage on both sides of the issue to

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> MUST WATCH: This @TuckerCarlson [https://twitter.com/TuckerCarlson?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] monologue calling out famous adults who put the Covington Catholic High School boys in danger, some even fantasizing about assault & murder, is one of the best he's ever done. pic.twitter.com/xQYGcYyihG [https:

Tuesday

Back in the 1970s, I remember my older brother commenting on a famous basketball player's face, "Man, he has the kind of face you just want to punch." Shift 40 years later to the Washington DC March for Life: Man, that kid has the kind of

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling The new podcast is up. Mass Touching, Austen, Marshall McLuhan, Gnosticism [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2019/1/19/episode-18-mass-touching-austen-marshall-mcluhan-gnosticism] . Show Notes: Touching During Mass. Enough already. Enough with shaking hands, too, at least during the cold and flu season. That custom has ran its course. Today'

Saturday

Max and Tess are out there. Tess snapped this pic: > From March for Life pic.twitter.com/P9PiyWKVuG [https://t.co/P9PiyWKVuG] > — The Weekly Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) January 18, 2019 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1086371762516971521?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Friday

Brews You Can Use I've never been a fan of the Bloody Mary. Primarily, because I detest tomato juice so I've never even tried it. But it's still an American classic, and this article contains a handful of neat facts that are worth checking

Thursday

Amen to this. It baffles me that people refuse to acknowledge that, if the priest has 30 minutes, and there are ten people in line, and you take up 20 minutes, other people don't get the sacrament at all. And it baffles me that people don't

Wednesday

Theology on Tap, New Gardening Product, Tolkien Max is going to grow seedlings to order this spring: You place your order with him; we'll grow it for delivery at the date you request. You then pay for it and transplant it. All non-GMO all the time; organic. For

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Halfway through January. We're getting there. My gardening finger is getting itchy. If yours is too and you're looking to start seeds indoors, check out products by Bootstrap Farmer. They're a little more expensive, but far better than anything else on the

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling The new podcast is up [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2019/1/12/episode-17-nock-deconstructing-the-family-mindfulness] . It starts with a review of The Mind and Art of Albert Jay Nock, an unlikely book that makes my Top 50 books of all time. The Show Notes: The Mind and Art of

Good Advice for Sunday

> “Work destroys your soul by stealthily invading your brain during the hours not officially spent working.” Nassim Taleb pic.twitter.com/spxoAGaoEN [https://t.co/spxoAGaoEN] > — The Weekly Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) January 13, 2019 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1084457150695522305?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

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> Kraków Old Town in the historic central district of Kraków, #Poland [https://twitter.com/hashtag/Poland?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]. pic.twitter.com/FoGvwwdxFL [https://t.co/FoGvwwdxFL] > — European Beauty (@MagicalEurope) January 5, 2019 [https://twitter.com/MagicalEurope/status/1081610106868060162?ref_src=twsrc%

Friday

BYCU The Brutal Hammer of Truth [http://brutalhammer.com/] continues to crank out a study supply of BYCU stories: Interesting piece: the demise of the hotel mini-bar [http://www.traveller.com.au/at-19-for-a-thimble-of-whisky-noone-in-their-right-mind-uses-a-hotel-minibar-h19veg] . Basically, it appears to come down to this: Hotels charge such outrageous prices for the drinks, no

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling I guess LeBron made a reference to Jewish people and their supposed wealth and there was an outcry. This apparently happened during the holiday season, during which I was either indisposed or inebriated, so I missed it. I first read about it in last week's "

Wednesday

Midweek Rambling Whew. No energy these days. I think I had touch of stomach flu or something last week. I started feeling better on Sunday, then came down with a migraine on Monday. Yesterday, I was just kinda dragging all day, though I was able to log in a full

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling Kinder and gentler ink: "With cleveland.com's right-to-be-forgotten experiment, we are removing names from dated stories about minor crimes and other embarrassing news." Link [https://www.cleveland.com/metro/2019/01/fill-this-form-out-for-your-right-to-be-forgotten.html] . It's great to hear that I'll

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Well, now the holiday season is really over. Epiphany has come and gone. Marie is de-Christmasing the house today. A full work-week yawns in front of us. Oh well. Every season, whether of the calendar or our life, brings its blessings and curses. For me, I'm

Saturday

> Three of my kids at the FOCUS conference in Indianapolis: SEEK. Seen here with Fr. Nathan Goebel from Catholic Stuff You Should Know. > The two boys with Fr. Nathan are my sons, Michael and Jack. Daughter Abbie is two away from Jack (three away from Fr. Nathan). pic.

Friday

Brews You Can Use It was a bad Christmas for my liver. From December 22nd through December 31st, I'm guessing I went through over a fifth of gin and a little bit of beer. And now I'm threatening my liver with more punishment: I got all

Thursday

Mongol Christians Interesting Tweet last week: "When Mongols sacked #Baghdad in 1258 & killed almost all its residents, only lives of the city's Nestorian Christians was spared (they were asked to stay in their church)." Embedded Tweet below. There was a large Nestorian Christian contingent in

Wednesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Whew. Eleven days of drinking and hanging out and traveling and just in general screwing around comes to an end. I gotta say, I'm not disappointed. When I was a kid, the post-Christmas blues hit me pretty hard. These days? Not hardly at all. I welcome

Happy New Year

Regular blogging resumes tomorrow.

Monday

Happy New Year, everyone. Be careful out there tonight. > Episode 15: Autobiographical Holiday Ruminations https://t.co/iDQkngVFYJ > — The Weekly Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) December 31, 2018 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1079561550019678208?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] > Planned Parenthood Defends Bill Cosby: 'Sexual Assault Is Only 3% Of

Saturday

Detroit Another trip to Detroit Thursday. We spent yesterday downtown, exploring the sites. I continue to be impressed. This time, we ventured to New Center [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Center,_Detroit], taking the QLine from the Detroit River through the gut of Woodward Avenue for about two miles

Friday

Marie bought me this book [https://amzn.to/2AiimFB] for Christmas. I'm only 5% of the way through it, but so far, highly recommended. I've laughed out loud at least three times. Hungover: The Morning After and One Man's Quest for the Cure

Wednesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Little Kid: Santa gave me coal in my stocking last year. I tried to get even with him by putting out cookies laced with cyanide. That bastard found out and killed my dad." Wow: Witches now outnumber Presbyterians in the U.S. Link [https://sg.news.yahoo.

Wednesday

Another Christmas whizzes by. They're getting easier, though. I told my kids that, when they were little, we would finish opening presents and they'd all be standing there, wanting Marie and me to put together or play X, Y, or Z. We then had to play/

December 25th

"He is born poor, and he teaches us that happiness is not to be found in an abundance of earthly goods. He comes into the world without any ostentation, encouraging us to be humble and not to depend on the applause of men." Francis Fernandez

December 24th

“He rules the world with truth and grace.” –Isaac Watts ++ “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.” –Charles Dickens ++ “The Incarnation”¦illuminates and orders all other phenomena, explains both our laughter and our logic, our fear of the dead and our knowledge

Episode 14 Posted

Link to Episode [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2018/12/22/episode-14-pagan-practices-in-christianity-the-jesus-prayer-autobiographical-tao] . Link to Show Notes [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/blog/2018/12/22/episode-14-pagan-practices-in-christianity-the-jesus-prayer-autobiographical-tao] : Next Week: I plan on producing a podcast next week, over the holidays, but it'll probably be unusual fare. Sol Invictus. No, Christmas

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> "As an event in the history of war, the Christmas Truce of 1914 is barely a footnote; it had no major effects on the fighting or outcome of World War I. But in the history of peace, the truce is a powerful story." https://t.co/e249ImCDwg

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Tech troubles these past two days. Frustrating, but hey, it's the season not to get frustrated. Just this nifty pic today. Enjoy your weekend. The beverage forecast is splendid on my end.

Thursday

The Stretch Rambling A handful of days to go. All kids are home except one, and we expect him to appear late tonight or tomorrow morning. Relevant Radio's "The Inner Life" had a pretty good show on Tuesday (12/18/2018), giving practical spiritual advice for

Wednesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Freaked out by the stock market and what it portends? Don't forget what the economist Paul Samuelson said, "The stock market has correctly forecasted eight of the last four recessions." Not an exact quote, but close . . . and funny. I read last weekend that a

Tuesday

Did I say work would start slowing down? I'm an idiot. Just this today: > I thought the Left wanted to get rid of Barbie because it objectifies women. Now they want Barbie to objectify lesbian women too? I'm so confused. https://t.co/PvNjsbSjsk >

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Christmas neareth. Far out. This coming week is typically my favorite time of the year: work starts to slow down, older kids start to return home. Unfortunately, my week got off to a rough start Saturday night. I attended Mass in a neighboring village and an older man

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> The results of statist socialism, how democrats are eager to get behind this is beyond me [https://www.reddit.com/r/Anarcho_Capitalism/comments/a6jd1u/the_results_of_statist_socialism_how_democrats/] from r/Anarcho_Capitalism [http://www.reddit.com/r/Anarcho_Capitalism]

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> Please do all you can to get word out about this, folks. https://t.co/gVkH2kJ5EK > — Eric Metaxas (@ericmetaxas) December 14, 2018 [https://twitter.com/ericmetaxas/status/1073727759506132992?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Friday

Brews You Can Use The liver quaketh. Three holiday parties over the next eight nights. And that doesn't include the impromptu parties that are likely to accompany the return of my older children that commences next week. These are fine times. My liver be danged! Wow, the West

Thursday

> If God is dead, somebody is going to have to take his place. It will be megalomania or erotomania, the drive for power or the drive for pleasure, the clenched fist or the phallus, Hitler or Hugh Hefner. > — Malcolm Muggeridge (@malmuggeridge) December 6, 2018 [https://twitter.com/malmuggeridge/

Wednesday

St. Stan Totally random, but: You ever read about Stan Musial? Man, the guy was practically a saint, it would seem. A few entries from Wikipedia [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stan_Musial]: > Even though Musial left [his hometown of] Donora after high school, he retained close ties to

Tuesday

Big Boxes, Stylites, Moon Deniers Theodore Dalrymple inveighs against supermarkets [https://www.takimag.com/article/a-regime-of-bread-and-circuses/]. He's lives in England. I think the proper American translation throughout the article is "big box stores" in lieu of "supermarkets." From Terrible Ted: > I dislike supermarkets

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling The new podcast episode is up: Episode 12: Midget Wrestling in Detroit, Manliness, FOCUS, Post-Modernism [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2018/12/9/episode-12-midget-wrestling-in-detroit-manliness-focus-post-modernism] . Other links: iTunes [https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-weekly-eudmon/id1438354210] Stitcher [https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/eric-scheske/the-weekly-eudemon-2] Tune In [https://tunein.com/

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> Christmas in Poland vs Christmas in Germany. The difference can't be bigger! pic.twitter.com/utmnhjrorx [https://t.co/utmnhjrorx] > — Voice of Europe 🌐 (@V_of_Europe) December 6, 2018 [https://twitter.com/V_of_Europe/status/1070764219174436865?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Friday

BYCU Whew. Midget wrestling put the screws to me Thursday morning. I don't think I'm going much drinking this weekend, but that doesn't mean y'all won't be enjoying the secular side of the season, so here goes . . . I found this

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> Detroit is continuing its rise from the ashes pic.twitter.com/WengmST05O [https://t.co/WengmST05O] > — The Weekly Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) December 6, 2018 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1070715825202622464?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Thursday

Great night with the boys. I'm moving a bit slowly this morning, but everyone made it back in one piece. More on Extreme Midget Wrestling in future posts and the podcast. > pic.twitter.com/TxC7FsUPWq [https://t.co/TxC7FsUPWq] > — The Weekly Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) December 6, 2018

Wednesday

Midweek Rambling Extreme Midget Wrestling in Detroit tonight. I feel a little bit like I'm veering into St. Augustine' condemnation of blood sport . . . or maybe just veering into juvenile immaturity. But I'm going with my four sons and a Godson. First stop: Greektown for dinner

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Amazon [https://amzn.to/2Pk6RlL]. Ridiculous: 63 percent of 'non-citizens' on welfare, 4.6 million households [https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/census-confirms-63-percent-of-non-citizens-on-welfare-4-6-million-households] . If we're going to make our country open to immigrants, it's axiomatic that they cannot receive welfare. If they'

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling New podcast is up: "Onanism, Off-Color Humor, Seventh Century, Taoist Anarchy." Itunes link [https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-weekly-eudmon/id1438354210] . Youtube link [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qj2d4UzEnlI]. TWE Site link [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2018/12/1/onanism-off-color-humor-seventh-century-taoist-anarchy] . Show Notes [https://www.

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> Stunning assortment of riot pictures: Paris clean-up begins: Graffiti is removed from Arc de Triomphe https://t.co/tD2uPXSjf8 via @MailOnline [https://twitter.com/MailOnline?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] > — The Weekly Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) December 3, 2018 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1069398538759614464?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

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> In New Book, Pope Francis Addresses Homosexuality and the Clergy https://t.co/4qsTTvEJgF @NCRegister [https://twitter.com/NCRegister?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] > — Edward Pentin (@EdwardPentin) December 1, 2018 [https://twitter.com/EdwardPentin/status/1068872379961618432?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Friday

Brews You Can Use I made my annual trip to Trader Joe's last weekend to buy "unique" products for client baskets and office presents. I saw for the first time wine in a can: Simpler Wines [https://www.traderjoes.com/digin/post/simpler-wines]. I haven'

Thursday

Midweek Rambling AMAZON LINK [https://amzn.to/2P7m0qc]. The business conference I attended two weeks ago said the entire Internet is going video: no one reads any more or, if they do, they won't be shortly. In order to get your content noticed, it must be on video.

Wednesday

Midweek Rambling Thanks for the Amazon support. Please continue to access Amazon through TDE [https://amzn.to/2r6Oh6C]. It's not a big deal to me, but the thought and extra beer money is appreciated. Speaking of Amazon, a lot of "uncontacted peoples" in the world live

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling I was stunned/shocked to hear Bishop Morlino died. I only spent one evening with him, but I considered him a friend . . . and a fellow traveler. Needless to say, the Church lost a stalwart who was willing to call things like they are. It's a terrible

Monday

ENTER AMAZON HERE FOR CYBER MONDAY DEALS. THANKS! [https://amzn.to/2TEcQVE] New podcast episode posted yesterday: Black Friday, Puritanizing Marijuana, Poustinia, Fools for Christ [https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-weekly-eudmon/id1438354210]. I had to rush a bit, so it's not my favorite episode, but neither am

Saturday

Rambling Please support The Daily Eudemon and its podcast by accessing Amazon through the various links you'll find here or at eudemonpodcast.com [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/]. The commissions from Amazon during the holidays pay my independent website hosting costs, which allows me to justify this little hobby

Friday

On Black Friday Welcome to Black Friday, an infamous day that I have long railed against but one that grows on me for three reasons: 1. The cynical side of me recalls Albert Jay Nock's "revelation" that he shouldn't be disgusted by the bum

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Happy Thanksgiving

“Thanksgiving Day originated in New England when the Puritans realized they had succeeded in exterminating their neighbors, the Indians, instead of getting exterminated by their neighbors, the Indians.” Mark Twain “Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.” Samuel Johnson “Beggar that I

Wednesday

Brews You Can Use: Special Black Wednesday Edition Black Wednesday arriveth. The biggest bar night of the year. The Top 10 Reasons Black Wednesday is The Drinking Night: 10. College kids return home. 9. Elementary school kids have only a half day. 8. Four days to recover from the hangover.

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Day Four of absolute sobriety. Black Wednesday looms. It's possibly my favorite night of the year. I hope to have a BYCU Special Edition post tomorrow. This story didn't surprise me: For the first time, researchers say Facebook can cause depression [https://www.marketwatch.

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Shew. Long week . . . and now jet lag. They say it takes one day for every time zone difference to recover. Las Vegas is three hours behind us, so it sounds like I won't recover until Tuesday. I'll be recovered just in time for Black

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By way of dispensation from the Vatican, the Las Vegas Cathedral can hold its Saturday vigil Mass at 2:30 PM: > Interesting. I would've to have heard the discussion in Rome pic.twitter.com/3gNXVT7BJ7 [https://t.co/3gNXVT7BJ7] > — The Weekly Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) November 16, 2018

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Per the suggestion in the comments box, I scoped out the stained glass windows at the Las Vegas Guardian Angel Cathedral. Sure enough, at the front, to the right of the altar, kinda hidden from regular view, is stained glass with Vegas casinos: > Stained glass window at Las Vegas&

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> Christmas at The Wynn pic.twitter.com/39XfMlWYLM [https://t.co/39XfMlWYLM] > — The Weekly Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) November 14, 2018 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1062541746951733249?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

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View from hotel [https://twitter.com/thedailyeudemon/status/1062354783091089408?s=21]

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling This will be my last "real" post until next week. I have to go to Las Vegas on business. Yes, it's real business. I'm going on behalf of a client and have a pretty full schedule. Oh sure, there will be down

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> All episodes of The Weekly Eudemon will soon be available on Youtube https://t.co/pHGmO9c32O pic.twitter.com/A8GQcJm7hc [https://t.co/A8GQcJm7hc] > — The Weekly Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) November 11, 2018 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1061715770500149248?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

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> America 1913 roads with no income tax [https://www.reddit.com/r/Libertarian/comments/9w0pgr/america_1913_roads_with_no_income_tax/] from r/Libertarian [http://www.reddit.com/r/Libertarian]

The Good Stewards

> Thanks you gentlemen. #Heroes [https://twitter.com/hashtag/Heroes?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] pic.twitter.com/tB5qvUTpzT [https://t.co/tB5qvUTpzT] > — You Had One Job (@_youhadonejob1) November 9, 2018 [https://twitter.com/_youhadonejob1/status/1060901240291373057?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Friday

Brews You Can Use I sat down with a bottle of wine and my miniature Big Carl glass last night to start this post. It'd been awhile since I drank wine. It went down smoothly. I have a small headache this morning, but nothing bad. I felt good

Thursday

Longevity People are healthiest in the blue zones. The top five: Sardinia, Okinawa, Nicoya (Costa Rica), Loma Linda (the country of California), and Ikaria (Greece). Link [http://time.com/5160475/blue-zones-healthy-long-lives/]. What do people in blue zones have in common? Lots of constant activity: > They live in environments that

Wednesday

Well, very good night for the Democrats. Plus 32 in the house was a huge victory, but minus 3 in the Senate tarnishes it. Blue wave? Nah. Blue wavish perhaps, but no wave. It's more troubling that very left-wing candidates are gaining traction. History repeats itself. We have

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling If you haven't heard, it's election day. Get out and vote. The more people that vote, the more people that vote. Somehow, that's supposed to be a good thing, though for the life of me, I can't figure out

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Well, a good weekend comes to a close. Middle daughter, Meg, placed 12th at the state cross-country meet on Saturday, garnishing her attention from an assortment of D1 and D2 colleges. Michigan rolled over the Pedophiles at State University, a program that shouldn't even exist in

Saturday

> "This is THE most flawed way we could POSSIBLY rank college football teams and it's that flawed by a wide margin."@JoelKlatt [https://twitter.com/joelklatt?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] sounds off on the CFP committee rankings: pic.twitter.com/SHixLFnntD [https://t.co/SHixLFnntD]

Friday

BYCU Well, I hope to be able to drink tonight. It's been a rough week, health-wise. Bad food poisoning Sunday night; 2.5 hours in a dental chair on Wednesday. I was barely among the living on Thursday, just going through the motions. I'm hoping to

Thursday

All Saints Rambling Well, trick-or-treating is over: 25 years. Over. And I must say: I'm okay with it. I thought I'd be melancholy, but I guess that, after hauling seven kids around for a quarter-century, I got my fill. I would've been happy to

Wednesday

> "Trump knows that immigration was the single most significant factor in his election. To maintain good standing with his constituency, he must stop that caravan." https://t.co/DXmakoeJvB > — The American Conservative (@amconmag) October 31, 2018 [https://twitter.com/amconmag/status/1057436997264887810?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Whew. Food poisoning Sunday night. It was rough . . . really rough. I started to recover late Monday morning, but I was groggy the rest of the day. At least it gave me a chance to clean my study/office/library/gardening-supply-center/recording studio. I'm lobbying Marie to

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Quite an eventful couple of days. I just found out that I'm being sent to Las Vegas next month on business, which is cool. I'm staying at the Wynn, which would typically lie beyond my cost range but due to logistics, that's

Saturday

> Russell Kirk's Ghostly Tales: Horror and Eternity (essay by Scott Beauchamp) https://t.co/rt81PwKRjL > — ImaginativeConservat (@imaginativecons) October 27, 2018 [https://twitter.com/imaginativecons/status/1056191353238052868?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] > Prayer silences the chattering of me-centered existence, which is essential for the intellectual life.https:

Monday

Brews You Can Use Unwind. Brutal week at the office. It promised to be a light week, but that promise was broken by Tuesday afternoon. After I rolled into my house at 11:00 on Wednesday night, I decided to work half days on Thursday and Friday. I crashed for

Thursday

Bullets Great, freakin' great: Dozens more breakfast foods test positive for trace amounts of weed killer [https://www.cnn.com/2018/10/24/health/breakfast-cereal-food-weed-killer-roundup/index.html] . Nifty piece. I might plug The Weekly Eudemon on all of them, just to see what happens. I suspect the users of

Wednesday

Midweek Rambling Wow, lots of speculations out there about The Caravan: Democrats are funding it, Soros is funding it, they're riding and not walking, Muslims have infiltrated it (reminding me of P.J. O'Rourke referring to people of a certain hard-to-distiguish skin color as "urine-colored

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Man, 7,000 immigrants marching toward America, although it seems pretty clear they know they won't be admitted. It's sad, and I gotta admit: I feel some guilt. If my history is accurate, Honduras was Ground Zero of the U.S. Banana Republics: countries

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling The new podcast is up. You can access it at The Weekly Eudemon podcast page: Zen, the "Fall" of Rome, Small Talk, Drinking with Commies, More [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2018/10/20/zen-the-fall-of-rome-small-talk-drinking-with-commies-more] . If you have an iTunes account, please subscribe to it and

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> Shorter @MassimoFaggioli [https://twitter.com/MassimoFaggioli?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] at @commonwealmag [https://twitter.com/commonwealmag?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]: "I've made a terrible discovery: Orthodox Catholics sometimes meet with each other and talk about politics without supervision. There are even rumors that they stand on

Friday

Brews You Can Use Well, LeBron led the Lakers with 26 points last night, but they lost in his debut. I've slowly warmed to LeBron over the years, even if he toes the BLM line on all things politics. This recent piece ratcheted him up a few levels

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> From Roof to Table, this Farm is Bringing Organic Vegetables to Brooklyn Residents https://t.co/FPd6noOHRn > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) October 17, 2018 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1052366903988113408?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

4Chan

As documented by Angela Nagle, the 4Chan universe is populated with reprobates with nary a shred of decency. And I love 'em. Their most recent campaign: Today's left as NPC players. There's too much background in the story for me to effectively recount it here.

Wednesday

Small Talk Small talk. I dislike it. It can be argued that it is part of the lubrication that keeps social wheels moving smoothly, but I'm not talking about cordialities ("Hi," "How are the kids doing?" etc.). I'm talking about extended conversations

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling I find out later today whether Tess' flowers survived the freeze. We have hundreds of flowers in the field. I brought in a handful last night so they wouldn't go to waste, but I fear this morning's freeze might destroy the many I

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling The new podcast episode is up [https://www.eudemonpodcast.com/the-weekly-eudemon/2018/10/10/zen-st-john-of-the-cross-toddler-torture] . My nephew owns a promotion business, so he got his voiceover guy to record a new introduction for me. You might recognize the voice. He's done voice acting work for quite

Saturday

It's possible, maybe possible, that Republicans have woken up and said, "You know what? Let's just start swinging back hard. Screw convention. Our opponents are completely unhinged at this point and can't be dealt with conventionally." The GOP hasn't had

Friday

BYCU "The question is: When they have naked dancers, how is it sanitary to eat food?" That's not a question I ask myself very often, but it's the focus of this article out of Toledo [https://www.13abc.com/content/news/Restaurant-Report-Card-Strip-Clubs-495136581.html] . The

Thursday

> Renew Catholic schools by giving them better names. I suggest using Eastern Marian titles. Who wouldn't love to send his kids to "Trauma of Demons Catholic Grammar School"? > — Bernard 🎃 Mulcahy (@FrBMulcahyOP) October 9, 2018 [https://twitter.com/FrBMulcahyOP/status/1049659828300328960?ref_src=twsrc%

Wednesday

Bullets *The new Little Caesars pizza app is pretty cool. You order from the app, wait until you get a push notification, go pick it up. I detest the "hot and ready" slogan when the pizza is never ready. It looks like those days are over. It will

Tuesday

Podcast Update Well, I've done it: I've started a "real" podcast, one in which I control the feed, can host show notes, etc. It took a large chunk of my day on Sunday, but the basic site is up and running. You can check

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Welcome to Columbus Day. Thanksgiving Day in Canada. Also the anniversary of the Fourth Ecumenical Council at Chalcedon, which was convened on this day in 451. I believe this was the nastiest of the councils, with monks rioting in the street in support of their respective sides. Think

Sunday

Call me "Humpty" > Okay this is a quality meme pic.twitter.com/AaXXa67GRl [https://t.co/AaXXa67GRl] > — I put the Don in Don't (@omgShutUpDon) October 3, 2018 [https://twitter.com/omgShutUpDon/status/1047466232700526594?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

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The Weekly Eudemon: 10.7.2018

Show Notes Primary Obligations: The emptiness of the 24/7 argument. Does modern libertarianism conflict with the Catechism? Early Rise of the Centralized State. A'Kempis and a Mild Critique of Libertarianism. St. Symeon the New Theologian. Drunks on Screen. Music: Used pursuant to the Creative Commons Noncommercial Sharealike

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> This is one reason that many Eastern Orthodox Christians find it hard to take the idea of reunification with Rome seriously: liturgical instability and what it means. https://t.co/infnz8oPrg > — Rod Dreher (@roddreher) October 5, 2018 [https://twitter.com/roddreher/status/1048248310304260098?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Friday

Brews You Can Use One of the more humorous drinking things I saw this week: Modern Drunkard Magazine's "Today's Reason to Drink" is now an Alexa Skill. Link [https://www.amazon.com/Modern-Drunkard-Todays-Reason-Drink/dp/B07817K38V/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-skills&ie=UTF8&

Thursday

Midgets to Seeds Alright, I may have scraped a new low: I bought tickets to see Extreme Midget Wrestling [https://extrememidgetwrestling.com/] in Detroit later this fall. All four sons wanted to go and were available to go, so I decided to make a men's night out of

Wednesday

Miscellaneous Rambling The FBI finishes its investigation today. I like David Stockman's angle, which pretty much says, "Everyone sucks." Excerpt, "]W]hy is the Senate of the United States (and now the FBI, too) wasting its time investigating the antics of a handful of party

Tuesday

From the Notebooks Black magic, the soul killing of Faustus, and political magic come together in abortion. Abortion contains it all. It reflects the ugliness of black magic. It preserves the career path of the Faustian. It's a tool in progressives' attempts to establish a better society

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Welcome to Saint Week, which is the introduction to Saint Month. Today, everyone's favorite saint: St. Therese Lisieux. Thursday, everyone's other favorite saint: St. Francis of Assisi. Other notables this week: Bruno, Thomas the Apostle, and your Guardian Angel. On Wednesday, our Eastern brethren

Saturday

Bullets Whew, I'm back off the wagon. The temperatures have plunged, and so has my dehydration level. I threw back a healthy number of drinks last night, and I feel pretty bad this morning, but it's a fitting hangover: I'm not on death'

Friday

Brews You Can Use I tuned in for about three minutes of the Kavanaugh testimony. It was hard to watch, but at least I got to see one Senator inquire in his youthful drinking exploits. That was enough for me to conclude it was all pomp and circusness. There were

Thursday

Circus Day C-SPan starts coverage at 9:45. I'm ashamed to admit, I wish I could watch . . . and I might end up streaming it from my computer at work for a little while. This is nothing but soap opera dressed up as politics. Or to draw from Russell

Wednesday

And More Rambling Wow, Der Spiegel is even turning on Pope Francis. Vatican Cardinal: Pope Francis Is 'Ice-Cold, Cunning Machiavellian' [https://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2018/09/24/vatican-cardinal-pope-francis-ice-cold-cunning-machiavellian/] > According to Der Spiegel, Francis, who started as a “brilliant reformer,” now threatens to squander his legacy because

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling I've long dabbled in 1960s history, but I'd never even heard of the Celebration of Life rock festival in McCrea, Louisiana, which turned into a festival of death. The gist of it appears to be, promoters were trying to make money at the

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling The newest episode of The Weekly Eudemon is posted. Autumn, The Virgin Eye, Magic, and More [https://anchor.fm/eric817/episodes/Autumn--The-Virgin-Eye--Magic--and-More-e29csf] . I spent a fair amount of time working on this episode, relearning Audacity to produce it. The content is no better, but the listening aesthetics should

Saturday

> "If this weren't true, this would be one of the most compelling horror stories you could ever see. Because it's true, it makes it really important we all see it and spread the word," - @glennbeck [https://twitter.com/glennbeck?ref_src=twsrc%

Friday

BYCU Welcome to the first day of fallthe eve of the first day of fall, my favorite time of year. I'm celebrating its arrival tonight. I want to have gin and tonic, but that's not a fall drink, so I might have Sam Adams' Octoberfest.

Thursday

Random Rambling Whew, brutal blitz these past nine days: four lunch meetings, funeral, overnight-obligation wedding, three tennis matches, an out-of-town cross-country meet, and a six-hour obligation in my service club's County Fair fundraiser. I think I'm done for awhile, though. It wasn't too bad,

Wednesday

From the Notebooks The historian of intellectual history, Frances Yates, wrote extensively about the realm of magical pursuits in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Yates pointed out that Renaissance magic–though characters like Ficino, Giordano Bruno, Campanella, and Cornelius Agrippa–reached its apex in the sixteenth century. But in 1614,

Tuesday

Kavanaugh I'm not saying teenage antics are irrelevant, but accusations that fall way short of rape that are 35 years old? Come on. And let's be honest: The pound-me-too shifted the social consciousness radically on such things. What would've been deemed acceptable antics in

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I think I've watched that Weather Channel video ten times now. Cracks me up every time. Whatta fraud. TWC said it wasn't fraudulent: the anchor (ironic name) was standing on wet grass and was tired. Ha. Derisible stuff. The video triggers an epistemology discussion

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> So dramatic! Dude from the weather channel bracing for his life, as 2 dudes just stroll past. #HurricaneFlorence [https://twitter.com/hashtag/HurricaneFlorence?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] pic.twitter.com/8FRyM4NLbL [https://t.co/8FRyM4NLbL] > — Tony scar. (@gourdnibler) September 14, 2018 [https://twitter.com/gourdnibler/

Saturday

> Interesting perspective https://t.co/WlL6Jokwo9 > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) September 14, 2018 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1040717525288402944?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Friday

Brews You Can Use I have a confession: I've never outgrown drunken hijinks. Sure, I don't have that many myself anymore, but my mind still guiltily goes back in time and recollects some of my more, ahem, immoderate antics and laughs. I honestly don't

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling Feast Day of the Golden Mouth [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Chrysostom]. Dostoyevsky, we hardly know thee: "A Domino's franchise owner in Russia offered customers 100 years of free pizza (max of 100 pies per year) if they got the Domino's logo

Wednesday

Rambling Great podcast at Econtalk: Solzhenitsyn, the Soviet Union, and In the First Circle [http://www.econtalk.org/kevin-mckenna-on-solzhenitsyn-the-soviet-union-and-in-the-first-circle/] . Econtalk is starting a reader's club and In the First Circle is the first book. The podcast is so good, I'm tempted to join the club, but

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Happy 9/11 Days. I avoid my parish as much as possible around this holiday, for reasons set forth here [https://catholicexchange.com/nine-eleven-days]. I don't know if we played the saccharine "I was there" God recording. I didn't feel like crying,

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Wow, Sweden turns right [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-sweden-election/anti-immigration-party-set-for-election-gains-as-sweden-swings-right-idUSKCN1LO0V6] . This would be like Keith Richards going Baptist. I didn't think any of the Scandinavian countries had a scintilla of virility or nationalist pride left. I would've expected a show of guts from

The Weekly Eudemon Show Notes: 9-9-2018 Episode

Boston, Dostoyevsky, Orwell, NFL Re: Boston. Miscellaneous things related to my trip to Boston. Mistake correction: All of my sons except Alex went to Southie. Alex was home sick. Dostoyevsky: I draw a parallel between A Writer's Diary and TWE . . . or rather, a non-parallel. Orwell: A tip to

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> A must-do: Sam Adams brewery tour pic.twitter.com/68VTXGqWZR [https://t.co/68VTXGqWZR] > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) September 3, 2018 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1036415123114614784?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Friday

Brews You Can Use Three Four cheers for Sam Adams brewery. 1. The Sam Adams Brewery Tour is a "must see" if you're in Boston. Our guide was practically a stand-up comedian. Funny as heck. And informative. Lots of interesting stuff. 2. Liberals are boycotting Sam

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling Econtalk has killed it again with another great podcast. Yoram Hazony on the Virtue of Nationalism [http://www.econtalk.org/yoram-hazony-on-the-virtue-of-nationalism/#delve-deeper] . The podcast brings it all to the table: echoes of Russell Kirk, explicit references to Edmund Burke, a healthy respect but also criticism for Austrian economics.

Wednesday

Miscellaneous Rambling The whole priestly abuse thing, a summary to date [https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/benedict-vigan-francis-and-mccarrick-where-things-stand-on-nuncios-allegations-42199] . Handy reference. Pope Francis, meanwhile, has asked those who seek division to opt for "prayer and silence." [http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/09/03/popes-remedy-to-those-seeking-scandal-prayer-and-silence.html] Part of me says

Tuesday

Boston Rambling We had a great whirlwind trip to Boston. Eldest daughter Abbie lives out there with her fiance. Aside: not with her fiance, dear reader, but with him like, "no other friends and family out there with them." She has her own place, about a mile from

Monday

Happy Labor Day. I just returned from a trip to Boston at 3:00 AM this morning. Just this for today.

Podcast

New Podcast Episode: The Weekly Eudemon Labor Day Edition [https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/the-weekly-eudemon].

Friday

BYCU Light blogging this holiday weekend, but you don't need any drinking material from me. Modern Drunkard Magazine has you covered: The Subtle Art of Beer Snobbery [https://drunkard.com/0105-beer-snobbery/?utm_content=buffer100a0&utm_medium=social&utm_source=app.net&utm_campaign=buffer] . Excerpt:

Thursday

The utopian/progressivist is often willing to sacrifice his spirit for the purpose of bringing about social change. This is the type of man Voegelin was talking about when he said “human beings who engage in this enterprise move away from the life of the spirit.” It needs to be

Wednesday

And More Rambling Feast Day of the Beheading of John the Baptist. Probably the most gruesome Feast Day. Another great Tom Woods podcast, btw: Laura Ingalls Wilder, Erased by Library Association, Deserves Her Place in Literary History [https://tomwoods.com/ep-1221-laura-ingalls-wilder-erased-by-library-association-deserves-her-place-in-literary-history/] . It's not as good as the interview

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling Later Addendum: Ignore the Tom Woods Show reference below. If you haven't heard it, you MUST listen to Fr. Richard Altier's 8/19/2018 homily [https://straphaelcrystal.org/homily/august-19-2018/]. I'd seen and heard references to it, but hadn't

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Wow, whatta weekend. The most iconoclastic president and pope in modern history start to wobble. (Link to Pope Francis cover-up story, if you haven't seen it yet [http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/ex-nuncio-accuses-pope-francis-of-failing-to-act-on-mccarricks-abuse] .) TDE readers know I'm no fan of Pope Francis, but I&

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> Who is Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò? The Nuncio that accused Pope Francis of covering up McCarrick's sexual abuse https://t.co/bPBQswJrWf via @taylorrmarshall [https://twitter.com/TaylorRMarshall?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) August 26, 2018 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1033775020147990528?ref_

Friday

BYCU Well, those Nuun hydration tablets seem to be doing the trick. I'm feeling almost normal. Of course, it might be the temperate weather we've been having, but regardless, I'll take it. I think I'm even going to fire up the gin

Thursday

> I appreciate ever more those ancient and medieval stories of priests and monks, upon learning that they were to be made bishops, fleeing to the woods or deserts. They understood what would be expected of them. How did getting a bishopric ever become a goal for so many clerics?

Wednesday

Rambling Shew. I'm working on little sleep this morning. A few years ago, I started having troubles falling back to sleep in the middle of the night. I found that attentive "holy listening" would quickly do the trick: I'd turn on Benedict Groeschel or

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling M-Cubed: My Man Morlino! You gotta check out his letter to the faithful [http://www.madisoncatholicherald.org/bishopsletters/7730-letter-scandal.html]. It's not the "pray for the victims" tripe other bishops who are stuck in the "business as usual" mode are producing.

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling A few more worthwhile pieces regarding the priest/bishop abuses. First: A lengthy open letter by Ralph Martin [http://www.renewalministries.net/wordpress/dear-troubled-catholics-a-letter-from-ralph-martin-about-the-current-crisis/] . He pretty much says directly what I think needs to be said: The Church has a huge homosexual problem and it's currently

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"According to a new study, roughly 20 percent of millennial parents have changed or seriously considered changing their baby's name based on what internet domain names were available at the time. "Don't make the same mistake my parents made," said Pornhub Collins."

Friday

Brews You Can Use Anniversary day today. I haven't been able to drink much, due to my dehydration (or whatever is ailing me these past two months). As a corollary, I haven't had much desire to things I normally do while drinking, like hanging out on

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling Why should the Catholic clergy have all the fun: "One of China's highest-ranking Buddhist monks quit as the head of the country's Buddhist association on Wednesday after facing a government investigation over accusations of sexual misconduct [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-harassment-religion/buddhist-monk-master-in-china-resigns-after-sexual-misconduct-allegations-idUSKBN1L00HR]

Wednesday

Hump Day Wednesday, Sorry for the Pun Another priest abuse scandal. Possibly the biggest. I've read only two articles about it so I'm hardly an expert, but this caught my eye: the only victim I saw quoted was 13 when the abuse occurred. For TDE readers

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling A friend sent an email of college football quotes. Among them: "I don't expect to win enough games to be put on NCAA probation. I just want to win enough to warrant an investigation." Bob Devaney. Devaney coached those legendary national championship teams

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Monday the 13th is worse than Friday the 13th. Just realized: I passed the 10,000-post mark a few weeks ago. Cheers to TDE. Of course, I have probably passed only the 500th good-post mark. Speaking of milestones: This Friday marks my and Marie's wedding anniversary.

Saturday

Abbie (eldest daughter) moved to Boston and is spending this weekend in New York. She was at Ellis Island. She sent me this picture, asking if this is why I rail against big government: I said, "Yup." Such mutual aid societies require people to work with each other,

Thursday

Bullets *Strange gardening story: 150-year-old tomato seeds found in old outhouse [https://m.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/oct/12/exchange-150-year-old-tomato-seeds-unearthed/] (they passed through Abe Lincoln contemporaries' digestive tracks). They still germinate. This picture [https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/95pcih/modern_tomato_vs_one_grown_from_150yo_seeds/

Wednesday

Midweek Rambling This article [http://thefederalist.com/2018/08/01/seinfelds-comedians-cars-welcome-respite-insufferable-wokeness-comedy/] does a pretty good job of summarizing why I like Jerry Seinfeld's charmingly-mundane Comedians In Cars Getting Coffee. It's not calculating in any way: it's not at all political, which is very nice

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Great episode of Econtalk came out recently: Frank Dikotter on Mao's Great Famine [http://www.econtalk.org/frank-dikotter-on-maos-great-famine/]. The idiocy and devilishness of central planning is on full display, from efforts to kill all the sparrows who are eating the grains (and thereby leading to a

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Like every working adult, I suppose, I live in quest of the perfect group of days. Days filled with a reasonable amount of work, un-rushed time for exercise and prayer, and leftover time for extracurriculars (in my case, gardening, reading, and hanging out with my kids). This, of

Saturday

Ah, okay, I think I can accept it now: "Death Penalty Still Permissible For People Who Drive Slowly In The Left Lane, Pope Francis Clarifies." > The decision has angered some conservative Catholics, who favor applying the death penalty in wider circumstances. “What about that guy who brings

Friday

Brews You Can Use This might be the feel-good piece of the young month: One drink a day might be enough to stop dementia by flushing the brain [https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23931893-400-one-drink-a-day-might-be-enough-to-stop-dementia-by-flushing-the-brain/] . You have to pay to subscribe to read the entire article, so I searched for similar

Thursday

Just this today: video of the produce site, as of Monday evening. The perimeters are buried (except the short east end, but that will hopefully be easy, if another load is strategically dumped by the wood chip guys). We now start burying individual beds and rows.

Wednesday

Miscellany Happy August. My youngest son (Max, of "MAXimum Greens") turns 15. Time marches on. Leftists want to change the Texas capital's name because Stephen Austin thought freed blacks would become vagabonds. American Thinker breaks it down [https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/07/the_pc_

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling Great idea: “Justice also requires that all of those in Church leadership who knew of the former cardinal's alleged crimes and sexual misconduct and did nothing be held accountable for their refusal to act thereby enabling others to be hurt." Bishop Michael Olson [https:

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Shew. It's been a whirlwind of activity since returning from Alpena. Mostly, garden stuff, but also work and family. Michael (#4) returned from a two-week mission trip to Mexico City, where he visited Our Lady of Guadalupe daily and played soccer with kids at the city

Saturday

> Alpena boardwalk, morning 7-26-2018 pic.twitter.com/KbIXIVoenf [https://t.co/KbIXIVoenf] > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) July 26, 2018 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1022497698770022401?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] I took my annual pilgrimage to Alpena, Michigan, returning Thursday evening. Alpena is a neat little city on the

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> "I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said." - William F. Buckley Jr. pic.twitter.com/p9xCN6JSZs [https://t.co/p9xCN6JSZs] > — Catholic Thinker (@ThinkerCatholic) July 27, 2018 [https://twitter.com/ThinkerCatholic/status/1022658836828704775?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

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Ah, yes, that would be a great channel: > A 24-hour Fast Food Brawl channel would probably stop me from cable cutting https://t.co/vCGIFL4f2T > — David Burge (@iowahawkblog) July 26, 2018 [https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/1022629631122391041?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Friday

I returned from vacation last night, greeted to news of a GDP blow-out and threatened bombings of Iran. For today, just this throwback to the Iranian hostage crisis:

Thursday

In his modern classic, The New Science of Politics, Eric Voegelin wrote about the tendency of modern political movements to throw the highest human efforts behind earthly progress and noted that the result is a sacrifice of the human spirit in exchange for earthly goods: “The more fervently all human

Wednesday

Black magic is similar to selling one's soul, a magical practice colorfully passed down through the centuries in the Faust legends and literature. Christopher Marlowe (1564-1593), Johann Goethe (1749-1832), and Thomas Mann (1875-1955) all told the Faust story. The stories, though distinct and expressing the writers' different

Tuesday

Black magic is substantively no different than ordinary magic. Both types of magicians are making a choice for earthly goods (power) and are willing to solicit/manipulate the supernatural to obtain the fruits of their choice. The black magician is set apart by the vehement suddenness and ugliness of his

Monday

Although the term "magic" has been defined differently, it is perhaps best defined as the practice of deliberately soliciting or directing the supernatural for purposes of obtaining power over the natural. "Supernatural" refers to a spiritual agent which can, or is believed to be able, to

Friday

Brews You Can Use The feel good drink story of the year: "This autumn, 61-year-old Shunsuke Takagi will launch his unique project, calling on welfare centers engaging in organic farming and using ingredients like barley and hops cultivated by those with disabilities to produce special regional craft beer."

Thursday

Conservatives have never been able to agree on a definition of conservatism. The historian of modern conservatism, George Nash, concluded that it is “misdirected” to try to formulate a definition of conservatism: “I doubt that there is a single, satisfactory, all-encompassing definition of the complex phenomenon called conservatism, the content

Wedneseday

From the Notebooks Shortly after arriving as an exile in the United States in 1974, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn offended his American guests by bemoaning the weakness and spiritual torpor of the West. Although he had previously admired the West and looked to it for salvation from Communism, upon arriving here he

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Dunkin' Donuts is partnering with Harpoon Brewery to release a coffee-infused beer. Not to be outdone, Four Loko is now partnering with heroin. Seth Meyers

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Hmmmmmm: "LaCroix, Sparkling Ice, Bai and beyond: Are fruit-flavored waters good for you? [https://flipboard.com/@flipboard/-lacroix-sparkling-ice-bai-and-beyond-ar/f-3c962de57b%2Ftoday.com] " I detest LaCroix, but my eldest daughter loves the stuff. Hi-Ball Energy is terrible. I like Bai, however. Are these things bad for you? The

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I hope my sardonic humor was evident Saturday. I don't really think my UP Michigan brethren are borderline retards. That was a joke. I was serious, however, when I said it's gorgeous, often unexplored, country, a land relatively untouched by human hands . . . or intelligence

Sunday

While two of my boys and I slave away at the produce site and farmers market, the other family members live it up. I guess I'll get over it: > Family separated for the weekend. Eldest Alex looking after my girls. pic.twitter.com/ovHMTuDHrd [https://t.co/

Saturday

The Weekend Rambler The picture accompanying this story [https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/greenland-iceberg-innaarsuit-1.4744782] is pretty wild: huge iceberg threatens small Greenland village. The concern is that, if it calves, it could cause a tsunami. A pretty freaking cold one, at that. No word on whether Trump

Friday

Brews You Can Use Two funnies for the bar tonight: (1) "My girlfriend says I'm a stalker. Well, she's not exactly my girlfriend yet." (2) "#me too" traditionally translates to "pound me too." Always something new under the entrepreneurial sun:

Thursday

Sign of the times: > New Game Show Gives Millennials A Chance To Eliminate Student Loan Debt https://t.co/Kp8YGCYFqK > — zerohedge (@zerohedge) July 12, 2018 [https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/1017228306016595969?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Wednesday

The Rambler Extreme embalming [https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/body-dead-teen-honored-extreme-embalming-posed-video-games-sunglasses-snacks-182105773.html] . I can't even begin to get my head around this enough to form an opinion. "[T]he body of taxi driver Victor Perez Cardona, a former cancer patient, was positioned in his cab – with his hands

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling It's Kavanaugh [https://spectator.org/judge-brett-kavanaugh-nominated-to-supreme-court/]. I told my son Jack when I first heard his name last week as the possible nominee, "I know nothing about him, but I can virtually guarantee you that he's a liberal Catholic, based merely on his

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Whew, the hot weather finally broke. My dehydration immediately improved, even though I started logging a lot more time at the produce site. We got our first crop of kohlrabi yesterday. We aren't sure how it'll sell, but it really did well in inclimate

Saturday

My apologies for not posting this morning. The farmer's market called. Max and Tess did well, bringing in well over $100. Popular: lettuce mix and sunflowers; pretty popular: cherry tomatoes and individual zinnias and cosmos. > "garrulousness, that unhealthy tendency to externalize all the treasures of the

Friday

Brews You Can Use It's hard to write about drinking when I'm on a self-imposed alcohol ban that would make a Baptist proud. Until I get over this dehydration, I can't drink. One drink pretty much puts me on my back with exhaustion and

Thursday

Rambling Well, given the way this season has gone, I guess it's only a matter of time until this beast makes an appearance at the produce site: "The giant hogweed is hard to miss. The monstrous plant towers up to 15 feet tall, with a crown of

Happy Fourth

A salute: > Timothy Matlack (May 28, 1736 ”“ April 14, 1826) was a brewer and beer bottler who emerged as a popular and powerful leader in the American Revolutionary War. Secretary of Pennsylvania during the war, and a delegate to the Second Continental Congress in 1780, he became one of

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling I'm afraid it's going to take a long time to convince me of this: "Compulsive video-game playing could be mental health problem." Link [https://m.medicalxpress.com/news/2018-06-compulsive-video-game-mental-health-problem.html] . And even if they can convince me that it's a

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling: Garden I'm back from my first summer vacation. It was short, just four days with the in-laws at Michigan's largest inland lake, Houghton Lake. It's not my favorite outing of the year, but I have a great set of in-laws who largely

Saturday

> Flowers are coming in nicely pic.twitter.com/4d2lWKKLUW [https://t.co/4d2lWKKLUW] > — MAXimum Greens (@GreensMaximum) June 30, 2018 [https://twitter.com/GreensMaximum/status/1013083727679901696?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Friday

BYCU I guess berry liqueurs are in high demand right now, but they're pricey. This site offers a plausible-looking recipe [https://www.starkbros.com/growing-guide/article/handcrafted-berry-liqueur-recipe] . Our first raspberries of the year are coming in, and the black raspberries that dot our neighborhood aren't far

Thursday

I've started following this guy. He's Tweeting about a profound problem that doesn't get nearly enough discussion: > 21 USC §§331, 333, 343 & 21 CFR §164.110(a) make it a federal crime to sell mixed nuts containing fewer than

Wednesday

From the Notebooks Russia came to Christianity late, in 988, but it came to philosophy even later, not producing its own original philosopher until the eighteenth century: Gregory Skovoroda (1722-1794). At the age of 43, Skovoroda, the self-proclaimed “Russian Socrates,” became a strannik, a wanderer, who spent the rest of

The Stranger: A Synopsis

The Stranger is a description of the last days of the narrator, a man named Mersault. Mersault is the mature Holden Caulfield. He goes through his life with little thought of others; primarily because he gives little thought to himself. He just goes about and lets the events of life

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling PSA: Keep hydrated. For about nine days, I was suffering from severe dizziness, lightheadedness, mild nausea, and headaches. I was afraid I might be having a stroke. I finally saw the doctor, who told me (kindly, but with a hint of disgust), "You're dehydrated. Start

Sunday

> Kids are going to grow up thinking: "I guess the Nazis were annoying. Apparently they wanted less immigration and some tariffs." > — Tom Woods (@ThomasEWoods) June 23, 2018 [https://twitter.com/ThomasEWoods/status/1010547044753334272?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Saturday

Miscellaneous Rambling In ten years of gardening, this has to be the worst weather ever. Late winter storm, followed by lots of heat, followed by rain and rain and rain. We got a little respite, then more Noah action, then beastly hot weather, then another flood the last two days.

Friday

Brews You Can Use Wow, I'd never heard or thought of this before: Pass a law that increases the price of booze so poor people can't afford it [https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-politics-44520991]. It's a new law in Wales and apparently parallels a

Thursday

This beautiful Twitter site relentlessly adds to the pain of watching Europe throw away its heritage: > The wealth of Roman architecture makes Pula (ancient Polensium) a standout in #Croatia [https://twitter.com/hashtag/Croatia?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] where you'll find a well-preserved Roman

Wednesday

Midweek Rambling Kinda interesting: Inside Amazon's $3.5 Million Competition to Make Alexa Chat Like a Human [https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/13/17453994/amazon-alexa-prize-2018-competition-conversational-ai-chatbots] . If you don't want to wait for the results, you can use the Alexa Blueprint Skill to customize your Dot&

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling The heat has been unbearable. Rain permitting, I hope to make it out to the produce site to see if the lettuce is bolting. I hope not. We're hoping for our first mega-harvest of the year. I was pleasantly surprised by the current performance by a

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Amen to that Nassim Taleb quote a posted yesterday. "[A]ny argument (such as the one now used for illegal immigration) that is supported by pictures/narratives of children is called PEDOPHRASTY. Actually, use of children should weaken an argument." I strongly agree. I'm

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> A reminder that any argument (such as the one now used for illegal immigration) that is supported by pictures/narratives of children is called PEDOPHRASTY. Actually, use of children should weaken an argument. pic.twitter.com/qZ7Qn5pHN2 [https://t.co/qZ7Qn5pHN2] > — Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) June 16, 2018

Saturday

Autobio Rambling Crazy week. My back molar split on Wednesday, necessitating an extraction. I then had to cover a lengthy client meeting Wednesday evening that didn't let out until after 9:30. I had to get up early in order to be in Detroit for a conference that

Friday

Brews You Can Use God willing, you're reading this after I spent a night of drinking at old haunts along South University in Ann Arbor [https://localwiki.org/ann-arbor/South_University] with Marie, Alex, and Abbie, then crashing at Abbie's before heading back to the second

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling Happy Flag Day . . . with the "L." The cover story in the current issue of Gilbert Magazine is about John Wu. Very good piece. I don't know a ton about Wu, but he holds that Taoism, Buddhism, and Confucianism were good seed beds for Christianity,

Wednesday

Midweek Rambling I read this at Reddit's Today I Learned page: "The budget for the original 1978 film Halloween was so small that the actor playing Michael Myers was paid $20 per day and the original Michael Myers mask was purchased at a local costume shop for

Tuesday

Normie Rambling I finally finished Kill All Normies. I enjoyed it, even if it was riddled with typos (it was rushed through the production process, the publishing house sensing, rightly, it would ring with the Trump election). If I had to summarize it: The Internet had a guy culture of

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Man: wet, wet, and more wet. Whenever I see this much wetness, I'm reminded of that character in CSL's Voyage of the Dawn Treader who comments, "“Ah, you've come over the water. Powerful wet stuff, ain't it?” From The

Saturday

Spring blitz. Annual family golf outing yesterday; four graduation parties today. Thankfulness is the hallmark of the fulfilled life, so even though I enjoy time to myself, I am thankful that enough people like this curmudgeon-wannabe to invite him out. Of course, maybe they just like Marie? I am thankful

A Brief History of Russian Religion and Culture

From the Notebooks Russia has always been a country that takes ideas and practices from the outside, then twists and turns them into something uniquely Russian. This tendency seems endemic to Russia, perhaps ingrained from its inception when its Slavic peoples continually expanded from the western side of the great

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling A loyal TDE reader sends this podcast along: A Good Story is Hard to Find [https://agoodstoryishardtofind.blogspot.com/p/the-library.html]. Playing off the name of Flannery O'Connor's famous, and really disturbing, short story [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Good_Man_Is_

Wednesday

Summer Rambling I've never been a "hobby guy," the kind of man who looks for things to do so he can get through this veil of tears without thinking about what's on the other side. The hobby guy, to me, is the poster child

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling This is an interesting piece: "10 Troubling Habits Of Chronically Unhappy People [https://www.forbes.com/sites/travisbradberry/2016/07/26/10-troubling-habits-of-chronically-unhappy-people/#20beb79b70f3] ." I'm happy to report, I suffer from fewer than half (probably two strongly and two weakly). It's a pretty

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Why aren't young people having children? This writer's primary explanation comes down to this: It's hard [https://www.ataraxik.com/2018/05/19/no-one-wants-kids/] . But the article has a bit more depth to it. A consistent theme runs through every point he

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> The Glorious Inefficiency of Local Bookstores (essay by Dean Abbott) https://t.co/I0vAcnDg3V > — ImaginativeConservat (@imaginativecons) May 27, 2018 [https://twitter.com/imaginativecons/status/1000534583274889216?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Saturday

Weekend Rambling I've started listening to The Joe Sikorra Show [https://relevantradio.com/listen/our-shows/the-joe-sikorra-show/] on Relevant Radio. I didn't try it in the past because its promotionals made it sound like he was an "over-the-top" loud character, of the ilk of Ray

Friday

Brews You Can Use This is one of the coolest drinking stories I've seen this year: Scientists are breaking down the chemistry composition of premium wines then adding the chemicals in the proper proportions to surplus wine they buy in bulk, creating a replica of the premium wine

Thursday

Commie Symp Rambling The forced acceptance of a massive Muslim invasion; the gag order on the British press surrounding Tommy Robinson; European press compliance with whatever Brussels dictates; a 180-degree turn in the mass culture with respect to homosexual activity. Something sinister has been afoot . . . and probably has been for

Wednesday

Miscellaneous Rambling TDE reader who knows I really dig Cedar Point sends this nuggest along: "Sandusky was a very German city in the late 1800s. Also was an Underground Railroad endpoint, to get on boats to Canada. Saw an article once that said Canadian blacks (never slaves) used to

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling I really like Netflix, but I'm afraid I'm going to have to cancel my subscription soon. Like all media outlets, it just can't leave the political button alone. American Thinker lays out some of the evidence [https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/

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> The Glorious Inefficiency of Local Bookstores (essay by Dean Abbott) https://t.co/I0vAcnDg3V > — ImaginativeConservat (@imaginativecons) May 27, 2018 [https://twitter.com/imaginativecons/status/1000534583274889216?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

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Bishop Bob Morlino, Bishop Ba Ba Morlino . . . > https://t.co/UDrd7qGX2h > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) May 27, 2018 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/1000689731947192321?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] Explanation of obscure reference:

Saturday

Holiday Weekend Rambling Whew. I think I dodged a bullet. I worked late last night, like I do every Friday of Memorial Day weekend, drinking gin and cleaning my office. I texted a friend of mine to see if he was available for a drink around 7:00. He didn&

Friday

Welcome to Summer BYCU I'm not a huge fan of Liquor.com, but sometimes, they suggest a recipe that looks too good not to try. This Summer Friday Cocktail [https://www.liquor.com/recipes/summer-fridays/#gs.LXMWeV4] is one of them. It sounds like a perfect way to

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling Freakin' Africa. Stupid, ignorant Africa: "More than 200 farmers from South Africa have applied for humanitarian visas in Australia after allegedly suffering attacks for being white, according to the Australian Home Affairs Ministry." Link [https://www.lewrockwell.com/2018/05/no_author/persecuted-white-south-african-farmers-seek-refuge-in-australia/] . So they&

Wednesday

Hump Day Rambling My home garden is almost finished. The side yard is looking nice (see pic below). I'm really hoping the poppy flowers I planted come in. They're "Jimi Purple Haze" poppies. I suspect I planted them a bit too late and may

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Memorial Day weekend is almost here. Marie and the kids abandon me for the weekend so they can go bird watching with Marie's family. I have the option of going, too, of course, but I'd rather slam my genitals in a car door, so

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I ran across a really cool program this weekend: Acorns [https://www.acorns.com/]. It's micro-investing. For just $1.00 a month, you can tie your credit card to the program and it will round up your spare change from credit card purchases and invest it.

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> Do not speak -- unless it improves on silence. – Buddhist proverb | | □∧◯ > — Zen Proverbs (@ZenProverbs) May 18, 2018 [https://twitter.com/ZenProverbs/status/997581900544921600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Saturday

Saturday Rambling I walk the pre-death tightrope all the time: Just let myself go and become irrelevant or try to stay engaged. Play the Zen master or read the newspaper. Use the garden to go Siddhartha-at-the-river [https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/s/siddhartha/summary-and-analysis/part-2-by-the-river] or look at how my

Friday

BYCU This is the best booze story of the week: Austrian man jailed up for glorifying Nazism after cops found "joke" Hitler-branded wine in his home [https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/austrian-man-locked-up-glorifying-12551158] . The man apparently thought some pro-Hitler bottles of wine were amusing, so he bought

Thursday

*My apologies for yesterday's glitch. I'm not sure what happened, and I'm not convinced it won't happen again, but my hosting service and I are working through the problems. *I'm not posting much today, for fear it won't

Wednesday

Hump Day Rambling I just read last night that Tom Wolfe died. I read a bit of the Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. I liked it, but didn't finish it. I might have to read it this year during vacation. The urbane but humble Terry Teachout's tribute

Meyers

A new poll has found that a majority of Americans say that driverless cars will have a big impact on the elderly. Specifically, if they don't cross the street fast enough.

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling "140 White Castle locations began serving the vegan Impossible Burger, part of a new wave of plant-based proteins that taste, cook and, in some cases, bleed like the animal version. Unlike tofu dogs and Boca Burgers, these products are aimed squarely at carnivores." Link [https://www.

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Do you have the personality to earn lots of money? It depends on whether you have some or all of these six traits [https://flipboard.com/article/the-secrets-of-the-%E2%80%98high-potential%E2%80%99-personality/f-f17e6ba97b%2Fbbc.com] . I have three of them in spades, though one of them,

Saturday

Weekend Rambling Solo was released yesterday. I doubt I'll go. I have tentatively decided not to go to any more Star Wars or super hero movies. Avengers Infinity War put me over the top, and it wasn't bad. I just suddenly found myself tired: tired of

Friday

Brews You Can Use Incredibly busy week. I unwound last night with my favorite simple concoction (tonic and New Amsterdam gin) for two hours, giving me a mild hangover this morning, but it's alright. I needed to blow the dust off (a client's term for getting

Conan

An American Airlines employee berated a young mom for carrying a breast pump. Although it's still better than the time the same mom was on Spirit Airlines and she was asked to feed everyone in coach.

Conan

In Utah, a couple gardening in their yard found the skeleton of a 16,000-year-old horse. After hearing about it, Arby's asked, "Any meat on those bones?"

Wednesday

From the Gardening Journals One of the coolest things about the free market is a thing called "entrepreneurial drift." For years, I've encouraged my kids to start their own business, if for no other reason because it opens doors . . . or rather, jolts the entrepreneur to change

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling Count me in this group: Americans are more anxious than a year ago, survey finds [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/americans-are-more-anxious-than-a-year-ago-survey-finds/] . A major setback at Maximum Greens will cripple early season production this year. I broke the news to Max last night, explaining that his main source

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Well, I reversed course with respect to lectures. I still like my idea of buying the used audio CD and ripping them into my iTunes, but there are three problems with it: (1) Amazon is not clear whether you are getting the audio CD or the book format

Sunday

The most compelling picture from the Hawaii catastrophe I've seen:

Saturday

I've read books or articles where Sowell or Walter Williams make this point, but for some reason, it's a bit more cogent to hear Sowell say it: > "Dependence was seen as the key to holding the slaves down. It's ironic that same

Friday

BYCU A loyal TDE reader sends along this perfect BYCU piece: Catholic Beer Club responds to millennials' thirst for community [https://www.americamagazine.org/faith/2018/05/02/catholic-beer-club-responds-millennials-thirst-community] . It's America Magazine, but they managed to write it without any reference to the trans community, so I&

Thursday

More Lecture Notes The 1200s are often called the apex of Catholic Culture, largely because of the work of St. Thomas Aquinas. In Aquinas, Catholic thought comes to a synthesis: reason and revelation combined, mistaken notions squashed (like Abelard's insistence that faith and reason can come to contrary

Wednesday

Yet More Humpin' Ramblin' I'm glad it's hump day. It'll be good to see this week come to a close. Work pressures, irrigation problems at the site, tooth problems, I root for Detroit sports teams. I'm not sure when the

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Man, spring crunch last night: two tennis matches, soccer game, Freshman orientation with Max. But I much prefer it that way to the alternative: one event every night, Monday through Thursday. Tonight is open, leaving me free to seed a few more beds: arugula, cress, lettuces, spinach, cilantro.

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I haven't weighed in on the Alfie Evans for simple reasons: it's so sad, I don't like to think about it; it's so wrong, it makes me angry to write about it; it's so obviously something I'

Saturday

I measure my stress level by how much this does or doesn't happen to me: "Work destroys your soul by stealthily invading your brain during the hours not officially spent working." Nassim Taleb Probably why I'm getting so much tail: "Sexual patterns that

Friday

Brews You Can Use The Spring Flurry continues. Not much time for blogging this morning. Just a few items: Our President and Pope tweet . . . and gas stations hold wine tastings [http://www.pennlive.com/food/index.ssf/2018/04/rutters_wine_tastings.html]. Nothing is sacred any more, not even

Thursday

Ramblings Whew, whatta week. Nonstop obligations . . . all of the non-billable sort, which for a lawyer, is like giving money away. I get a reprieve today and tomorrow. Great podcast at Econtalk: Jonah Goldberg on the Suicide of the West [http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2018/04/jonah_goldberg.html]. Lots

Wednesday

More Notes The increased wealth that started to accumulate after 1000 gave us the most famous saint after the apostles: St. Francis (b. 1182). Also: St. Dominic (b. 1170). Twelfth and Thirteenth centuries: other mendicant orders: Augustinians, Trinitarians, Servites, Carmelites. Perhaps ironically, it also gave us the Crusades. With increase

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling I ran a quote by George Scott-Moncrieff. Who's he? He was Russell Kirk's friend, whom Kirk praised in his autobiography, The Sword of Imagination. "Scomo" was "the worst-dressed gentleman in all Scotland, indifferent to circumstance, endowed with the consolations of philosophy.

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling "I woke up Sunday morning with no way to hold my head that didn't hurt." Johnny Cash, Sunday Morning Coming Down. It's one of my favorite Johnny Cash songs, and I was living it yesterday after a fundraiser for Max's

Saturday

Gardening Rambling I don't know if it's a testament to Salanova lettuce, a trait of lettuce in general, or a gardening miracle, but it looks like all, or almost all, of my 47 lettuce plugs survived last week's high winds, freezing temperatures, snow, hail,

Friday

Brews You Can Use I found a trove of drinking news over here [http://brutalhammer.com/]. A few of the better ones: Good to know: "Professor Andrew Jarosz of Mississippi State University and colleagues served vodka-cranberry cocktails to 20 male subjects until their blood alcohol levels neared legal intoxication

Thursday

Lecture Notes Every historian recognizes that, by 1000, commerce was increasing and with it, wealth. Technology was advancing. The Dark Ages were over, caput, finished. It was onward and upward pretty much non-stop from there, allowing Europe to, almost literally, conquer the world by the 19th century. There was a

Wednesday

Quick Rambling Wow, what brutal weather these past couple of days. I'm guessing my 50 lettuce plugs didn't make it, but I won't get a chance to check them out until tomorrow. If we lost the crop, it'll probably be a $250

Tuesday

Miscellany: The Trailer One significant inconvenience has dogged me this gardening season: a new car. My old van died on me last November. I bought a 2017 Kia Sorento, which I really, really like. I like it so much, I don't like to get it dirty by transporting

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling This was a tough post to write. I had to dedicate yesterday to prepping for my Theology on Tap lecture on epistemology, which led me pull old books off the shelves and review my underlinings (or pull old books into my Kindle and look at highlightings) on topics

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> "Nisbet's best line ever, and he meant it: 'A square block in Manhattan has more community than the entire city of Tucson.'" https://t.co/kpR0L4CCxY > — The American Conservative (@amconmag) April 13, 2018 [https://twitter.com/amconmag/status/984758095057305600?ref_src=twsrc%

Saturday

Miscellany Working Saturday. I'm blessed to have a job with flexible hours that enable me to take advantage of nice days like we had this week, but it is a job that requires me to put in the hours, so when the rain comes out, I go in.

Friday

"Never drink when you are wretched without it, or you will be like the grey-faced gin-drinker in the slum." GKC I only drink when I'm not wretched without it, so I hope that takes me out of the grey-faced slum, but man, I've been

Thursday

Bullets **Transplanting lettuce was rough. The plugs were too wet so they kept falling apart, and it was back-breaking work. I got 26 into the ground. If 20 survive, I'll be content. I'm letting the others dry out. I'm hoping to plant at least

Wednesday

More Rambling: Medicine Well, far out. I've been trying to get my cholesterol down naturally for five years now without success, until now. It looks like the vegan approach is working. My bad cholesterol dropped from 156 (last October) to 118 (March blood work). Pretty much everything else

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling I've started something new: hybrid reading. That's my own term to describe digital reading in traditional book format. I decided to try it out when I found myself wanting to know the history of Poland better. My first thought was, "I'll

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling: Towns I'm blessed to live in my hometown. Not many people who spent seven years in college can claim such a thing (unless we include "big city" within the definition of "hometown"). I'm further blessed to have four kids who

Saturday

Nashville Ramblings This is Thomas Hart Benton's The Sources of Country Music, which is on display at the County Music Hall of Fame. I like it. It reminds me of a Grant Wood painting, which I guess isn't surprising. They're both apparently representatives of

Friday

Return from Nashville Marie and I took the three little kids to Nashville for their spring break trip. Alex and Abbie were able to get days off work and joined us, giving us a clear super-majority (7 out of 9 . . . ain't bad). We got back yesterday. Needless to

Thursday

"With respect to self-talk, I might be at the golf course having the best game of my life and then suddenly find myself triple-bogeying the last five holes. How does this happen? Our unconscious belief about who we are and what we are capable of sets parameters for our

Wednesday

Random excerpts from Dorothy Day's diary: There is a Russian saying that if a man plants 3 trees in his life he will never go to hell. My love of peace and quiet inclines me always to want to do nothing. I have his same faults so we

Tuesday

You'd have to be a full-on idiot to accept any of this. I'm sure it's kinda fun, to sit around and figure out what you are, kinda like the way people analyze their personality traits, but geesh, to endow this stuff with more credibility

Easter Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Happy Easter Monday. Day two of 50 days. Plenty of time to contemplate the Mystery. Somewhere, Russell Kirk wrote a great summary of the history of the Shroud of Turin, but the heck if I can find it now. Nifty article: 10 Social Media Networks to Use Instead

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"Kirk first encountered the Shroud while offhandedly visiting the Cathedral of San Giovanni Battista in Torino, Italy, in 1957 when he attended a Mont Pelerin Society conference. Here, he claimed, he encountered the face of God. “The face was wondrously distinct, almost accurate as a plaster death mask: a

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Thursday

Lew Rockwell has run two Christocentric pieces these past two days: Does The Celestial-Geophysical-Historical Time Clock Provide Evidence For An Easter Crucifixion & Resurrection? [https://www.lewrockwell.com/2018/03/bill-sardi/does-the-celestial-geophysical-historical-time-clock-provide-evidence-for-an-easter-crucifixion-resurrection/] What is the connection between personal freedom and rising from the dead? [https://www.lewrockwell.com/2018/03/

Wednesday

Miscellany A lot of people brought gifts to Marie's birthday party. I was impressed by the assortment of unusual, small gifts that she received. There were plenty of wine bottles (my standard present) and gift certificates, which are always cool, but also lottery tickets (she won $10), decorative

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling The saddest story of the week: "The police officer who died after taking the place of a hostage in France was a practising Catholic who had 'experienced a genuine conversion' around 2008." Link [http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/news/2018/03/25/police-officer-who-swapped-places-with-hostage-was-a-practising-catholic/#.WrgzL2oWvj1.

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Welcome to Holy Week 2018. It hasn't been a great Lent for me, so I'm trying to double down this week. I'm reading nothing but religious works, with focus on Romano Guardini's [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romano_Guardini] The

Saturday

Miscellaneous Rambling I pass along a lot of historical, political, and religious podcast recommendations, but I'm not sure I've ever recommended a fun podcast. So here goes: The Conspirators [http://www.theconspiratorspodcast.com/]. The podcaster, Nate Hale (an entirely fictional identity), does a great job of

Friday

BYCU A TDE reader alerted me to this story in the Wall Street Journal that interests me on many levels: Drinkers Go Crazy for Gin, Investors for Tonic [https://www.wsj.com/articles/drinkers-go-crazy-for-gin-investors-for-tonic-1521199401] . Regular TDE readers know I've been on a big gin-and-tonic kick ever since my

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YouTube is planning a "Karate Kid" series that follows the characters 34 years later. The show is entitled "Ralph Macchio's Mortgage Is Due." Conan

Thursday

Lecture Notes Picture non-Christian Europe in 850: The Scandinavian countries and their Vikings, ravaging everything from Ireland to Russia. Saracen Muslims pushing into southern Italy, even sacking Rome. Magyars invading central Europe before finally conquering and settling in what we know as Hungary. Poland, much of the Slavic countries (e.

Wednesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Theology on Tap session tonight. The topic: His Ontological Suffering. It's a meditation on Guardini's passion meditation in The Lord. In particular, it revolves around this passage in Guardini's work and why His suffering had to be this way: > No one

Tuesday

Miscellany Re: Yesterday's post. “The worst moment for an atheist is when he is really thankful and has no one to thank.” GKC Intriguing essay by Patrick J. Deneen at First Things: "The Ignoble Lie [https://www.firstthings.com/article/2018/04/the-ignoble-lie]." I haven'

Monday

The Wing Ding The kids and I did it. We threw the mother of controlled wing dings Saturday night for Marie's 50th birthday. The kicker: It was a surprise party. And she was shell-shocked surprised. Friends and family came from Detroit, Cleveland, and Chicago; her local friends showed

Happy St. Patrick's Day

For the Great Gaels of Ireland Are the men that God made mad, For all their wars are merry And all their songs are sad. G.K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse.

Friday

Holiday Blogging TDE slows down for the holidays, and this secular holiday is one of the holiday-ist of all. The first Thursday and Friday of the NCAA Tournament are my two favorite sports days of the year. This pic shows Max getting the screens set up for Thursday night'

Thursday

From the Notebooks Rule of Culture: For every material action, there is a spiritual reaction. It's a testament to the sacramental nature of existence: body and soul, flesh and spirit, intertwined. Lots of examples. Most notably for today is St. Francis and St. Dominic in the 12th century:

Wednesday

Campanella In 1598 and 1599, a huge man named Tommaso Campanella organized a revolt in Calabria to free it from Spain. Campanella was a magician who believed that the stars and numbers portended revolution. He thought the new century would mark the dawn of a new age–an age with

Tuesday

Birthday Rambling Happy birthday to me! It's fitting that I share my birthday with heavy-hitter saints whose feast day is today: Gerald of Mayo and Roderic of Spain. Yeah, I'd never heard of them either. Sigh. Oh well, In lieu thereof, I'll dedicate the

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I saw this tweet on Saturday: "I don't understand why we can't just lose this hour sometime during work on Monday." It was meant as humorous, but why not implement it on Monday during working hours? It's Monday afternoon at

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> Another busy night at all the British henge sites as staff work all night to move the stones forward by an hour. [//imgur.com/heSvI]

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> Whаt a difference 26 years makes. Shanghai in 1987 and 2015 pic.twitter.com/h9bMs0d5AL [https://t.co/h9bMs0d5AL] > — History Lovers Club (@historylvrsclub) March 10, 2018 [https://twitter.com/historylvrsclub/status/972559725475790853?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

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> Instant CTE @Starting9 [https://twitter.com/Starting9?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] pic.twitter.com/5Dm9jODQeI [https://t.co/5Dm9jODQeI] > — Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) March 10, 2018 [https://twitter.com/barstoolsports/status/972620649188462592?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Saturday

The Dance Neareth We're not a big TV family so we have only two, but the NCAA Tournament requires maximum screens, so Max and I used the first night of our bachelor weekend to do a dry run. By placing the screens an inverse distance from the couch

Fallon

This week in England, a worker at a factory that makes Coca-Cola cans was caught urinating into the cans. But Coke quickly dealt with the situation by putting a Mountain Dew label on it.

Friday

Brews You Can Use I wrote last year that red wine is a good Lenten drink, but I can't get away from the gin and tonic. I'm going dry for the next eight days, so it doesn't really matter right now, but I need

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling Some fun-read stuff by Mark Steyn on the Oscars [https://www.steynonline.com/8510/inclusion-riders-showbiz-apocalypse]. The point I particularly liked: Hollywood has always been political; the Oscars have always been political. But now, it's just preening and virtue-signaling. It used to take a little bit of

Wednesday

Midweek Rambling Why does Diet X work for some people and not for others? Why does that worker get an occupational disease but his co-worker doesn't? The answer: Genetics. DNA. Now, regular TDE readers know I claim no expertise--or even an average amount of knowledge--when it comes to

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling Can someone help explain to me the efficacy of group discussions? To me, unless there is an acknowledged group leader with a better grasp of the subject matter than the participants, group discussions are merely the blind leading the blind. I didn't like them in

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I've started to experiment with the plastic cloches [https://www.maximumgreens.com/products/batawa-protective-plant-bell-10-pack]. I planted bush peas, mache, radicchio, mizuna, kohlrabi, and other cold-hardy crops in containers yesterday, watered, then covered with the cloches. We'll see. I only used old seeds, taken from

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> This list of reаsons for аdmission to a lunatic asylum in the 1800s reads like a list of potential metal band names. pic.twitter.com/HFJlr4HTzr [https://t.co/HFJlr4HTzr] > — History Lovers Club (@historylvrsclub) March 4, 2018 [https://twitter.com/historylvrsclub/status/970262837691023361?ref_src=twsrc%

Saturday

Weekend Rambler The first bed gets planted today or tomorrow: radishes. I plan on planting a bed every week for the next ten weeks. The first three will in cold frames or short low tunnels, at which point, I'll run out of covered space until the first week&

Friday

Brews You Can Use Whew, whatta topsy-turvy week. Long hours at the production site Monday and Tuesday, three-hour meeting Wednesday night, drinking social engagements Tuesday and Thursday night. No schedule, no routine, missed rosaries and eucharistic adorations, client work piling up. I need a drink. I, however, found enough time

Thursday

More notes from the "Zen Lent" Theology on Tap session . . . The three stages along the spiritual road: purgative, illuminative, unitive. I have no doubt that they accurately describe the road. But I guess I've never found them helpful or useful. As I've gotten older,

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A student once asked [the Zen master Joshu]: "If I haven't anything in my mind, what shall I do?" Joshu replied: "Throw it out." "But if I haven't anything, how can I throw it out?" continued the questioner. "Well,

Notes from Theology on Tap

Zen is steeped in Buddhism, which means its roots are in pantheistic monism: God is the world and all is one. The same spirit (Brahman) occupies everything. All is Brahman: I'm Brahman, you're Brahman, that chair is Brahman. If you think you perceive a distinction between

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Wow, glorious weather! Last night, I put up two short low tunnels at the production site. The plan: accelerate the drying-out process, so I can prepare the beds under the tunnels in two weeks, recover them with the tunnels thereby adding heat for weeds to sprout, burn them

Monday

Time to Retreat Well, the Cursillo was definitely better than the first three retreats that left me flummoxed, but I didn't like it and couldn't even finish it. I guess I'm not retreat material, which means I'm not a good Catholic, based

Saturday

Cursillo weekend. Just this today: > Prague, Czech Republic @MagicalEurope [https://twitter.com/MagicalEurope?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] pic.twitter.com/sfz6imEgGi [https://t.co/sfz6imEgGi] > — Tradia (@amalieskram) February 21, 2018 [https://twitter.com/amalieskram/status/966322075525943296?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] > Ambient beauty sets the scene from the

Friday

Brews You Can Use Drinking in China: The Qingdao Beer Festival [https://drunkard.com/the-qingdao-beer-festival-is-evil/]. According to the author, it's a terrible festival: boring, bad food, bad beer. It's a good, humorous read, but if you just want a few of the highlights: > Beer brewing

Thursday

A Bullet Life of JRR Tolkien 1892-1973 Father died when Tolkien was 4. When he was 8, his mother became Roman Catholic, to the fury of her relatives. They withheld financial support in hopes she'd renounce the Church. She didn't and had to go to work.

Wednesday

I am intrigued with the points made by Gabriel Marcel in his book, Man Against Mass Society, a book that came out in English in 1962. Modern society is, to Marcel, mass society, a society where public life is relentlessly presented to us as reality, but it is not reality

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling Don Beland is converting his five-bedroom suburban home in Holly Springs, N.C., into a farm–indoors. WSJ Subscription-Required Link [https://www.wsj.com/articles/love-local-farming-try-your-living-room-1518454522] . Of course, Don Beland has a supportive wife, which is something that, ahem, not all of us have. I feel fortunate

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Welcome to Clean Monday. It's the Greek Orthodox Church's Ash Wednesday. So if you already botched your Lenten vows, you can kinda start over today. One was stupid, one was vapid, one was heretical: my experiences with retreats. I vowed never to do another,

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> Move along, nothing to see here! https://t.co/dFhROrtLlo > — John Zmirak (@JZmirak) February 18, 2018 [https://twitter.com/JZmirak/status/965118165566050305?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] > Homosexual Vatican Judge Convicted For Possession Of Male Child Pornography https://t.co/tEwpij170Z > — gloria.tv (@gloriatv) February 17, 2018

Sunday

Saturday

Miscellany The Democrats created the Mexican immigration problem with their 1965 Immigration Act and by revoking (greatly restricting) the work visa program in the 1990s to make the unions happy, and now they won't give relief to the Dreamers because they don't want Trump to get

Friday

Brews You Can Use Charles H. Baker, Jr: Drink writer. I never even knew there was such a thing, outside of the pages of Modern Drunkard Magazine, but there is . . . and he wrote during the first half of the twentieth century, helping to bring to the public mind classic drinks

Thursday

Kerouac, Inchausti, Beauchamp This piece brought together a lot of 2018 strands for me: "Debunking the Caricature of Jack Kerouac the Nihilist [http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/debunking-the-caricature-of-jack-kerouac-the-nihilist/] ." The piece basically affirms what I taught last month at my Theology on Tap presentation: Jack Kerouac, godfather of the

Wednesday

Welcome to Lent 2018. Or to Valentine's Day, if that suits your disposition better. This Ash Wednesday/Valentine's Day confluence, incidentally, is great for husbands married to Catholic wives. What Catholic woman wants a lavish dinner and flowers on Valentine's Day? And what devout

Shaun White In First After the First Run

Men's half-pipe is my favorite.

Tuesday

Lent, Zen, Other Lent neareth. Remember to eat and drink a lot tonight so tomorrow is even harder. My next Theology on Tap lecture is entitled "Zen Lent." It's an extension on my Kerouac lecture. Kerouac was a Buddhist, I guess, or at least practiced Zen

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling It's almost time to start seeds indoors. If you're ordering seeds online, please order them from Max's site: MAXimumgreens.com [https://www.maximumgreens.com/collections/vegetable-seeds]. The seeds we order are drop-shipped from one of the most reputable sellers in the market.

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> "We are accustomed to speaking with wonder at how the 'whole world is available at our fingertips.' It should fill us with foreboding as well." https://t.co/vytglsXdEV > — The American Conservative (@amconmag) February 4, 2018 [https://twitter.com/amconmag/status/960196251907014656?ref_src=

Saturday

Olympic Miscellany I dig the Winter Olympics, even if it's mostly just a bunch of spoiled kids having fun and banging each other [http://time.com/5137272/condoms-at-olympics/?utm_campaign=time&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&xid=time_socialflow_twitter] in Olympic Village.

Friday

BYCU Just in time for the Winter Olympics: North Korea appears to claim it has invented wheat beer: "According to state newspaper Rodong Sinmun, the country's Taedonggang brewery claims its new approach using wheat instead of barley "is better than existing beers in terms of its

Thursday

The Dark Ages My slipshod notes from Theology on Tap . . . Let's make one thing clear: “Dark Ages” and “Middle Ages” aren't synonymous, not by any means. The Middle Ages roughly connote 500 to 1500. The Dark Ages are only 800-1000. Things get wild, wooly, and vague

Wednesday

Rambling I learned yesterday that late winter 2018 is the Season for Manly Cinema. First, I read about Clint Eastwood's new movie that features three American heroes who took down an Islamic terrorist in 2015. Apparently, the Hollywood elite hate the movie because it portrays Muslim terrorists in

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Well, at least my short positions got some of their losses back these past two days. The Michigan governor election is going to be a fiasco for Republicans. We have a Muslim running [http://theweek.com/articles/752449/33yearold-muslim-doctor-might-just-next-governor-michigan] , as well as a guy who calls himself the

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I always donate to Haitian relief efforts, but crap like this Conan O'Brien video really make it hard: > Uh, it was France and you murdered them all... > but besides that, great points. https://t.co/8gdKjKMk2q > — Gavin McInnes (@Gavin_McInnes) February 4, 2018 [https://twitter.

Saturday

Bullets High school musical weekend. Daughter Meg (#5) is Jane Banks in Mary Poppins. Meg and the rest of the cast killed it last night, kinda blew me away. * * * * * * * Part of the reason, I suppose: I went in with low expectations. The city Auditorium where they hold it is situated

Friday

Brews You Can Use Marie surprised me with the 2018 "Drinking with the Monks" calendar. Man, what a disappointment. I was expecting a a cool picture on top of each month and some sort of drinking material on each of the dates. The top of each month is

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling A TDE reader sends along this dialogue in response to my Nazi-occult observation yesterday: EATON: What would the Nazis want with this - this Staff of Ra? BRODY: I can tell you that. Over the last two years the Nazis have had teams of archeologists running around the

Wednesday

Really Random Whew. January 31st. We made it. Of course, I heard someone say that February is the longest month of the year. It begins in January and ends some time in April. This article says Jim Rogers is investing in agricultural commodities [https://www.lewrockwell.com/2018/01/no_

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Ancient Coptic manuscript of the Book of Acts can now be read, thanks to x-ray imagery. Link [https://www.christianheadlines.com/contributors/meg-bucher/new-technology-enables-reading-of-ancient-egyptian-manuscript-of-book-of-acts.html] . Irony? Pope Francis has issued an apostolic constitution with regard to ecclesiastical universities. It's called Veritatis Gaudium, meaning the joy of

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling What a beautiful January weekend. I played basketball and did a little gardening yesterday in shorts. A sweatshirt, yes, but shorts. I read yesterday that, when you reach age 100 in Barbados, you get a stamp in your honor [https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/7tln3x/when_

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When I was a kid, I could tell you everything about the tennis world: Borg, Connors, McEnroe, Becker, Lendl. These days, I follow it a bit but not much. Regardless, it's great to see the Rog back on top. > Roger Federer wins Australian Open for 20th career

Saturday

Thadurday Ramblings Good "Unregistered [http://www.thaddeusrussell.com/podcast/]" podcast last week. Russell interviewed Christopher Ryan, one of the oldest hippies. It's safe to say Ryan is a leftist, but one of the intellectually-honest kind of goodwill. That, quite frankly, is the genius of Russell'

Fallon

A man broke a Guinness world record by walking barefoot on a 120-foot path of loose Legos. This beats the old record set by every dad getting up to use the bathroom at night.

Friday

Holy Beer Font, Batman! Wow, I gotta have it: 2018 Drinking with the Monks Calendar [https://www.tanbooks.com/index.php/calendars/2018-drinking-with-the-monks.html] . (Amazon link [http://amzn.to/2EbdGSH]). I haven't been this excited about a calendar since . . . Okay, I've never been excited about a

Thursday

My notes from a Theology on Tap lecture 476 to Charlemagne 476: It wasn't the fall of the Roman Empire. The Senate was still in session until 600 AD or so. If you had asked the average citizen in, say, Lyon France, what he was, he would'

Wednesday

Books and Holes Response to a friend who wanted to know what I'm currently reading: "What am I reading? It's scattershot. The Virgin Eye is my mainstay right now and has been for months. It's kind of a book you pray with, so

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Well, I made a big decision. I'm going to attend a Cursillo retreat in February. I have attended three Catholic retreats in my life, and all were a colossal waste of time. Two of them were so bad, I was (no joke) embarrassed to be there.

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Wow, the winter blues. If you're suffering from them, do a white man thing and think about the farmers markets that you can attend this spring. And why is it a white man thing? Because a couple of professors have declared farmers markets to be white

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> "Nolan's third Batman film was inspired by Charles Dickens's 'A Tale of Two Cities,' though much of the dialogue might have been written by Edmund Burke." https://t.co/L13AvIL32B > — The American Conservative (@amconmag) January 21, 2018 [https://twitter.com/

Saturday

Trans Fun Man, I love: The idiots are attacking one another as the logical implications of trans living play out. Under attack now: Heterosexual males who claim to believe the trans hogwash but refuse to date another man who says he's a woman [http://www.bbc.com/news/

Friday

Brews You Can Use For the first time this year, I feel normal. I still had low energy and virtually no motivation this week, but yesterday, I noticed that I seemed to have my wind back. Heck, I almost felt good. So I'll celebrate. My hometown is having

Thursday

Running a bit late today. Theology on Tap went well last night. We changed the venue, which seemed to make a big difference. I'll be continuing the series. Next up: Zen Buddhism. It's a natural outgrowth of last night's lecture, which talked about Kerouac&

Wednesday

Kerouac and Anthony "I felt like a million dollars; I was adventuring in the crazy American night." That was a Jack Kerouac Tweet. Alright, Kerouac didn't Tweet it, of course, since he died in 1967, which was, what, two years before Twitter, but I saw it

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On Saturday the word s***hole was projected on to Trump's D.C. hotel. It got even worse when Motel 6 sued them for copyright infringement. Fallon

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling The Little Flower Company is Facebook official [https://www.facebook.com/The-Little-Flower-Company-1593872617362439/]. Therese seems excited to get started. We're working through a flower business book, but I'm open to suggestions. If anyone knows anything about growing quantities of cut flowers and wouldn't

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling: On History Day 12. The flu softens its grip on me every day, but it's not going away soon. Although I am taking walks outdoors (on top of the exercise, my lungs seem to enjoy the cold), I'm still not back to a regular

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> "Many colleges claim that they develop 'leaders.' All too often, that means turning out graduates who cannot feel fulfilled unless they are telling other people what to do. There are already too many people like that, and they are a menace to everyone else's

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> 😊#PositiveNewsWeekend [https://twitter.com/hashtag/PositiveNewsWeekend?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] > I love these Strandbeests: wind-propelled kinetic sculptures created by Dutchman Theo Jansen. #art [https://twitter.com/hashtag/art?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] #beach [https://twitter.com/hashtag/beach?src=hash&

Friday

Brews You Can Use This has been a long time in coming: "A bill that would end Indiana's prohibition-era ban on carryout Sunday alcohol sales was overwhelmingly approved by a key state Senate committee." Link [http://abc7chicago.com/politics/indiana-senate-committee-approves-sunday-booze-sales-bills/2928685/?sf178926156=1] . I grew up

Thursday

Lecture Notes This illness continues to dog me, taking my crops, land, money, and womenfolk. For today, I merely present part of my notes from Part I of the Theology on Tap Lecture on the causes of the Reformation . . . The Black Death: As much as 60% of Europe wiped out.

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Wednesday

Calendar and Camus A full week with the flu. Sure, the bad parts are over, but I'm still dragging and this *&(&#)@ cough won't go away. I think my staff is getting ready to toss me out of my own firm. But hey, I'

Tuesday

Keeping Catholicism in Focus Jack and Michael attended the annual FOCUS conference in Chicago last week. I'd heard of the Fellowship of Catholic University Students but didn't know much about it. From what I gather, FOCUS is hired [by university parishes?] to evangelize the university'

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I never appreciated how severe the flu can be. When I would read that it could be "life threatening," I didn't really get it. Of course, if the flu came with stomach issues that lead to dehydration, that was understandable, but to go into

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> Evelyn Waugh's Epiphany Prayer of a Mother for the Conversion of Her Son - OnePeterFive https://t.co/u5WGJiZZVw via @onepeterfive [https://twitter.com/OnePeterFive?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) January 7, 2018 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/950010767520292865?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

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Been laid out by the worst flu of my adult life. Unbelievable. At points, I couldn't move. I'm on the mend now. Regular blogging will resume Monday.

Friday

Tonight is traditionally known as "The Twelfth Night [http://www.crisismagazine.com/2017/counting-christmas-celebrating-twelfth-night?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+CrisisMagazine+%28Crisis+Magazine%29] ." I'd never heard of it, but it was apparently a pretty raucous celebration by people who

Thursday

Zmearing the Pope I often get a bit a nervous when I'm criticizing Pope Francis. Needless to say, a person can't toss the words "Pope" and "heretic" together without flat-out contradicting the foundation of the Roman Catholic Church, so I'm

Wednesday

Copt Out You can indirectly support TDE by buying your vegetable and flower seeds from the MAXimum Greens website [https://www.maximumgreens.com/]. We have a nice assortment: flowers [https://www.maximumgreens.com/collections/flower-seeds], vegetables [https://www.maximumgreens.com/collections/vegetable-seeds]. Our prices match the prices charged by the

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling I saw a headline link about Pope Francis' New Year Day Mass, so I clicked on it. I liked what I saw: "Pope Francis on Monday recommended jettisoning life's 'useless baggage' in 2018, including what he called 'empty chatter' and

Happy New Year

Regular blogging resumes tomorrow. I hope everyone has had a great holiday season.

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> From the archives: Disciplines of the soul are the basis of a liberal society. https://t.co/bAsYSGxPJK > — First Things (@firstthingsmag) December 31, 2017 [https://twitter.com/firstthingsmag/status/947587845719580672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Saturday

Yet another amazing pic from European Beauty: > Rising out on a rocky crag above the confluence of two rivers near the Guadarrama mountains, Alcazar Castle is one of the most distinctive castle-palaces in #Spain [https://twitter.com/hashtag/Spain?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] by virtue of

Friday

The Gin Cometh During 2017, I veered more and more toward gin (reducing my intake of vodka). It started in London last November (2016). I couldn't drink the beer, but I could drink the gin and tonic, which is an English classic. I was impressed by the higher

Thursday

Rambles Struggling with that new electronic gadget? Wired's guide might help. The Master Guide to Setting Up All Your New Devices [https://www.wired.com/2017/12/the-master-guide-to-setting-up-the-new-devices-you-just-got/] . Five things professors actually said in 2017. Link [https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=10304]. It's worth reading, but

Wednesday

The Good Marxist Yes, I've started reading Marx's Capital. The reason: Marxism is on the rise. At first, I thought it was just a college nimrod thing. I mean, how can anyone with an ounce of sanity (of which academia has virtually none) believe in Marxism?

Tuesday

The Spirit, Vegan Update Great Christmas this year. Of course, Christmas isn't over. We try hard to keep the spirit through January 6th . . . much, much better that way. It's pretty easy to keep the spirit through the 1st, but after that, it gets a little hard

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We have a Christmas decorating contest every year to see who can make the best decoration. I'm the judge. I win every year! This year's winning entry:

Saturday

> The First Dystopian: Robert Hugh Benson (essay by Bradley Birzer) https://t.co/DdAoULcrsL > — ImaginativeConservat (@imaginativecons) December 22, 2017 [https://twitter.com/imaginativecons/status/944258773996179457?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Friday

BYCU Okay, you want a killer drink? This is it: The Holiday Elf. Ingredients: One part Midori Melon Liqueur, one part Blue Curacao, one part Spiced Rum, one part Coconut Rum, two parts lemon/lime juice, two parts simple syrup, two parts pineapple juice. Process: Mix 'em all together

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling The peak holidays draw neareth. Office party tonight, all kids home tomorrow and Saturday night, Christmas Eve Sunday night. I'm mixing up a huge batch of Holiday Elf for tonight's party. I thought I posted the recipe already, but apparently not. It'll

Wednesday

Holidays and Ignatius The holidays pick up steam: Michael (Number 4) arrived home last night. Kids 1 and 2 are due in 48 hours. Blogging will slow down during the holiday week but, as always, I will post something every day. Feast Day of St. Ignatius of Antioch in the

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling I've have long listened to Relevant Radio's "The Miracle Hunter" with Michael O'Neill. It's not a perfect show, but I really enjoy it. I didn't realize he had written a book: Exploring the Miraculous. The book

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling: Mega-Churches For some reason, the topic of mega-churches has been getting a lot of attention around my house. I point out to my children what Marcus Grodi says, "The theology is a mile wide and an inch deep." Yeah, yeah, I know: It's better

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> Should Everyone Go to College? (essay by Bruce Frohnen) https://t.co/7kUBVFnli9 > — ImaginativeConservat (@imaginativecons) December 16, 2017 [https://twitter.com/imaginativecons/status/942114634299006977?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Saturday

Miscellaneous Rambling Well, my sons and I are slowly getting into the online gardening market. We started our first Facebook ad "campaign" last night. I thought the product was pretty cool, so I thought it was worth spending some of our advertising budget on it. Bamboo Sunglasses [https:

Friday

BYCU Rambling It's National Ugly Christmas Sweater Day. Don your ugliest for the bars and Christmas parties tonight. Many thanks for your Amazon patronage this year. I don't blog for the money (shirtless male modeling does that for me), but the minor reward is nice. I

Thursday

John and Santa Feast Day of St. John of the Cross. I'm inclined to think this little man may have been the most beautiful of saints. Horribly abused by fellow monks who resisted his reforms but never stopped loving. I'm dedicating 2018 to reading his works

Meyers

Arby's is currently testing a new sandwich called “The Arbynator” that features roast beef, curly fries, and both cheese and honey sauces. They named it after the Terminator because it's the only sandwich that will make you want to go back in time and stop yourself

Wednesday

Silicon Suicide Well, if American ag has a suicide problem (see yesterday's post), it's nothing compared to the suicides coming to Silicon Valley in early 2018: Silicon Valley Is Sneaking Models Into This Year's Holiday Parties: “Ambiance and atmosphere models” contractually obligated to pretend

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling: Agriculture Well, this was a disconcerting headline: Why are America's farmers killing themselves in record numbers? [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/dec/06/why-are-americas-farmers-killing-themselves-in-record-numbers] As an agricultural proprietor (I just came up with that title; I kinda like it), am I at risk? Probably not.

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling: Socialism I wanted to comment more on that Harvard communism link that I posted yesterday, but I try minimize Sunday blogging (six days a week with my ego is enough). I am stunned at socialism's comeback among college kids today. The evil is baked into its

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Amen to that. > “Roughly 100 million people died at the hands of the ideology my parents escaped,” she writes. “They cannot tell their story. We owe it to them to recognize that this ideology is not a fad, and their deaths are not a joke.” https://t.co/CHNgURwKsG

Sunday

Christmas gift idea: The Diamond Hoe. This is an amazing gardening tool. When I bought it two years ago, it wasn't even available on Amazon. Strongly and enthusiastically recommended if you like to wipe out weeds efficiently and without stooping.

Saturday

Miscellaneous Rambling I'm reviving a measure of my Jack Kerouac studies (he's the focus of my January Theology on Tap lecture). I'm partway through his defining biography, Memory Babe. I saw this quote at the Daily Kerouac Twitter [https://twitter.com/DailyKerouac] feed. "

Conan

A New York woman is suing her surgeon claiming he was on his cell phone during her operation. In response, the doctor said, “For your information, I was Googling 'how to perform surgery.'”

Friday

Brews You Can Use I'm drinking tonight, so I want to feel good about myself. I am, accordingly, using this BYCU to plug the rosary bracelets you can find here [https://www.etsy.com/shop/JustHeavenlyJewelry?coupon=TDE10]. No, I'm not going hogue (rogue homosexual). I&

Thursday

Rambling: Mexicans and Language Recommended: Thaddeus Russell's interview with Gustavo Arellano [http://www.thaddeusrussell.com/podcast/35] (warning: lots of foul language, most of it gratuitous, like dudes shooting the bull over beers, which is normal for the podcast in general, which is one reason I like it)

Conan

Ӣ Yesterday, another woman came forward with proof from the 1980s that Roy Moore pursued her when she was 17. Moore said, "What can I say? Back then I was into older women." Ӣ The state of Montana is suing the maker of OxyContin over the opioid epidemic. In a

Wednesday

Advent in The Flow I stumbled across something recently that, I think, will help me immensely. The spiritual masters consistently admonish listeners to spend time in prayer, even if it's arid and nonproductive. The general gist is: "Put the effort in, but don't worry about

A Glorious Day in History

> On this day in 1933, Prohibition was repealed. Here's a piece from our archives in honor of the day: https://t.co/Otz8T5Vktt > — First Things (@firstthingsmag) December 6, 2017 [https://twitter.com/firstthingsmag/status/938197549084581888?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling: An Appeal Dear Reader: You may have noticed that I have "stepped up" my game lately. I have decided to pour more energy into TDE. The Daily Eudemon been around since, I think, 2001, making it, in blog years, about 130 years old. Things are slowly

Monday

Rambling: Damascus to McLuhan Feast day of St. John Damascene (John of Damascus), 675-749. He's generally considered the last of the Church Fathers, at least in the Greek East. He's the very last entry in Patrick Hamell's nifty little Handbook of Patrology [http://amzn.

Killed Me

> The Bible is crystal clear on Christ's views on the exact right American marginal tax rate, but super fuzzy on sexuality and killing babies. https://t.co/FPDur0T8MZ > — Sean Davis (@seanmdav) December 2, 2017 [https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/937063666079404032?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Sunday

I don't normally blog on Sunday, but here's a highly recommended gift if you have a guacamole lover on your list. We eat a lot of "guac" and have to process a lot of avocados. This tool was heaven sent. I have also posted

Theology on Tap: The Reformation II

The splintering of Protestantism and the Council of Trent. Note: We were not trying to capture video at all. That is my empty gin and tonic glass, though.

Saturday

Leftism v. The Church If you haven't figured it out yet, pretty much everything you see on TV is a fraud. I attribute it to two primary reasons: (1) The fraud is baked into the medium's DNA. Video is, by its nature, superficial and appeals to

Friday

Brews You Can Use I don't know whether I like this parenthetical week between Thanksgiving and Advent. I like the subdued week after the whirlwind that is Thanksgiving. It gives me a chance to catch my breath before that weird tension that is Advent: a religious season of

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling Gotta love the mild fall: I harvested over a pound of spinach yesterday evening, which means we have supplied our own non-GMO, organic greens for over seven months of the year. Plus we sold a ton (well, a quarter-ton; about 500 pounds, we estimate). From "Another Hole

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“The top-selling items of Cyber Monday this year included the Nintendo Switch, Apple AirPods and the popular children's toy Hatchimals, while this year's least popular toy is Tickle Me Harvey.” Seth Meyers

Wednesday

Detroit I ventured back into Detroit last weekend. It was our customary Thanksgiving weekend trip to see Marie's parents and hang out with her brothers. On Friday, we went to a Detroit landmark: Buddy's Pizza. The original store. The pizza was delicious. The neighborhood? Not so

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling: Hollywoodrow and Retail You thinking the LAPD is going to crack some skulls in Hollywood? Don't hold your breath. From that Dave Thomson book on the history of Hollywood: > When the studio was still at Keystone, [director Raoul] Walsh was surprised to discover the studio

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling: Lasciviousness Then and Now, Young and Old The 2018 Johnny's Seeds catalogue came on Saturday. I kinda felt like I did as a kid in the 1970s, when the JC Penny Christmas catalogue arrived. The biggest difference, of course, being that back then, I didn'

Sunday

Did your son or daughter, niece, grandson, or neighbor kid go to college and start to lose his faith? Are any of them struggling with proselytizers of various stripes? This book will help. We think highly enough of this book that we buy it in bulk every spring and give

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> Ancient church built in an old cave in Taormina #sicily [https://twitter.com/hashtag/sicily?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] #italy [https://twitter.com/hashtag/italy?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] #fairytale [https://twitter.com/hashtag/fairytale?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] #jesuswasahippie

Saturday

It's the holiday season. As always, I request your patronage this holiday season by accessing Amazon through the banner in the upper righthand corner. But I've decided that, this year, I'll meet you halfway. I will make gift suggestions as part of my Miscellaneous

Friday

Miscellaneous Rambling Ah, Black Friday. "It's the most/disgusting dayyyyyyyyy/of the year." I've been saying that for years, incidentally. Heck, I was dissin' Black Friday before it started raping Thanksgiving. And now that it's violating that holy secular day, I

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> A conservative student group set up a display on @Portland_State [https://twitter.com/Portland_State?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] campus today that angered some students: “Thanksgiving on capitalism” vs. “Thanksgiving on socialism.” The latter was an empty table with a skeleton. pic.twitter.com/cfzqC1c6sz [https://t.co/

Annual Thanksgiving Day Quotes

“Thanksgiving Day originated in New England when the Puritans realized they had succeeded in exterminating their neighbors, the Indians, instead of getting exterminated by their neighbors, the Indians.” Mark Twain “Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.” Samuel Johnson “Beggar that I

Black Wednesday

BYCU The Left is a sanctimonious kill-joy. Black Wednesday is here and we're primed for celebration. But what is the leftist Huffington Post primed for? [https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/thanksgiving-talking-to-your-kids-about-alcohol_us_5a04972be4b0c7511e1b3aaa] Lecturing: > Thanksgiving is the time of year where children young and old come home

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling I'm glad the Reformation Theology on Tap lectures are over. I was dog-tired of reading about the Reformation, thinking about the Reformation, and practicing my lecture on the Reformation. There will be no video available, but there should be audio, which I'll upload

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Solanus Casey, pray for us . . . pray for me. I can't say I'll be attending another beatification Mass (including, I know now, my own). It was a very nice ceremony; hats off to the organizers, but my situation in life doesn't render me

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> Six-year old Brantley Dobbs suffers from a brain tumor, but says God has assured him he is going to Heaven. For Christmas cheer, he's asking people to send him a Christmas ornament. pic.twitter.com/um0uTikHm5 [https://t.co/um0uTikHm5] > — The Stream (@Streamdotorg) November 20, 2017

Saturday

> Like all idols, pop culture is a phony–it never existed.https://t.co/vq0gF8BQUd > — First Things (@firstthingsmag) November 17, 2017 [https://twitter.com/firstthingsmag/status/931644366162137089?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] To be honest, I haven't read the entire article yet, but I was struck by

Friday

Brews You Can Use Interesting article that claims global warming is creating new wine regions [https://quartzy.qz.com/1108814/the-improbable-new-wine-countries-that-climate-change-is-creating/] . The best part: It lists the three regions that have the most promise, and Michigan is on it (with England and Tasmania): > Like Montana, the state of Michigan

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling My business venture with son, Jack, is getting close to lift off. If you have a Facebook account, head over and "Like" MAXimum Gardening [https://www.facebook.com/MAXimumgardeninginsights/]. You can check out the online store while you're there too. We have a lot

Wednesday

Tonight's Handout: 1517-1648 The Reformation Years Five Branches of Protestantism The bulk of churches can trace their roots to one of five sources 1. Lutheranism These are, you know, the Lutherans. Germany, Denmark, Norway, Sweden 2. Reformed Presbyterians, Congregationalists. Puritans. Zwingli/Calvin. Switzerland, Netherlands, Scotland 3. Radical Baptists,

Tuesday

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling It was the weekend of crappy jobs: got flu shot, did annual corporate tax return for Marie's tiny business, switched out my winter/summer wardrobes (long story, but a hassle), watched annual video legal ethics seminar, typed up my monthly lecture for Theology on Tap, and

30-Minute History Excerpt

The Church teaches that Christ instructed his disciples and they carried on his teachings, leaving a rough framework for a working church, but the teachings aren't in scripture. Our Protestant brothers are inclined to think Catholic practices evolved over the centuries, but that's not the Catholic

Friday

Brews You Can Use Last summer, I referenced Buckfast Tonic Wine, a caffeine-infused wine made by the Benedictine monks of Buckfast [http://thedailyeudemon.com/?p=43302]. Yesterday, I saw this "Today I Learned" at Reddit: "TIL Buckfast, a caffeinated tonic wine, accounts for less than half a

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling An observatino from one of my sons: "In TV comedy, only Daniel Tosh, Trey Parker, and Matt Stone haven't sold out." I think he's right. Tosh is a comedian and, though I often don't find him funny, he pulls no

Wednesday

Miscellaneous Rambling "Huge Turnout Expected for Beatification of Solanus Casey Nov. 18 [http://www.ncregister.com/blog/pattyknap/huge-turnout-expected-for-beatification-of-solanus-casey-nov.-18] ." I got tix. Greatly looking forward to it. One of Casey's favorite sayings: "Thank God ahead of time." Yup, it's something I&

Tuesday

The headlock of life! My van died (well, was limping along). I had to spend a chunk of yesterday looking for a replacement, which, due to travel obligations and work pressures, came at an inopportune time (but does buying a car ever come at the right time?). Regular blogging resumes

Monday

I got back last night from northern Georgia for my niece's wedding. Gorgeous vineyard in the southern reaches of the Blue Ridge Mountains [https://www.facebook.com/DeBargeWines/]. The pic below from my camera doesn't do it justice . . . height of the color season. Outstanding wine, too,

Saturday

Chattanooga

Heading to Chattanooga for a wedding. Saw this at a five star station in SE Kentucky.

Friday

Downtown Detroit Bar Scene This post chronicles my downtown Detroit bar crawl last week with Marie, Abbie, and Alex. This, you might recall, was Alex's birthday gift to Marie and me. We started at the bar on the left. I'm pretty sure this was the old

Thursday

I know Bishop Bob Morlino, drank beer with him in his apartment one evening. Great guy. > The Attack on Bishop Robert Morlino of Madison, Wisconsin, is Scurrilous; Action Item! -- Fr. Z's Blog#PopeFrancis [https://twitter.com/hashtag/PopeFrancis?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] https:

Wednesday

Yet More Rambling Wow, I'm greatly tempted to buy this book [http://amzn.to/2lEwkfW]. "Recently, the catastrophist narrative [about the Reformation] has become more sophisticated and formidable, seeing Luther and the Reformers as setting in motion the patterns of thought and behavior that have led to

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling The response to Amoris Laetitia? Repression and fear: Give it the liberal interpretation, or you'll be shunned. "Many who have spent time around the Vatican, permanently or temporarily, speak of an atmosphere of fear." Link [http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/issues/october-13th-2017/climate-of-fear-the-new-crackdown-on-catholic-theologians/] . Do

Happy Halloween

> This church is decorated with the bones of 30,000 plague victims... - https://t.co/5CP1s9a1wQ > — New Advent (@newadvent) October 29, 2017 [https://twitter.com/newadvent/status/924676468352999425?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Man, that Lisa Bloom is apparently one nasty, hypocritcal wench. "[I]n order to protect Harvey Weinstein, the Daily Beast reports that the feminist attorney was prepared to leak files about actress Rose McGowan's sexual history." Link [http://www.breitbart.com/big-hollywood/2017/10/

Go OSU!

I never thought I'd say that.

Saturday

I've seen the future, and it works. Detroit is back! Well, not really . . . not quite. I spent nearly twelve hours in downtown Detroit Thursday, re-establishing my acquaintance, hitting old haunts, and, in general, marveling at this great old city that might, just might, be emerging from its dark

BYCU

Recovering from a Detroit bar hop with Alex and Abbie last night. Nothing much today.

Thursday

In my first lecture, I was going to offer a 3-minute overview, but the lecture was running so long, I had to slash out everything that wasn't essential, but I still have my 3-minute outline: --------------------------- You have the old testament period. We aren't even going

Wednesday

> Another hoax bites the dust! https://t.co/efzJdb1fdv > — Breitbart News (@BreitbartNews) October 24, 2017 [https://twitter.com/BreitbartNews/status/922971312431206400?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] Two of my sons go to EMU. I remember when this story broke. Few people, including me, thought it was legitimate graffiti . . . it

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Thank you, Onion, for reflecting something that, I hope, most of America feels: "Saying the decision would become effective immediately, The NCAA announced Saturday that it was suspending the Penn State football team another three years after remembering everything they did. 'Holy ****, you know what, you

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling There are few things better than a warm fall evening. I didn't want yesterday to end and looked for things to do outside: play tennis with kids, harvest some Jester lettuce seeds, say the rosary while I strolled around my yard. But I finally bid the

No Comment

> Today in unfortunate placement. @iowahawkblog [https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] pic.twitter.com/RGGGinVJVv [https://t.co/RGGGinVJVv] > — David Deeble (@DavidDeeble) October 20, 2017 [https://twitter.com/DavidDeeble/status/921373167725285377?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Friday

Brews You Can Use Those Theology on Tap sessions take it out of me. I was wiped out all day and didn't get a chance to take a nap. I finally reached the end of the day at 8:00 last night, free-poured myself a gin and tonic,

Thursday

Theology on Tap went alright. The biggest problem was the venue: The restaurant was filled, resulting in a lot of background noise. The lecture itself was a bit more dense than the last one (I had 40 minutes to pack in 75 years of history, instead of 30 minutes to

Wednesday

Tonight's Handout: Nominalism William of Occam (Early 1300s): All is the way it is because God says so. Common sense be damned b/c it detracts from God's glory. Does God ordain something because it's good for humans? Or is something good because God

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling The second lecture in my 7-part Theology on Tap session is tomorrow night: "The Reformation: Causes and Early Years." It basically goes from 1350 to 1525. The November lecture will from 1525 to 1650. Our parish administrator puts the over-under attendance at 30. We'll

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I guess Saturday Night Live tooks swipes at Harvey Weinstein: "The real burn came from Colin Jost and Michael Che at the Weekend Update desk. After reporting that Weinstein was headed to a rehab center, Jost fired back: 'He doesn't need sex rehab. He

Sunday

> Social media is a great opportunity to love one's neighbor....and enemy. I think the way we respond even to anonymous trolls matters. > — Fr. Jonathan Morris (@fatherjonathan) October 11, 2017 [https://twitter.com/fatherjonathan/status/918144160212946944?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

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When Frank Chodorov condemned the Communist hunts of the 1950s, someone asked him, "Well, what would you do about Communists in high government offices?" Chodorov responded, "Get rid of the high government offices." (Rough quotes.)

Saturday

Nock sighting: > On Albert Jay Nock and the Russian Roots of a Gentleman Anarchist (essay by Glenn Davis) https://t.co/vUti7m4hwH > — ImaginativeConservat (@imaginativecons) October 14, 2017 [https://twitter.com/imaginativecons/status/918997328127766528?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] It's mostly about Nock's relationship to Russian

Meyers

According to a new poll, Arabic is now the most common language among new immigrants to the U.S. The second most common is whispering. “What the hell is going on here?”

Friday

BYCU Cocktails are like anything else: You get out of them what you put into them. Actually, I don't really believe that cliche, but still, it holds for the cocktail. For a few years now, I've been looking for that perfect concoction: a delicious drink that

Thursday

Bullets **Blade Runner 2049 is killing it! 8.6 on IMDB! 88% on Rotten Tomatoes! So despite its 2.75 hour run time, I took Marie to it last night. And was bored stiff. It's terrible, absolutely terrible. Every scene was drawn out, it moved slower than a

Fallon

I read that the U.S. is suspending visa applications from Turkey. Trump was like, “Don't worry, we'll have them back for Thanksgiving.”

Wednesday

> I see why the late night hosts and SNL are avoiding the Weinstein story, a famous fat zillionaire with a fern fetish is a comedy dead end > — David Burge (@iowahawkblog) October 10, 2017 [https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/917746326389084161?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw]

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling My first real ag injury: I sliced my thigh with a very sharp lettuce knife. I was just thinking yesterday, "I should probably sharpen this a bit. It was razor sharp when I got it and it's definitely lost some edge." I'm

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Miserable football weekend. Local high school got slaughtered in its homecoming game, my Wolverines had their worst loss since the Appalachian State fiasco in 2007, and the Detroit Lions lost. I honestly don't think I can watch another UM game. I couldn't believe how

Saturday

Criminy. More tech problems. I normally write TDE posts the evening before, the schedule them to post shortly after midnight. That feature hasn't been working all week, and my web guy has no idea why. Troubling.

Fallon

A man from Italy just set a Guinness World Record by putting on 13 pairs of underwear in 30 seconds. On the downside, he's now banned from Victoria's Secret.

Friday

If necessity is the mother of invention, apathy is the mother of reckless creation. So it was that I approached my first drink last night with an airplane bottle of Kinky Green liqueur that I bought on a whim while at the liquor store earlier this week. All the appealing

Thursday

Great interview with Bruce Springsteen: Bruce Springsteen Talks Politics, Marriage and Why He Won't Write an 'Anti-Trump Diatribe' [http://variety.com/2017/music/news/bruce-springsteen-politics-trump-marriage-1202576624/] . I really liked his reason for not writing political pieces. Its a perspective you rarely hear from a lefty like Bruce:

Wednesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Coming in 2018: The Little Flower Company . . . by Therese Scheske. Catholics and experts in late 19th century French spirituality will appreciate the name. It's Tess' business, and father is greatly looking forward to it. I should've announced the new company on Sunday, October

Tuesday

Well, I haven't gone back and watched it, but I'm told it's fine, so I uploaded it:

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Does anyone view the Francis I papacy like Julian the Apostate's reign? Paul VI, JPII, BXVI-->Francis I. The triumph of orthodoxy disrupted by a last-gasp attempt to revive theological liberalism like Julian the Apostate's was a last-gasp attempt to revive paganism. I&

Saturday

> And the Petulance Prize Goes To . . . | Charlotte Allen | First Things https://t.co/BeumPa5RL1 > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) September 29, 2017 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/913874821695655936?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw] If this part is true, I'm afraid Fr. Martin has conclusively lost it: > A

BYCU

Alex bought me this last weekend while in Chicago. The store was giving out taste tests. He says it's fabulous. He and Abbie are both coming home tonight, their first trip home together since the holidays. We're going to be drinking Eastsiders, using fresh mint from

Thursday

Bullets **Pitino? Really? I'm shocked. Simply shocked. **What's next? Calipari? **And as long as we're talking about shocking things, what about this: "People who prefer listening to rap over pop and classical music are more likely to be psychopaths [http://www.dailymail.co.

Wednesday

Miscellaneous Rambling C.S. Lewis pointed out that the mere notice that you are enjoying something takes the joy out of it. The moment you notice you're enjoying something, you're no longer enjoying it, but rather, enjoying the enjoying, which isn't at all the

Conan

Anthony Weiner had been sentenced to nearly two years in jail for sexting with a teenager. Weiner said, “Come on, Your Honor, by the time I get out, she's going to be 20.”

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling I really like to see the NFL taking it in the shorts like this. It should've happened years ago, with their hubristic "Pink October," but I'll take it any way I can get it. The League is so arrogant, anything negative isn&

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Gavin McInnes has joined CRTV [https://www.crtv.com/], which is the conservative TV "network"on the Internet. The show is called "Get Off My Lawn," and it focuses on rehabilitating fatherhood. McInnes thnks CRTV is going to get huge, and he wants to

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BTW: My comparison of Puerto Rico's troubles to our heat was a joke. I went back and read Friday's post and realized my dry humor didn't translate well.

(Untitled)

> “A Long and Noisy Prayer”: Bruce Springsteen Tells His Life Story (essay by Stephen Klugewicz) https://t.co/WzW1cI7tLl > — ImaginativeConservat (@imaginativecons) September 23, 2017 [https://twitter.com/imaginativecons/status/911689157252190214]

Friday

Brews You Can Use This . . . heat . . . is . . . unbearable. I know the Puerto Ricans are suffering, but man, this humidity is stultifying. I went to the produce site last night to work on my beds for just an hour, after sunset (from 7:00 to 8:00). In just an hour

Thursday

Well, I felt the lecture could've gone a lot better, but that's probably just my arrogance expecting more out of me than my talent allows. No one killed himself to get out of listening to more, almost everyone came back after the break for Q&

Wednesday

Tonight's Handout Prepping, prepping, and prepping. Not much time for blogging, blogging, blogging. Below is tonight's handout for my "Catholic History in 30 Minutes" presentation at a local bar. My first dry run took me 90 minutes. I then got it down to 60

Tuesday

Jammed week: county fair yesterday, lecture series starting tomorrow. Just this video of the site, taken last weekend:

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Greatly enjoying: American Vandal, a new series on Netflix. I'm not proud that I'm enjoying it, but it really cracks me up for some reason. I detest the skies more and more. I normally question things like this, but if we're talking

Sunday

> Men, young adults and rural residents increasingly say college isn't worth the cost https://t.co/5BigCmRMWJ > — Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) September 10, 2017 [https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/907027191615156229]

Saturday

Miscellany I planted my last bed for 2017 last night. I really enjoy "working the land," but it felt good to know I was done planting for 2017. At this point, I'll let the sprinklers and Max take over most of the work, while I settle

Friday

Brews You Can Use The unexpected hangover: the bane of my drinking existence. I had four small (one shot, not 1.5 shots) gin and tonics last night, then woke up at 1:00 with a pretty bad headache. I'm still dragging this morning, and I have meetings

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling I've been looking at the best way to prep my land for next year's harvest. Coincidentally, I ran across this in-depth piece about restoring America's soil: Can American soil be brought back to life? [http://www.politico.com/agenda/story/2017/09/

Wednesday

On my favorite reprobate: > Good essay on Kerouac: "I have nothing to offer anybody except my own confusion.” https://t.co/PBIxYB5pxn > — David Scott (@DScottLA) September 10, 2017 [https://twitter.com/DScottLA/status/906961256371724288]

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Kinda interesting: Florida was never supposed to be habitable. "A Requiem for Florida, the Paradise That Should Never Have Been [https://flipboard.com/@flipboard/-a-requiem-for-florida-the-paradise-that/f-357587d24d%2Fpolitico.com] ." Gavin McInnes video [https://www.therebel.media/top_5_reasons_school_sucks_best_of_gavin_mcinnes] on why

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Happy 9/11 Days! My parish played the wretched 9/11 tribute thing again. Fortunately, I smelled it coming and was able to do the Judas Shuffle before listening to it. Okay, it's not wretched. I liked it the first time I heard it, and didn&

Meteorologist v. Irma

https://streamable.com/29frg

Call DIV-ORCE

> Yep instant divorce pic.twitter.com/LZTJghlkQd [https://t.co/LZTJghlkQd] > — WORLDSTAR FANS (@FunnyWSHH) September 7, 2017 [https://twitter.com/FunnyWSHH/status/905912846869032962]

Friday

BYCU It's not often I get a story grooved right to me: Tomorrow is International Buy Your Priest a Beer Day [https://www.catholicgentleman.net/2017/09/grab-pint-glasses-international-buy-priest-beer-day-coming/] . I think this is a fabricated day, much like Truffles Day and Urinate While Sitting Day, but it's

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling I'm a Netflix fan, but excuse me, if I don't hold out much hope for this offering: "Jonathan Pryce To Play Pope Francis In Netflix's 'The Pope;' Anthony Hopkins Is Pope Benedict [http://deadline.com/2017/09/pope-francis-jonathan-pryce-pope-benedict-anthony-hopkins-netflix-film-the-pope-fernando-meirelles-anthony-mccarten-1202150924/] ."

Wednesday

Miscellaneous Rambling If this doesn't get pot legalized, nothing will: "Smoking marijuana causes fertility problems because it makes men's sperm 'lazily swim in circles' say experts. [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4846328/Marijuana-makes-men-s-sperm-lazily-swim-circles.html] " It therefore hurts fertility. If it hurts

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling I've been hearing lots of Eagles on the radio lately. You'd think Henley had died or something. I've always liked the Eagles, but I knew nothing about them. When Netflix aired a multi-episode documentary about the group, I started watching it. I

Happy Labor Day

Regular blogging resumes tomorrow. > Why young Catholics are drawn to tradition https://t.co/m5T2HPpM6d > — Matthew Schmitz (@matthewschmitz) August 31, 2017 [https://twitter.com/matthewschmitz/status/903253148265062401]

Sunday

> pic.twitter.com/4rf1ciIXd2 [https://t.co/4rf1ciIXd2] > — John Stossel (@JohnStossel) September 1, 2017 [https://twitter.com/JohnStossel/status/903678143147454464]

Saturday

> Attacking faithful Christians for God's 6,000-year teaching on #LGBT [https://twitter.com/hashtag/LGBT?src=hash] is like blaming the surgeon general for "making" smoking harmful. > — John Zmirak (@JZmirak) September 1, 2017 [https://twitter.com/JZmirak/status/903656834288025600]

Friday

Brews You Can Use A sad BYCU. We take Michael to college today. Life marches on inexorably. It beats not marching, of course, but it's still melancholic. The occasion will no doubt call for a few drinks this evening, once we get back and plunk ourselves down after

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling Here's a story about a Russian con artist who ripped off investors for well over a billion dollars [https://flipboard.com/@flipboard/-how-a-russian-con-artist-is-running-a-m/f-f4152ca8e8%2Fbuzzfeed.com] . The thing I found fascinating: Many of his victims were from Nigeria. Nigeria is the land of fraudsters. I remember

Wednesday

Miscellaneous Rambling I took Jack and Michael (3rd and 4th kids) out for dinner last night. Of course, they had plans for the evening, so we had to eat early, at 5:00. Which I don't mind, but the double gin and tonics took an early toll on

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> UC: That will be $15,000 For what? UC: For security Security against what? UC: Violence Violence by whom? UC: Ushttps://t.co/8FPouIlCHW > — David Burge (@iowahawkblog) August 29, 2017 [https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/902566692462538753]

Tuesday

Bullets *I guess we'll find out if slander is afforded immunity status: Christian Group Sues SPLC and Amazon Over 'Hate Group' Designation [https://pjmedia.com/faith/2017/08/23/d-james-kennedy-ministries-sues-splc-guidestar-and-amazon-for-defamation/] . **If there's an ounce of justice left in the system, the leftist Southern Poverty

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Wow, Hurrican Harvey turned out to be historic: It's the first time since the advent of The Weather Channel that a tropical storm has been under-hyped. Worth three minute of your life: Keynesian Economics and the Great Depression [http://blog.hillsdale.edu/online-courses/keynesian-economics-and-the-great-depression?appeal_code=

Appear to be?

(Untitled)

> Revelation on Tap: Vatican I and the “Amoris Laetitia” Controversy https://t.co/b712h9zstJ > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) August 26, 2017 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/901405785426710529] "As Brian Tierney has argued in Origins of Papal Infallibility, 1150-1350, the doctrine was originally conceived as a bridle–preventing

Friday

Brews You Can Use Not much today. I went to Cedar Point yesterday . . . with all seven kids! It was the first all-kid outing in, I think, two years. Max and I are already kicking around ideas for next year at MAXimum Greens [https://www.facebook.com/MAXimumgreens/]. We've

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling In the past week, Antifa attacks pro-life protesters, Baltimore's oldest monument to Christopher ("Reb") Columbus was torn down, ESPN removed a Korean from broadcasting a football game because his name is "Robert Lee," and Daily Kos founder Markos Moulitsas said, 'NRA

(Untitled)

Wednesday

> what is wrong with us lol pic.twitter.com/VvKmRs85H7 [https://t.co/VvKmRs85H7] > — Pardes Seleh (@PardesSeleh) August 22, 2017 [https://twitter.com/PardesSeleh/status/900013076824686592]

Tuesday

Re: The Renegade History's perspective on slavery: "Economic historians have determined that on average, Northern farmers worked four hundred more hours per year than did slaves. And no group in world history worked more than industrial workers in the nineteenth-century United States. For the unlucky souls who

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Feast Day of Pius X. A friend just gave me a relic of Pius X, so on this day, I'm better than everyone else. Will we ever know what exactly happened at Charlottesville? Probably not, but Tom Woods recently hosted Kevin Preston, a "leftist anarchist,

(Untitled)

"Coral" is an old woman's name. You certainly don't see many sultry images of women with that name, but this contemporary photograph [http://i.imgur.com/2URSim9.jpg] changes all that.

Saturday

New magazine, run by P.J. O'Rourke: American Consequences [https://pages.stansberryresearch.com/page.aspx?QS=38dfbe491fab00ea48b0ef598b0fee1b60cf026511406a293845872287f769e8&source=facebook_ad1&email=ejscheske%40yahoo.com] . Looks promising. I signed up.

Conan

Hillary Clinton is coming out with a book called “What Happened.” Out of habit, Bill Clinton immediately came out with his own book called “Baby, I Can Explain.”

Friday

BYCU "The English were well known throughout Europe for their addiction to ale and wine and cider. The French were proud, the Germans were obscene, and the English were drunkards. In English monasteries the daily allowance was a gallon (4.5 litres) of strong ale and a gallon (4.

Thursday

"It is absurd to claim, as a few have done, that the New Deal, the basis of what we now know as “liberalism,” was identical to either German Nazism or Italian Fascism. But it is equally absurd to ignore, as all our textbooks do, the fact that the New

Wednesday Supp

I logged onto my computer this morning and saw this AFP story: Trump defiant on Charlottesville unrest: 'Blame on both sides' [https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-defiant-charlottesville-unrest-blame-both-sides-224328958.html] That's all he's saying: There is a violent left, as well as a violent right. Racism

Wednesday

Miscellaneous Rambling I had only caught snippets of the news here and there after Charlottesville. From what I heard: there was a white supremacist rally, where Gavin McInnes was going to speak (which was flat-out false, but didn't stop Newsweek from saying it); there was a (probably) even

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Feast of the Assumption today. Or, as our eastern brethren known it in their mysterious ways, "The Dormition of the Theotokos." But if you don't want to celebrate the sleep of the God bearer, you can induce your own sleep at The Church of

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I'm going heavy cilantro this fall. We have a large Mexican population, with many Mexican stores/restaurants. A Mexican friend approached me and offered to help move it, noting that all the owners go to my church so it's a (super)natural fit. On

Sunday

> It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull. > — HL Mencken (@HLMenckenBot) August 9, 2017 [https://twitter.com/HLMenckenBot/status/895074655735775233]

Thursday

This is good to see. I can't say non-GMO produce is highly valued in my neck of the woods, but there are a handful of non-GMOers around here and they have taken notice of MAXimum Greens: > Consumer demand for #nongmo [https://twitter.com/hashtag/nongmo?src=hash]

Wednesday

Miscellaneous Rambling If you don't mind doing me a favor, please go to the Maximum Green Twitter [https://twitter.com/GreensMaximum] page and follow Max. We're sitting at eight followers, and that's a bit embarrassing. We don't tweet much, so you won&

Tuesday

The produce site as of last Saturday. Fourteen rows formed and planted. Two to go. The rest of the lot will have to wait until 2018: It's come a long way: My goal:

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling The big news from the weekend? WSBT TV from South Bend came to town and did a story about MAXimum Greens, LLC. It aired yesterday morning. You can watch the segment here [http://wsbt.com/news/local/teen-taking-on-new-produce-business-in-sturgis]. Caroline Torie did the interview. She was here for nearly

Sunday

> I guess the testimony of millions upon millions oppressed, tortured or dead doesn't carry weight like it used to.https://t.co/Q70cM3KvuT > — Catholic Thinker (@ThinkerCatholic) August 6, 2017 [https://twitter.com/ThinkerCatholic/status/894010839606468608]

Saturday

The problem is, Europe would rather fall into the grave than have its religion: > A people without the knowledge of their past history,origin & culture is like a tree without roots.@TheAnchoress [https://twitter.com/TheAnchoress] https://t.co/zAtt8Z8LWg > — Catholic Thinker (@ThinkerCatholic) August 5, 2017 [https:

Friday

BYCU I'll admit to something autobiographical that I find both disturbing and appealing: I always feel like drinking after going to confession. Okay, not right after I go, but later that evening, I'm usually in a joyful mood that calls for a handful of drinks. It&

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling There's a Thomas a'Kempis Twitter account. I went ahead and followed it, even though TaK wasn't particularly fecund in his literary output. John Vianney's feast day tomorrow. He's the first parish priest to be canonized. The fact that

Wednesday

"[W]e shouldn't be surprised to find so many deeply devout men among the greatest of mathematicians. Blaise Pascal, inventor of probability theory, is one of the most penetrating theologians who ever lived. Leonhard Euler was the Johann Sebastian Bach of German mathematics in the 18th century:

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling I saw Dunkirk on Sunday. Excellent movie. I give it a "9." Highly recommended. If you go see it, I recommend you read this piece about the sound illusion that heightens the tension for nearly two straight hours [http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/news/

Max Hits the Big Time!

> 13-year old starts produce business https://t.co/3MHzMeSrsh > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) August 1, 2017 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/892196080313671680]

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Settling in after a long vacation in Alpena, Michigan. Regular blogging will resume, subject to the exigencies of getting the practice and produce site back in order. Vocations film from 1962. Link [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uOPK7IXF9A]. I only watched the first five minutes, but it

Saturday

I'm back from vacation, my annual pilgrimage to the family cottage in Alpena. I'm putting together a short book about Albert Jay Nock (hopefully, available later this year). On my last night in Alpena, I snapped this picture of Nock's Episcopalian church, which his

Friday

Brews You Can Use Just when I think I've heard of everything in the drinking world, at least those things that have been around awhile, something else appears. This time, it's Buckfast Tonic Wine [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buckfast_Tonic_Wine], a caffeine-infused wine made

Thursday

Thaddeus Russell: > Anyone who believes that advertisers control consumers need only be told a few names: Tucker, Henry J., Ford, Edsel, Mercury Park Lane, Studebaker, Wagonaire, Lincoln Blackwood, AMC Marlin, Buick Reatta, and Eagle Premier. These were among many automobiles that were marketed strenuously by their manufacturers but quickly

Wednesday

Great summary of a loathsome man and his legacy: > Alfred Kinsey was a moral revolutionary in scientist's clothing. The science was bad, even bogus; the man himself may now be forgotten; but the revolution came to stay, with a vengeance. Kinsey's message–fornicate early, fornicate

Tuesday

Cracked me up: > When Trevor-Roper attacked R. H. Tawney's theory of the progressive bourgeois giving rise to the Puritan revolution in England, one of the editors of the journal to which he sent his attack wrote to his coeditor: “I find it difficult to decide whether T-R

Monday

On T.S. Eliot's alleged anti-Semitism: > But might it be allowed that one can write or say anti-Semitic things without being an anti-Semite? Eliot is guilty of the former, but does not, I think, stand guilty of the latter. There is no record of anything on his

Sunday

"[A]s the wise have always known, a “dead” language breathes life into a timeless liturgy. It is indeed part of the same permanent paradox that real life is to be found in death. In the “dead” Latin is to be found the unchanging death and resurrection of the

Saturday

'A God all mercy is a God unjust' (Edward Young, 'Night', iv, Night Thoughts, The Complaint). Found in The Virgin Eye. The dear reader can draw whatever connection he wants to the monotone mantra of today's Jesuits.

Friday

Interesting nugget I learned from Brooklyn Bartender: Laird's (or "Laird & Company") was the first licensed American distillery. The brandy manufacturer still has "License # 1," issued in 1780.

Thursday

Perhaps one of the best opening passages to an article in 2017: > In a world of change and flux, it is reassuring to know that some things remain the same. Take, for example, the motion passed by the Church of England General Synod, calling for a liturgy to help

Wednesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Slow blogging winds blowing. It's the Fun and Sun time of year. Netflix now has the current BBC "Father Brown" series. I'm pretty stoked. Recommended: War for the Planet of the Apes. Perhaps the best movie I've seen this year.

Tuesday

"Almost the entire developed world is mired in deathbed demography from which no functioning society has ever recovered. Meanwhile, there is a demographic tsunami underway from the non-functioning parts of the world, manifest in the ceaseless flotilla of boats crossing the Mediterranean every single day (and nothing to do

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Congratulations, Federer. First man to win Wimbledon eight times. And this is also pretty cool: "Federer became the first man since Bjorn Borg in 1976 to win the Wimbledon title without dropping a set." Link [http://www.bbc.com/sport/tennis/40625069]. He's apparently

Sunday

I'd expect nothing less: > The Jesuit journal Civilta Cattolica published an essay attacking conservative Catholics in the United States of embracing fundamentalism from evangelical Protestants. The essay says that American conservative Catholics have come to see their country as righteous, and other peoples as enemies to be

Conan

Kid Rock has officially announced his candidacy for the U.S. Senate. Kid Rock says he wants to restore America back to a better time when it would have been unimaginable for Kid Rock to run for the U.S. Senate.

Friday

Unbelievably busy week. I worked at the office until nearly 8:00, then came home and helped Max harvest for his weekend sales. By the time I showered, it was time for bed, so no BYCU today. Just the tweet below and a promise to drink extra tonight in reparation

Thursday

The political entertainment promises to continue, at least for me and my fellow Michiganders. > I have had a ton of emails and texts asking me if this website is real”¦ https://t.co/RRVgISDFeq The answer is an absolute YES. pic.twitter.com/uYCUg6mjW1 [https://t.co/uYCUg6mjW1] >

Wednesday

Bullets More Shroud of Turin facts [http://www.catholiceducation.org/en/controversy/answering-atheists/the-shroud-of-turin-and-the-facts.html] . More on The Virgin Eye. [http://www.irishcatholic.ie/article/literary-legacy] If MAXimum Greens doesn't make it, maybe I can hire myself out to help people turn their backyards into gardens. It'

Been There

> Little League Umpire Ready to Call Absolutely Anything A Strike On 3-0 Count > — Onion Sports Network (@OnionSports) July 11, 2017 [https://twitter.com/OnionSports/status/884798881523003392]

Tuesday

> A brief look at why Aquinas continues to speak so loudly after 750 years–and what he has to say.https://t.co/LPPDStvy4L > — First Things (@firstthingsmag) July 5, 2017 [https://twitter.com/firstthingsmag/status/882690570145214464]

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Huge feast day today: Antony, founder of the Kievan Caves (1073). Yeah, me too: I had never heard of him nor the Caves, thereby making me feel ignorant and curious at the same time. The Google Machine led me to this Wikipedia entry: Anthony of Kiev [https://en.

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> Present-day neuroscience validates what Aquinas claimed centuries ago–the human soul transcends materiality.https://t.co/m7pHqsILgE > — First Things (@firstthingsmag) June 29, 2017 [https://twitter.com/firstthingsmag/status/880425625806192640]

Saturday

I'm one-fourth of the way through Robin Daniels' The Virgin Eye and am beginning to think it might be a masterpiece. I'm not decided yet. I looked for support of my hunch on the Internet and didn't find much, but I did find

Friday

BYCU Finally, my subscription to Modern Drunkard Magazine started. Marie got it for me for my birthday in March 2016, but I never received an issue. I kinda forgot about it, kinda figured maybe, for some unfathomable reason, they didn't put out a regular product, and kinda feared

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling About that drug-fueled gay orgy that the policy allegedly broke up in Rome: " The occupant of the apartment is alleged to be a priest who serves as a secretary to cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio [http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=

Wednesday

Miscellaneous Rambling St. Athanasius feast day today! No, not that Athanasius. It's St. Athanasius of Athos [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athanasius_the_Athonite]. His name ought to be better known in the West. He's the founder of monasticism on Mount Athos, the greatest monastic center

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> Demagogue: one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots. > — HL Mencken (@HLMenckenBot) July 4, 2017 [https://twitter.com/HLMenckenBot/status/882121803166097409]

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Welcome to the high mark of summer. MAXimum Greens got slammed with a bad trifecta: Max on vacation last week so he couldn't get produce in, the greens in the field couldn't wait any longer to get harvested, many customers are gone for the

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> The central fact of American religion today is that liberal Protestantism is dead and everywhere triumphant. https://t.co/ywYJ5FOsB0 > — First Things (@firstthingsmag) July 2, 2017 [https://twitter.com/firstthingsmag/status/881618489382846464]

Fallon

"The other day, a man in Minnesota got arrested, and handed the officer a Monopoly 'Get out of jail free' card. Then when he got to prison, his cellmate handed him a card that said, 'You won a beauty contest.'"

Meyers

A company in New York City has opened what some are calling a nonalcoholic cocktail bar that creates drinks using lemons and herbal ingredients instead of alcohol. And this is cool – they're using empty chairs.

Friday

BYCU I mentioned earlier this week that I organized two bar outings, one Sunday and one Monday. Those aren't exactly great bar nights, but they were the only two evenings I was going to be at Houghton Lake with Marie's family. Plus, the weather was horrible,

Thursday

Bullets Whew. The latter were really beginning to ride up on me: Comfortable cotton denim is back; skinny jeans are on their way out [https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-skinny-jeans-backlash-why-non-stretch-denim-is-ruling-again-1498664543] . Las Vegas prepares for recreational marijuana. "Amsterdam on steroids [https://lasvegassun.com/news/2017/jun/28/amsterdam-vegas-dispensaries-saturday-pot-sales/] ." Honestly,

Wednesday

Miscellaneous Rambling My first full day of my stay-cation. I joined Marie's family at Houghton Lake for a few days, returning yesterday. The weather was terrible, so I organized two bar hops, covering seven bars in two nights. The Monday night outing left me a bit worn on

Tuesday

> If only there was a 250 year old empirical social science that could have predicted this astonishing resulthttps://t.co/y0PzuhS6jt > — David Burge (@iowahawkblog) June 26, 2017 [https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/879385100202516480]

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Ah, summer. I'm taking first "stay-cation" this week. I'll spend a little while on the road, but for the most part, I'm staying put. A few long days at the produce stand site, keeping my fingers on the pulse of

Sunday

> Being tolerant with the intolerant is an act of intolerance. https://t.co/hHH80Cjbtn > — NassimNicholasTaleb (@nntaleb) June 24, 2017 [https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/878605420411092992]

Saturday

Nassim Taleb's "skin in the game" requirement: > pic.twitter.com/XXESzZ3gBz [https://t.co/XXESzZ3gBz] > — Thomas Sowell (@ThomasSowell) June 23, 2017 [https://twitter.com/ThomasSowell/status/878297357963669504]

Conan

The reality show “Bachelor in Paradise” has been cleared of the assault charges and it's going to resume filming. The news was celebrated today by ABC, the contestants, and the chlamydia virus.

Friday

Brews You Can Use Neat blog post by a Cleveland-area priest: Coffee, Front Porches, and Church Whispers [http://clevelandpriest.blogspot.com/2017/06/coffee-front-porches-and-church-whispers.html] . It's not about drinking, but it's about the need for parishes to create community and places to meet ("front porches&

Thursday

John Zmirak draws on my favorite Dostoyevsky book . . . and asks a question that has to be taken seriously by anyone who believes in the spiritual world: > Is Today's Far Left 'Possessed'? | The Stream https://t.co/HlWhbgVW8Y > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) June 21, 2017

Wednesday

The operation edges closer:

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Welcome to the first day of summer. Okay, not really. Summer apparently starts at 12:24 tomorrow morning. But we're really close. Wow, finally, a sports franchise stands up to the LGBTQIXYZ whatever brown shirt community: St. Louis Cardinals Resist LGBTQ Outcry Over 'Christian Day.

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I sigh relief. I think the season of busy-ness is over. Although office life promises to stay ramped at difficult levels, the graduation season is over. Michael's graduation party went well, and I survived the hangover, even getting to confession the next afternoon to "clear

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> "One of the surprising privileges of intellectuals is that they are free to be scandalously asinine without harming their reputation." > — Thomas Sowell (@ThomasSowell) June 17, 2017 [https://twitter.com/ThomasSowell/status/876123036575039488]

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Friday

For well over a year, I've looked for The Lost Weekend [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lost_Weekend_(film)] on my Roku, but I've never been able to find it. Then last Saturday night, I stumbled across it on TCM. I was pretty stoked. I

Thursday

The Eastern Orthodox recognize the prophet Amos today. I don't know a lot about Amost, but I remembered Eric Voegelin spent some ink on him, so I grabbed his Israel and Revelation of the shelf. I didn't see a lot about Amos, but I was interested

Salanova Lettuce

Expecting a big harvest later this week. I think I've fallen in love with this stuff:

Tuesday

"Morley, the son of distinguished Quaker stock (though he adopted his mother's Episcopalianism), had won a Pulitzer Prize for his Washington Post editorials. He stepped down after seven years (1933”“40) as the Post's editor because he understood what the forewinds of war portended: '

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Whew. Another whirlwind weekend. Every day is a flat-out sprint, with an occasional breather for Mass or gin. I'm grateful for those two breathers, but awfully tired of sprinting. The site now has a professionally-installed sprinkler system. It's just a beginner's model,

Sunday

The site is coming along:

School's Out

Of course, school isn't out in Michigan public schools yet. I believe the public schools are continuing their push for year-round schooling by gradually shrinking the summer vacation schedule. The reason? The breakdown of the urban family has resulted in home conditions that cause kids' learning to

Friday

Brews You Can Use My youngest son told me earlier this week that beer commercials aren't allowed to show people drinking. I thought about it and thought, "Heck, he might be right. I don't ever recall seeing someone take a wig on an advertisement. Fricking

Thursday

Whew. I've been busting it: Marie is in NYC for the week with Michael's senior leadership class, leaving me with a ton of work at the office, kid duties at home, and (of course) getting the urban produce operation running. Jack stepped up and helped me

Wednesday

Throughout this hectic spring, I have been squirrelling away occasional minutes to type notes for my "History of the Catholic Church in 30 Minutes" presentation this September. One of my goals that has developed is to give my listeners a sense of historical perspective. I always begged my

Tuesday

My son showed me these. They're great:

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> Remember: gender is uniformly distributed on a 37-dimension fluid spectrum, but all religions are exactly the same thing > — David Burge (@iowahawkblog) June 4, 2017 [https://twitter.com/iowahawkblog/status/871355792527577088]

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Michael graduated and had his last track meet on Saturday. Meg had her last soccer game last week. Max (partner in Maximum Greens, LLC) gets out of school this week and can take over more responsibilities. I think the carnage of everyday living is coming to a close.

Sunday

Steyn on the London Bridge attack. His most prescient observation: "The cynical strategy of British and Continental leaders is to get their citizens used to this." Exactly. They won't do the only thing that can stop it: halt immigration and aggressively start deporting anyone who poses

Saturday

Fitting morning headline for MAXimum Greens' first day at its produce stand: > Organic foods backed by landmark report - warning pesticides far more dangerous than was thought https://t.co/dHHRPl2hIO > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) June 3, 2017 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/870952128646443008]

Friday

BYCU Marie joined me after work yesterday at the production site. She is an exercise fanatic and hadn't gotten any exercise that day, so she felt like hauling compost, hoeing, raking, picking rocks, etc. We got there at 5:45, and I said, "Crud, it's

Thursday

> Bad humor is an evasion of reality; good humor is an acceptance of it. > — Malcolm Muggeridge (@malmuggeridge) May 26, 2017 [https://twitter.com/malmuggeridge/status/868217300725399552]

Wednesday

> Emerging networks of churches are becoming nuclei for local congregations leaving mainline Protestantism.https://t.co/Nh0eTGkfAi > — First Things (@firstthingsmag) May 31, 2017 [https://twitter.com/firstthingsmag/status/869939023535640577]

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Heard on the Eric Metaxas Show last week: The French have 17 words for "surrender." Cracked me up. First they rolled over to Hitler and now they're rolling over to Islam. Channeling Charles Martel [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Tours]! I found

Monday

It's a holiday. Nothing today. Just this quip from Conan: "A bishop has come under scrutiny for accepting a $100,000 Toyota Land Cruiser as a gift. The bishop said, 'I'd get rid of it, but it's a chick magnet.'"

Sunday

> We need a Catholicism that can inspire Europe to reject demographic suicide and rediscover the joy of children. https://t.co/OOlFK4PDky > — First Things (@firstthingsmag) May 28, 2017 [https://twitter.com/firstthingsmag/status/868829225595305985]

Saturday

According to this writer, ESPN is doomed: "[T]he main ESPN business plan, the one that brings in the most revenues to the firm, is doomed to near-extinction, and there is nothing ESPN can do about it." Link [https://www.lewrockwell.com/2017/05/william-l-anderson/bursting-sports-bubble/] . Well, "

Friday

Brews You Can Use Tonight, I drink. It's an annual tradition for me: no family, piles of papers at the office, bottle of vodka in the break room. It's a lonely affair, yes, and a bit pitiful, I realize, but I like it. The trick is,

Thursday

Well, given that Slovenia is almost 60% Catholic, this shouldn't be a huge surprise. Then again, her father was a communist and the news sources say the family didn't have her baptized, at least as infants. Interesting story. > Congratulations to @FLOTUS [https://twitter.com/FLOTUS]

Wednesday

From the Gardening Journals The produce stand's garden is coming along. Timing almost worked out great last weekend: I spent three arduous hours on Saturday, forming out two 2.5' x 60' raised beds. I spread the organic fertilizer then left, hoping for rain (since I&

Fallon

President Trump is still on his big overseas trip. Today, he arrived in Israel and landed in Tel Aviv. Then when they welcomed him to Tel Aviv, Trump said, "Who's Aviv and what am I supposed to tell him?" I saw that today Israeli Prime Minister

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Russell Kirk had a devotion to the Shroud of Turin. I find the whole thing utterly fascinating. And so does Fr. Spitzer. If you're curious to know what kind of cosmic radiation (my phrase) could form that image, check out the Shroud information at the Magis

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Five more days until the holiday weekend. It has become Work Weekend for me. My entire family deserts me to go bird watching, so I use the time to get caught up at the office and the garden. I honestly don't know how people with children

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> False Gods & Godlessness: Islamic Corruption & the Death of Great Britain (essay by Joseph Pearce) https://t.co/125empCvhA > — ImaginativeConservat (@imaginativecons) May 20, 2017 [https://twitter.com/imaginativecons/status/866058517333127169]

Saturday

Zmirak hits the nail again On Weiner: > The perfect, post-modern "Last man." Marries Islamist, cheats on her, pushes far left agenda self-righteously, cyber-molests teen, cries. https://t.co/E5neGdAecf > — John Zmirak (@JZmirak) May 19, 2017 [https://twitter.com/JZmirak/status/865625163374526464]

Friday

BYCU Man, it's everything I can do not to drink myself into a coma. Everything is intense: from work to garden to work again. I finally knocked off work last night at 7:30, gardened for an hour, then watched the 2006 Showtime hit, Dexter, with Marie and

Thursday

Wednesday

"[O]ur five transcendental desires for perfect truth, love, goodness, beauty, and being (home) will continue to affect us whether we acknowledge them or not. We will still want to know everything about everything, even if we abandon the pursuit of truth; still desire perfect love, even if we

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Correction: Providence College is not Jesuit. It's Dominican. I guess I just assumed it venerated the black pope: it has a good basketball team and it's Leftist. My apologies. Speaking of Dominicans, I guess they're fond of this joke: The Dominicans were

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling The poster boy for intolerance, Anthony Esolen, is this year's commencement speaker at Hillsdale College [https://www.hillsdale.edu/event/165th-commencement-ceremony/]. Good for him. I don't know him personally, but by all accounts, he's a real decent guy. What the Leftist robots

Sunday

I was absolutely swamped at the office last week, so when Trump fired Comey, I didn't have time to read anything about it at first. Instead, I simply caught blurbs here and there. I was thinking, "Boy, it really looks like Trump did it this time. This

Friday

Wow, full-on life blitz: office, family, garden. Every May, I say, "This May won't be so brutal like the past." And every May, I'm wrong. The number of obligations is stunning . . . and wearying. Fortunately, I continue to make time for a few weekday Masses

Thursday

From the Gardening Journals The garden chronicles continue. On Monday, I got a half acre scraped off, which I was stoked to see. I then went out right after work to start churning the soil. I ran into a phenomenon that locals call "Sturgis top soil." I guess

Wednesday

“Live all you can, as complete and full a life as you can find–do as much as you can for others. Read, work, enjoy–love and help as many souls, do all this. Yes, but remember, be alone, be remote, be away from the world, be desolate. Then you

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling So, you don't know much about the Armenian genocide? You might want to consider learning about it. Incredibly sad. It was recently the subject of a Tom Woods Show podcast [http://tomwoods.com/ep-899-the-armenian-genocide/], which I recommend. This kind of thing really grates on me:

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling This is, quite frankly, a no-brainer: Kansas City archdiocese breaks ties with Girl Scouts [http://www.ewtnnews.com/catholic-news/US.php?id=15513]. I should say, "It's a no-brainer on intellectual grounds." The Girl Scouts has deep, emotional ties with many good people. It&

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> The plan is to scrape the new land tomorrow, till later next week, and start planting in six days. We'll see! > — MAXimum Greens (@GreensMaximum) May 7, 2017 [https://twitter.com/GreensMaximum/status/861196935738347522]

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> "It is so easy to be wrong–and to persist in being wrong–when the costs of being wrong are paid by others." > — Thomas Sowell (@ThomasSowell) May 4, 2017 [https://twitter.com/ThomasSowell/status/860155205123530753]

Friday

BYCU It was the Week of Michael: Away track meet on Tuesday. On Wednesday, we attended scholarship night at the drinking club where Michael received an award named after a deceased friend of mine (a fitting scholarship, since my friend was one of the funniest guys I knew and Michael

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From the Bottom Line Personal [http://www.bottomlinepublications.com/]: "Women are the sole or primary earners in four out of every ten American households with children under the age of 18. This number has quadrupled since 1960."

Wednesday

There's more weight to this parody than might first appear: > Geneticists Debate Ethics Of Cloning Humans And Forcing Them To Fight To Death In Pit For Our Amusement https://t.co/2si7i9gkPs pic.twitter.com/0sSKyxiebI [https://t.co/0sSKyxiebI] > — The Onion (@TheOnion) May 2, 2017

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling If you know vampire lore, you'll like "What We Do in the Shadows [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/What_We_Do_in_the_Shadows]." It's easiest the funny movie I've seen this year, and it's short (1:25)

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Happy May Day, you Commie symps. Speaking of totalitarian secular ideologies, I heard the other day that, in the early days of the German Nazi movement, Nazi youth would flood parks and blow whistles when people with a different point of view stood up to speak, so no

Sunday

Happy birthday to oldest son, Alex, my only kid who works harder than me. If you need a home loan, give him a call at QuickenLoans. (You're surprised I would shill like that for a mortgage lender? He's going to be even more surprised to learn

Saturday

A 1,000-pack of beer. Finland.

Friday

BYCU Thursday evening, 6:45. I'm sitting down with my first gin and tonic tonic and gin after a miserable day. I started at the dentist office, where I had an implant put in. I was told it's "easy peasy," but man, I'

Thursday

Bullets *Add "white nationalist" to the list of insults that have no meaning. "Racist" lost meaning long ago, as did "bigot" and "Fascist." All words to connote someone who simply disagrees with the Left. So broad, they're no longer reliable.

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> Bibliophiles' jewel of the Highlands: > Leakey's Book Shop, Inverness. > Simply stunning stock over two floors of a converted church. pic.twitter.com/aGumCTYjGq [https://t.co/aGumCTYjGq] > — Lyppard Books (@LyppardBooks) April 22, 2017 [https://twitter.com/LyppardBooks/status/855883337910669316]

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling I listened to a Tom Woods podcast last night, in which he said he had an excellent debate night at Yale recently. At a time when colleges and universities condemn free speech and open debate, he said Yale upholds it in the highest degree every Tuesday night. I

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Happy birthday to my mom. She's a wonderful woman. They say a mother's love is unconditional. My mom proves they are right. I took Michael and Meg out to eat Saturday night, and one of the big screens was showing the NFL draft. I

Sunday

Divine Mercy film [https://www.divinemercyfilm.com/index.html] airing today on EWTN at 5:00.

Happy St. George Day

I am obliged to re-produce Chesterton's great poem, "The Englishman": St George he was for England, And before he killed the dragon He drank a pint of English ale Out of an English flagon. For though he fast right readily In hair-shirt or in mail, It

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Manent is great. A 2016 interview with him: > On the eve of the French election, it's worth asking again whether French culture has a future:https://t.co/IJeLU0kZDm > — First Things (@firstthingsmag) April 22, 2017 [https://twitter.com/firstthingsmag/status/855843655520706560] "We invite catastrophe by

Saturday

> The "white working class family is today more fragile than the black family was at the time" of the Moynihan Report https://t.co/xmwwjhG2kf > — W Bradford Wilcox (@WilcoxNMP) April 18, 2017 [https://twitter.com/WilcoxNMP/status/854152913907843072] > "The welfare state is not really

Friday

Brews You Can Use The warm weather, combined with kids sports tonight, drove me to the gin and tonic last night. I even made a return trip to the drinking club, so I could sit on its back deck and overlook the lake while discussing plans for the urban "

Thursday

Bullets *The Aaron Hernandez story is sad. You expect more from a guy with such a great set of tattoos. *My son's track team won its last meet against a more "urban" team by one point. The other team's lead 200-meter runner, who was

Wednesday

As I've mentioned on previous occasions, Gilbert Meilaender wrote one of the finest books ever about C.S. Lewis. > C. S. Lewis is not generally known as a political thinker. But should he be? https://t.co/1vlzsNSgGC > — First Things (@firstthingsmag) April 18, 2017 [https://twitter.

Tuesday

Hey, I did my part: > Why are all the countries of Europe paying their people to have more babies? https://t.co/KbpgkbxdD6 > — David Scott (@DScottLA) April 17, 2017 [https://twitter.com/DScottLA/status/854065664260161536]

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Honest speculation: If it were a scientific and historical fact that, every couple hundred of years, a person is resurrected from the dead in the manner Christ was, would anyone at all doubt that Christ rose from the dead (given the historical record)? I realize that, even if

Holy Thursday

"[I]n the agony of Gethsemane the ultimate consequences of our sin had their hour. . . . God permitted his Son to taste the human agony of rejection and plunge towards the abyss. . . Gethsemane was the hour in which Jesus' human heart and mind experienced the ultimate odium of the

Wednesday

> We went into Libya for humanitarianism. Now there are open slave markets. https://t.co/jQaejHOyWv > — AmericanConservative (@amconmag) April 12, 2017 [https://twitter.com/amconmag/status/851963084360908800]

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling I know it's not politically acceptable to reference Vox Day, but last weekend I listened to a podcast with him on the Tom Woods Show. I found him engaging, and I especially liked his description of Social Justice Warriors. He said that the best way to

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Welcome to Holy Week. Or "The Great Week," as the eastern branches of the Church sometimes call it. In this regard, I recommend the 4/6/2017 podcast from "Light of the East" [https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/light-of-the-east/id910354650?mt=2&

Palm Sunday

"The hour overflows with supernatural power. In these last days it is as if Jesus were gathering strength on strength preparing for the ultimate." Romano Guardini, The Lord

Saturday

I've been following this story off-and-on since it broke a few years ago. It is one of the strangest inspiring incidents of these bizarre times: > By @ClaireGiangrave [https://twitter.com/ClaireGiangrave], fashion trendsetters Dolce & Gabana have a strong pro-family stand, and they're not letting

Jay Leno

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson was on the show last night. He was named People magazine's sexiest man alive. Bernie Sanders, screwed AGAIN. After Anthony Weiner's last scandal, he actually called Bill Clinton to apologize. That's when you know your life has gone off the

Friday

Brews You Can Use The family starts to return today: Marie and the two little kids late this afternoon, Meg tonight, Michael Saturday night, and even the eldest daughter, nurse Abbie, on Sunday. On top of that, I kept my shoulder to the stone all week, just so I could

Thursday

Bullets **Snow today. Horrible, terrible, bitter snow. The bane of my greens? We'll see . . . and we'll see if my low tunnels withstand the 45 mph gusts we're supposed to get. Good grief. It's enough to drive a farmer to drink. So there&

Wednesday: Bachelorhood, Day Two

Pretty much everyone in the family is having fun. Michael sends me this pic of his $17.59 lunch at Busch Gardens in Florida: Meg made it to Disney with the high school band and is having a great time, despite Disney logistical incompetence: Max and Tess are in Detroit,

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling One problem with spring break: Everything grinds to a halt, including my proposed off-site greens operation. I still don't have city clearance, though they are working with me. In the meantime, I've been re-working my little yard to get the most greens out of

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Ah, semi-vacation. Spring break in Michigan, where it seems like everyone and their grandma leave to go warm. Last year, Marie and I went to Las Vegas. In past years, we went to Mississippi to see my brother, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, and other places. This year: Nothing. The

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> Quote from the book Controversial Essays: https://t.co/sq1v3HGaSF pic.twitter.com/pgZad1h31H [https://t.co/pgZad1h31H] > — Thomas Sowell (@ThomasSowell) April 1, 2017 [https://twitter.com/ThomasSowell/status/848219163910955008]

Saturday BYCU

> 'Caddyshack' still cool? Natural Light looks to score with millennials at the Masters | https://t.co/IjLGGWlisK > — Fox News Lifestyle (@FoxNewsLife) March 31, 2017 [https://twitter.com/FoxNewsLife/status/847795627333431301]

Friday

Brews You Can Use *The drinking story of the week: More older women are drinking hard [http://www.cbsnews.com/news/more-older-women-baby-boomers-binge-drinking/]. This story reminds me of dialogue in Cheech and Chong's Nice Dreams: "You know what we should in vest in? An old age home for

Meyers

According to a new poll, President Vladimir Putin's approval rating among Russians is above 80 percent. Of course, that's largely because he conducted the poll in person.

Corden 

A 16-year-old boy in Bosnia broke a world record this week by smashing 111 concrete blocks with his head in 34 seconds. When asked how it felt to break the world record, the boy said, “Lampshade tricycle is my favorite flavor of pizza truck.” Corden

Thursday

> The University Bookman: The Art of Flannery O'Connor in honor of her birthday https://t.co/oCgytT4pyf > — University Bookman (@ubookman) March 25, 2017 [https://twitter.com/ubookman/status/845647358146826240] By Michael Jordan. I know Professor Jordan. I met him at a Touchstone conference, then subsequently met

Wednesday

Bullets I hate leaf blowers. They're the jet skis of lawn care. "'Hell', wrote one chronicler, 'felt herself defiled by his admission.'" Peter Ackroyd, writing about the death of King John. If you're not listening to Dan Carlin's

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling This is the best new movement I've seen in years: "Get ready for Calexit! Now Nigel Farage and the 'Bad Boys of Brexit' set their sights on splitting California in two [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4350388/Nigel-Farage-s-Bad-Boys-Brexit-look-Calexit.html] ." Good story:

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Whew. Whirlwind weekend. Tess' 12th birthday party Friday evening, work Saturday morning, 27-hour polka party tour to Detroit, home for Michael's basketball sports banquet. Left me tired, hungover, and irritable. And about ten pounds heavier at a time when I desperately need to be losing

Saturday

Interesting new book: Collection of photos by Hitler's personal bodyguard [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4334322/Bodyguard-Hitler-Eva-Braun-s-dead-bodies.html] . The bodyguard, who just died in 2013, apparently held Hitler in high regard and said he was a nice guy. In light of what everyone knows now about how

Friday

BYCU I'm going to a polka party this weekend. The obvious question is: What does a guy drink to prepare for a polka dance? The obvious answer is: lots. But I'm looking for specifics: A lot of what? Beer, of course. But I can't

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> When the World is On Fire, Christians Can't Just Tend Our Gardens https://t.co/iJNMqXDvTj @JZmirak [https://twitter.com/JZmirak] #BenedictOption [https://twitter.com/hashtag/BenedictOption?src=hash] #TheStream [https://twitter.com/hashtag/TheStream?src=hash] > — The Stream (@Streamdotorg) March 22, 2017 [https://twitter.com/

Meyers

North Korea today described its nuclear program as “a treasured sword of justice,” which is the same term Kim Jong Un uses to describe his cheese knife.

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> “It is amazing how many people think that the government's role is to give them what they want by overriding what other people want.” > — Thomas Sowell (@ThomasSowell) March 18, 2017 [https://twitter.com/ThomasSowell/status/843145731204616196]

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling Benedict of Nursia feast day today. I thought about getting Rod Dreher's new book, The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation, but I know I wouldn't finish reading it. Besides, I've read enough about Dreher's

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Welcome to spring 2017. Of course, it doesn't feel like it, but my weather app assures me nice weather is coming before the end of the month. We'll see. MAXimum Greens [https://sturgisparksideproduce.wordpress.com/] hit a road block with its new half acre,

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RIP Chuck. Chuck was the man. This is one of my favorite Berry clips: Chuck Berry & Keith Richards - Oh Carol [https://vimeo.com/18623223] from Music Management USA [https://vimeo.com/user4386260] on Vimeo [https://vimeo.com].

Meyers

Researchers are claiming that short men are more likely to go bald. Added one researcher on the study, "Uh, Rick, I'm pretty sure those are babies.”

Saturday

> Our pledge to you is that YOUR child will never hear an argument that questions dogmas of Liberal Fundamentalism.https://t.co/nKhffEzPEV > — First Things (@firstthingsmag) March 17, 2017 [https://twitter.com/firstthingsmag/status/842835815344553984]

Friday

> The @Chicago [https://twitter.com/Chicago] River is going green for St. Patrick's Day. #StPatricksDay [https://twitter.com/hashtag/StPatricksDay?src=hash] #greenriver [https://twitter.com/hashtag/greenriver?src=hash] #chicago [https://twitter.com/hashtag/chicago?src=hash] #green [https://twitter.com/hashtag/green?src=hash] pic.

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> Why the real St. Patrick is more fascinating than his legends. https://t.co/xX4AZuEh7m pic.twitter.com/fMw5h3s0lm [https://t.co/fMw5h3s0lm] > — Our Sunday Visitor (@OSV) March 17, 2017 [https://twitter.com/OSV/status/842548607601590273]

Some Thursday Hate Speech

> Your schools teach YOUR #children [https://twitter.com/hashtag/children?src=hash] that #gender [https://twitter.com/hashtag/gender?src=hash] is a "social construct." Outright lies & blatant immorality are unacceptable & needs to end! pic.twitter.com/FRT5ptqNkT [https://t.co/FRT5ptqNkT] > — Catholic Queen

Wednesday

Miscellaneous Rambling I took half the family to see Kong Monday night for my birthday. It was a good, solid movie: no message, no meaning. Just a good old-fashioned monster flick. Highly recommended if you just want to sit back and take in some well-done junk. I've been

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Everyone's OK, but over the weekend off the coast of Florida, a Carnival Cruise ship almost hit two jet skiers. Today, the captain of the ship apologized and said, “I'll get them next time.” Conan

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling I just heard about this new program: Exodus 90 [https://exodus90.com/]. The priests at "Catholic Stuff You Should Know" spoke well of it. I can't say I'm inclined to do it, but you can read about it here: "Brutal, demanding,

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Michigan! Three weeks ago, they weren't projected to make the Tournament. Yesterday, my alma mater wins the Big Ten tournament and nails down a 7 seed. I haven't been this stoked since the Diocese of Northampton took the first steps to open the Cause

Sunday

I don't know much about it, but I'm impressed that McInnes traveled to Bethlehem and is now crusading to take it back from the Muslims. Quixotic and probably a bit self-promoting, but I like it: > It's Crusade O'clock in Bethlehem https:

Friday

> Drinking is the war against death. > — Modern_Drunkard (@Modern_Drunkard) January 27, 2013 [https://twitter.com/Modern_Drunkard/status/295399594244841472]

Thursday

Feast Day of St. Gregory of Nyssa. My thoughts on the great man here [http://thedailyeudemon.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/Gregory-of-Nyssa.pdf].

Wednesday

As a former Lutheran who remains impressed by the number of high-quality people cranked out by my former church, I can't say I endorse this image but it's definitely interesting: It is supposedly "a statue of St. Ignatius of Loyola trampling on the heretic Martin

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling It's the feast day of St. Paul the Simple. I'd never heard of him, but with a name like that, I had to check him out. He was a 60-year-old who had been cuckolded, so he left her to live with St. Antony

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Happy birthday to my wife, Marie. I'd mention her age, but she looks about half her age. I don't want to disabuse anyone of that notion. Ah, heck, there's a name for my malady. From Reddit's "Today I Learned&

Sunday

This reminds me: Al Kresta recently had a segment on the life of H.L. Mencken. I need to listen to it this afternoon while I get some beds ready for planting: > It is the dull man who is always sure, and the sure man who is always dull.

Treatise: On Alcohol as a Sacramental

> "When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn't have you by the throat.” - Charles Bukowski > — Bukowski Quotes (@DailyBukowskiQ) December 3, 2016 [https://twitter.com/DailyBukowskiQ/status/804995347932151808]

Friday

Brews You Can Use I'm battling my first cold of the season (count one's blessings) and am awfully jammed at the office, but I plan on drinking tonight. I never give up alcohol for Lent. Alcohol, if approached correctly, is practically a sacramental. I don'

Meyers

Chocolate maker Hershey is reportedly expecting to cut its global workforce by about 15 percent. That's right, for the first time ever, chocolate is giving up people for Lent.

Conan

Disney announced that it's featuring its first openly gay character in the upcoming live-action film “Beauty and the Beast.” Which explains why they're changing the title of the movie to “Beauty and Her Longtime Roommate Janine.” Antarctica reported its highest temperature in history at 64 degrees,

Thursday

Wow, a Solovyov sighting: "Vladimir Soloviev, the Mystic Admired by Popes [http://m.ncregister.com/blog/joseph-pronechen/soloviev-the-mystic-admired-by-popes#.WLdcp28rLIV] ." Those are about as common as, say, Max Beerbohm or Orestes Brownson sightings. The piece is a bit choppy, but not too bad. Excerpt: > “Repeatedly, Soloviev pointed out

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Conan

At last night's Oscars, a film producer who appeared in the “In Memoriam” montage, turns out she's alive. Even worse, she's scratching loudly at the roof of her coffin. New research finds that people who have ADHD literally have different brains. When told this,

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling My daughter went to high school with a Mexican girl who gave up food for Lent. True story. I gotta believe she drank a lot of smoothies and such, but heck if I know. Does anybody know of any good, balanced books on the GMO food debate?

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Lent nears. I've never been a big fan of Mardi Gras, though. Excess on the eve of fast makes the fast much harder. Oh sure, I do a bit of it, but I'm not a big fan. Every year, the Mardi Gras coverage makes

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Expect the New Left to show up with pepper spray and monodrone chants to drown him out: > “As Christians, we're offering a salvific message in a therapeutic culture. It's a tough sale.” https://t.co/7BqEZPDei0 > — Catholic News Agency (@cnalive) February 26, 2017 [https:

Saturday

> Ikea releases free design for a garden sphere that sustainably feeds a neighborhood https://t.co/0IpjOud7Xi # > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) February 21, 2017 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/834180533731078145]

Friday

I just learned about this: The Museum of the American Cocktail [https://natfab.org/cocktail-museum/]. I've long wanted to get to New Orleans. This Museum just increased the chances I'll make the trip. Of course, even something as cool as a museum about drinking can'

Three Archetypes

From Garet Garrett's [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garet_Garrett] The American Story (1955): > George Washington was unanimously elected President. John Adams was Vice-President. Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence but had nothing to do with writing the Constitution because he was then in Paris,

Wednesday

Yet More Miscellaneous Rambling Digging this warm weather? Putting your garden in early? Don't get too confident. A TDE reader sends this along from an Illinois weather site: "We set a bunch of record temperatures in February 1930 (the records we are breaking now). The following March

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling Man, I haven't laughed so hard at a headline in a long time. From Eye of the Tiber (the Catholic version of The Onion): Burke Named Head of Vatican's Congregation of Janitorial Services [http://www.eyeofthetiber.com/2017/02/16/burke-named-head-of-vaticans-congregation-of-janitorial-services/] . The article

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I sent this question to a well-placed and knowledgeable Catholic: "Has the primacy of conscience over doctrine always been a contention of the Catholic left (say, since Vatican II), or is it a new attempt by the Catholic left to implement their liberal agenda?" I'

Sunday

Listverse has a decidedly anti-Catholic, Whig historical perspective, but it's a pretty good site. This recent article is one of their better offerings. I can identify five of the sects as Gnostic, and my hunch is, all ten of them are, but a heresy is a heresy. The

Saturday: Ramblings

Wow, what weather. My apologies for not posting any BYCU yesterday. I had a small crisis at the office that hit me first thing in the morning. I kept running through noon, then broke early to plant spinach, harvest spinach, prune blackberry canes, and put up another low tunnel (giving

Meyers

Taco Bell has announced plans to offer a $600 wedding service at its flagship restaurant in Las Vegas. And this is cool – the burritos are conveniently wrapped in divorce papers.

Kimmel 

Congratulations are in order for a German shepherd by the name of Rumor. Rumor the German shepherd won best in show at the Westminster Kennel Club. This is a huge honor that the dog has no idea it received.

Conan

Thieves in London made off with $3 million worth of rare books from the Middle Ages. Authorities describe the suspect as “boring.”

Both Found During the Same Sitting

President Trump's approval rating is at 39 percent, according to a new poll. The latest Pew Research Center poll released Thursday shows Trump at a historic low compared with prior presidents in their first weeks in office. The poll found just 39 percent approve of his job performance

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling Ah, man. This is depressing: Orbis Books is issuing James Martin's Essential Writings as a volume in its Modern Spiritual Masters series. That's really disappointing. I've really liked what I've seen in this series. I wonder if the book will

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The U.S. Army has officially lifted its ban on soldiers having dreadlocks. This is good news for the Army's elite Hacky Sack Corps. Conan

Wednesday

Reference: Monday the 13th Post. Kirk's distrust of libertarianism seems to stem exclusively from its demonic individualist strain, that of Isabel Paterson and Ayn Rand. Those, ahem, challenging women's personalities, aggressive prose, and egos drove him away . . . and rightly so. (I once dealt with an unpleasant

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling I realized after posting that link to my Russell Kirk piece that it was published 14 years ago. Man, I'm getting old. And given that I worked on it for a few years (off and on), my thoughts in the piece reflect a man nearly twenty

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I dislike "Monday the 13th" more than "Friday the 13th." Article for my kids: Why You Should Stay in Your Hometown [http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2015/11/why-you-should-stay-in-your-hometown.html] . The answer is, "permanence." It's worth reading. Excerpt: "The benefits

Sunday

So did my appeal to President Trump to roll out a program for our peaceful Mexican immigrants [http://thedailyeudemon.com/?p=42096] have the opposite effect? Reports of Raids Have Immigrants Bracing for Enforcement Surge [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/us/immigration-raids-enforcement.html?_r=0]. I must say,

Saturday

Great piece by Jeffrey Tucker: What Happens When Trump Takes Over the Vatican? [https://fee.org/articles/what-happens-when-trump-takes-over-the-vatican/] But the title is misleading. It's really an article about HBO's new series, The Young Pope, a series that I assumed would be highly disrespectful but apparently isn&

Friday

Brews You Can Use I like the quasi-religious moments. I had one last Friday. I'd had another brutal week at the office, which I concluded with a trip to a Kalamazoo doctor. I then drove back south to meet Jack (my college son) at a pub in the

Thursday

Jason Scott Jones has written one of the better pieces of the young year: On Immigration, Winning Cheap Grace [https://stream.org/on-immigration-winning-cheap-grace/]. > The great theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote scathingly of “cheap grace,” which is the warm fuzzy feeling we give ourselves, and the praise we win from others,

Balancing Act, 1934

Supposedly, on top of the Empire State building. I suffer from vertigo, but I think I'd rather be the upside-down guy 100 stories in the sky than the dude in the middle on the ground.

Fallon

The world's most expensive Lego brick, made out of 14 karat gold, just sold online for $15,000. The new owner says he's pleased to add it to his collection and it just got vacuumed up by his mom.

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling The one thing I can say in support of allowing Muslim immigrants: They have a much better chance of converting to Christianity here than they do in their countries (where they would face things like, you know, decapitation if they converted). Al Kresta had a segment last week

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I haven't followed the immigration order as much as I ought, but I had to listen to a man I respect express concern with it because, among other things, it hurts the farmers. I didn't know what to say in response, so I just

Sunday

Welcome to Super Sunday. I have to admit: I'm not much of a fan. Oh sure, I'll watch it, at least the first half, but I simply don't care much about the game itself. It's more of a cultural event for me

Pre Development Pic

Kirk and Ghosts

I've long been puzzled (party intrigued) by Russell Kirk's belief in ghosts. This passage from a 1949 letter of his doesn't help, but I find it interesting. It was written during his time at St. Andrews, when he wrote The Conservative Mind: "The

Friday

BYCU My first "real" hobby--one that lasted longer than a few months--was beer-can collecting. It was the rage among boys in the 1970s. I had some pretty good stuff, including a private-label beer (a rare thing back then), called "Draught Courage," brewed by Ted Turner, who

On Hawaii

Grover Cleveland: “Our interference in the revolution of 1893 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overthrow_of_the_Kingdom_of_Hawaii] was disgraceful,” and the absorption of these Pacific islands would be “a perversion of our national mission.” When Hawaii was annexed, Cleveland announced himself “ashamed of the whole affair.” Well,

Wednesday

All the talk about California secession [https://www.yahoo.com/news/california-campaign-secede-gains-momentum-030236966.html] prompted me to pick up Bill Kauffman's Bye, Bye Miss American Empire, a (probably?) quixotic look at how the U.S. could break into a group of smaller countries. He dedicates most of a chapter

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling We made it! The worst month of the year is over. It's too bad the forecast is worse than anything we experienced in January. Not a bad set of feast days this week: The Eastern Orthodox recognized the Cappadocians [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cappadocian_Fathers]

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I grealty enjoyed James Martin's My Life with the Saints, so for years I've always kept my eyes out for things he writes. At this point, however, I'm writing him off as an unhinged leftist. I remember being disturbed by his "

A Request

I don't ask TDE readers for many favors. Over the course of fifteen years, I think I've asked you to help me on two occasions (excepting, of course, my continuous Amazon kickback campaign). But I'm asking for your help now: Please email the White

Illegal and Law-Abiding

Okay, let me explain my term "law-abiding, illegal" immigrants. It wasn't a typo or poorly thought out. Premise: A law that isn't enforced isn't a law. Illustration: If a town outlaws gardens but then allows its citizens to have gardens, punishing only

On Genius and Suffering

"I have known no man of genius who had not to pay, in some affliction or defect either physical or spiritual, for what the gods had given him." Max Beerbohm. True? I don't know, but fascinating: Does God only afflict his own? He sends troubles commensurate

Underground

A friend sent me one of those "old picture" emails. I really enjoy those emails, but I never know if the pictures (much less the descriptions) are real/accurate. The one above is supposedly the London Underground in 1890. I think it's real, primarily because it

Friday

BYCU I had a BYCU ready for today, but then I saw this article at Modern Farmer: " Modern Farmer's Best of 2016: All About Alcohol [http://modernfarmer.com/2016/12/modern-farmers-best-2016-alcohol/?utm_source=Modern+Farmer+Newsletter&utm_campaign=ab62688523-Thursday_January_26_201726_01_2017&utm_

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling Speaking of ESPN, I'm officially boycotting their sponsors. I figure, what the heck. Unfortunately, I don't think they'll much feel the sting, since I don't buy many of their sponsors' products, but Captain Morgan [https://www.captainmorgan.com/] will!

Wednesday

Finally! Other people, even those who identify themselves as "mainstream," are beginning to excoriate ESPN for its relentless and radical leftwing politics [http://www.outkickthecoverage.com/msespn-endorses-women-s-march-012317]: > It's like ESPN has a death wish. At some point in the past two years, commencing with the

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Rapper Snoop Dogg recently revealed that country music singer Willie Nelson is the only person who can “out-smoke” him. And then someone said, “Snoop, that's a mop.” Meyers

Politico-Economic Tuesday

This article pretty much sums up my economic hunches right now [http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-22/one-big-fat-ugly-bubble]: > The Deep State's next move is to pin the coming stock market collapse on Trump. When people think “Greater Depression,” they'll think “Donald Trump.” > The economy

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Well, I planted my first hoop house yesterday. I put in a huge crop of spinach, using primarily Bloomsdale, which is supposed to be one of the best early spring varieties. We'll see what happens. The long-term forecast (guess) is for temperatures to be average throughout

Sunday

I made myself spend ten minutes this morning, reading accounts of the Women's March. I'm simply stunned at the sea of idiocy. I could take issue with many statements, but I guess I'll pick on Scarlett Johansson, who, according to the Gray Hag [https:

Saturday

Buchanan breaks down the world Trump inherits [http://takimag.com/article/new_president_new_world_patrick_buchanan#axzz4WMVlDO6h] . Excerpt: "The billion-plus peoples of the Maghreb, Middle East and sub-Sahara, whose numbers are exploding, are moving inexorably toward the Med, coming to occupy the empty places left by an aging

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Republicans want to eliminate many of the restrictions of the Endangered Species Act. That's bad news for animals, but great news for fans of Carl's Jr.'s California Condor Burger. Conan

Friday

BYCU I'm kind of behind the eightball today, so I don't have much. I merely offer this entirely too long, but somewhat interesting, article on why brewing craft beer is a white man's sport [https://www.thrillist.com/drink/nation/there-are-almost-no-black-people-brewing-craft-beer-heres-why] . > [C]raft

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling I believe I've mentioned the seer Charlie Johnston. I remember Mitch Pacwa mildly endorsed him last year, saying he met Charlie once and he seemed like a decent guy. Pacwa, of course, firmly confirmed that he couldn't confirm everything Charlie was saying. Since then,

Meyers

A female zebra shark in Australia has shocked researchers by developing the ability to produce offspring asexually, after spending time away from her male partner. And she says that so far he's buying it!

Wednesday

Miscellaneous Rambling So, the Pope's ghostwriter abused his role [https://cruxnow.com/commentary/2017/01/15/ethicist-says-ghostwriters-role-amoris-troubling/] ? And, to make it worse, committed heresy in the process? I read the Crux piece, and I'm not sure I fully follow the reasoning. To my thinking, it'

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Feast Day of St. Antony the Great. The patron saint of every would-be holy scoundrel who wants to give up and leave his station in life. I thought I wrote an article about St. Antony, but I think it was St. Macarius, one of his desert descendants. You

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I like ordinary time. I'm not sure why. Maybe it's the mild sense that "the pressure is off." You know, all the grace coming at you during the high holy seasons and the pressure to process it properly. It stops and you

Sunday

I've never been a big fan of circuses, and I'm not even sure I've been to a Ringling Bros. circus (I've attended only two, and the one I attended as an adult was not Ringling), but I find this mildly sad, though

Saturday

A moment's reflection on the current presidency would tell you there would be no such thing as "the Trump Effect." President Obama is always gracious, bordering on gentle, in his words, but his supporters hardly imitated him, as they turned increasingly rude and violent against their

Friday

Not much this morning. Too many gin and tonics last night, then I spilled my recovery drink on the carpet and had to clean it up. For now, I'll merely repeat something I pointed out earlier: Spend the extra money to get high quality tonic water for your

Thursday

This essay reminds me of Nassim Taleb's observation that, in today's world, the more you read, the less you know: > From the archives: Even when it's not fake, “the News” has an insidious effect on us. https://t.co/P90cY9lRUe > — First Things

Wednesday

Miscellaneous Rambling I spent a chunk of last Sunday afternoon, inventorying my greens seeds while listening to Gavin McInnes videos. Man, he's good. Foul-mouthed, but good. I highly recommend his list of videos at The Rebel [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2HWRRSziC_EC78epg_wUCtI2ijN2yC-K]. Look, by the

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling Alright, the worst part of January is over. The days are getting noticeably longer. We have a long way to go, but hang in there. I'm upbeat enough that I bought 6-mil polyfilm to drape over my coldframes. Supposedly, a double layer of film greatly

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling So what was the point of Sunday's post? Precisely this: Twain was no racist [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Twain#Civil_rights], but he put borderline-gibberish words like that into a black man's mouth for artistic effect. If you think we could do

Sunday

Mark Twain: racist. The Golden Arm Once 'pon a time dey wuz a monsus mean man, en he live 'way out in de prairie all 'lone by hisself, 'cep'n he had a wife. En bimeby she died, en he tuck en toted her way

Saturday

The whole idea of a "hate" crime is stupid, but why the hesitancy among non-normal people to acknowledge that the Facebook Four engaged in one? > What would have happened if four white kids from Donald Trump's native Queens had reacted to Barack Obama's

Friday

Brews You Can Use Since switching to hard liquor, hangovers aren't much of a problem for me. Sometimes the juniper in gin gets me, and once in awhile, rum throws a wicked hook. But mostly, I'm fairly hangover-free. But there was a time . . . whoa, there was

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling The urban farm is moving along nicely. I'm still stymied in my effort to buy a simple, vacant lot, but I have my first batch of indoor crops started and am making progress on expanding my indoor grow operation. I plan to grow a lot of

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First harvest of 2017.

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Well, the Big Ten goes out with a whimper. I couldn't believe how bad UM looked, and then OSU got humiliated by Clemson. It certainly takes the sting out of the OSU loss. I don't think there's any way Michigan would'

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> Library : St. Basil The Great | Catholic Culture https://t.co/YYK0hKyyty > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) January 2, 2017 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/815939778407448576]

Monday

> 2016: The Year the Left Broke https://t.co/RRDuEt4DOa > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) January 2, 2017 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/815890714429128705] "While castigating white men for letting Trump happen, blacks rioted in the streets based on Facebook memes and Muslims murdered Americans in the name

January 1

Welcome to 2017. The holidays are still moving forward, so blogging will continue to be light. Regular TDE operations will resume on Tuesday.

2017

Well, good riddance to 2016. After 2009 (the year my Dad died), it's hands-down the worst year of my life. But on the bright side: It's over . . . and I survived. I'm grateful that the hurdles presented this year are the worst I've

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> Drink Beer - LewRockwell https://t.co/znU7BisHWY > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) December 28, 2016 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/814125922647478272]

Friday

We harvested this from the cold frames on December 26th. This will get us through the end of the year. So with the exception of a 10-day span in early August and mid-December, the garden provided all our greens from April 1st through December 31st, plus a handful in March.

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Guess I need to buy myself a hi-fi: > Chuck Berry, 90, announces first album in 38 years: "Chuck" https://t.co/rxAehVvibR > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) December 29, 2016 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/814444928097013760]

Thursday

From the Notebooks The Russian has always loved the Earth, venerating her black depths, the crops that spring from her lungs, and the resting home she gives at death. She's the Russian's embodiment of kindness and mercy in a land that has seen too much of

Wednesday

Miscellaneous Rambling One of my children asked me, half-jokingly, if it's okay to pray while they go to the bathroom. I responded with the Buddhist anecdote about the two monks who liked to smoke. They wondered if they could smoke and pray at the same time. They went

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling “The shepherd cannot run at the first sign of danger. Pray for us that we may be a sign of the love of Christ for our people, that our presence among them will fortify them to endure these sufferings in preparation for the coming of the Kingdom.” Padre

The 26th

Whew. I survived another Christmas. They're the best of the times; they're the worst most tiring of times. It seems to be getting better, though. I actually made it to my mom's yesterday at 5:00 without staring in full zombie mode. Marie and

Merry Christmas

by G.K. Chesterton The Christ-child lay on Mary's lap, His hair was like a light. (O weary, weary were the world, But here is all aright.) The Christ-child lay on Mary's breast, His hair was like a star. (O stern and cunning are the kings,

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Great picture of the Santa getting arrested. > Christmas: Embattled From the Beginning - WSJ https://t.co/Pcyggxa6ev > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) December 24, 2016 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/812664386414411776]

Christmas Eve

“He rules the world with truth and grace.” –Isaac Watts ++ “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.” –Charles Dickens ++ “The Incarnation”¦illuminates and orders all other phenomena, explains both our laughter and our logic, our fear of the dead and our knowledge

Friday

Brews You Can Use: Special Holiday Edition Christmas is nigh. I've never been much of a Christmas drinker. Thanksgiving? Sure, but Christmas? Nope. I certainly don't have a religious problem with drinking, since, as long-time TDE readers know, I practically consider alcohol a sacramental, but there&

Reddit Today I Learned

I gotta get me one of those for my garden: "TIL by eating herbivores with seeds in their stomachs and then leaving scat across a large range, cougars are able to plant around 94,000 plants a year."

Thursday

I have a nifty little book called, The Gilded Tongue. My son, Alex, and I used to read from it frequently, taking delight in its absurdly pompous words. Sample: > Malison (MAL-uh-suhn): n. from Middle English malisoun, from Old French, from Latin maledictio, from maledictus, past participle of maledicere (to

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Donald Trump said that after the election, he didn't call Bill Clinton, but instead, “Bill Clinton called me.” Bill Clinton said, “Actually, I was calling for Melania and he answered the phone.” Conan

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We're just a few days away from Christmas and the U.S. Postal Service says that you can mail a package on Dec. 23 and still have it arrive in time for Christmas. They say that your package will make it as long as it weighs less than

Wednesday

Miscellaneous Rambling The Christmas fervor begins in earnest. Son Jack returned last night. Michael and Meg start Christmas break tomorrow. Abbie comes home tomorrow and Alex the day after that. We are beginning are Christmas festivities on Friday with an Eastern Michigan party: EMU v. Old Dominion in the Bahamas

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Yesterday was Keith Richards' birthday. He would have been 73. Conan

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The Electoral College officially cast its votes for president, and Bill Clinton actually teared up after voting for Hillary, saying that he's never cast a vote he's been prouder of. Then he said, “Except for that wet T-shirt contest I judged in Cancun.” Fallon

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling There aren't a lot of saint commemorations this week, which I guess is understandable: People should be focused on the coming anyway, as opposed to on those quintessential focusers. But if you're looking for time with the saints, today brings us Ignatius of Antioch,

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling The night is far spent. Morning nears. How has your night gone? Mine hasn't been too bad. A bit restless, I suppose, but not too bad. Goodness knows I've done worse. My St. James Calendar of the Christian Year tells me today is commemorated

Clowns

This WaPo article about the rebelling electors reveals the sheer buffoonery at play: > Mark Hersch, a 60-year-old Chicago-based marketing strategist, joined a group known as the Hamilton Electors, who have been organizing efforts to contact electors and change their minds. Before the election, Hersch said, the most political activism

For the Coming Week

> “There is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.””• 'A Christmas Carol' by Dickens published #OTD [https://twitter.com/hashtag/OTD?src=hash] 1843 pic.twitter.com/cszgWmuUM0 [https://t.co/cszgWmuUM0] > — Oxford Classics (@OWC_Oxford) December 17, 2016 [https://twitter.

Sunday

Some of my fondest memories are from Joe Louis Arena and Red Wings games. It looks like another great moment at The Joe last night [https://streamable.com/eif7w]. You need your computer speakers on. Simply great, heart-warming, stuff.

Saturday

From the Notebooks Wow, there is simply a dearth of bloggable stuff out there today . . . that, or my muses have gone on strike. I'm being forced to reach into my bag of notebooks. I found this poem in my Poems folder. I don't remember writing it,

Friday

Drinking time, much less blogging-about-drinking time, is scarce this holiday season. For today, just this from my trip to the British Museum last month: Speaking of my trip to London, I was amused to duck into a sports pub for a few drinks, only to see its assortment of TVs

Thursday

From the Notebooks Know thyself. This injunction was printed above Delphi's door. It's a command that has exercised seekers throughout the ages. The inscription was a guiding principle for Socrates, Philo, Plotinus (the neo-Platonist author who heavily influenced St. Augustine), and the unknown author of the

Wednesday

All things must be sacrificed on the altar of the Moloch god of High School Athletics, including sleep and sanity during a hectic time of year, so energy, patience, and everything else is in short supply this morning. Fortunately, Taki recently posted this great piece: "How the Left Strangled

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling I've been thinking a lot about this passage from Phillipians 4: "Have no anxiety about anything . . .". It really struck me a few weeks ago and I keep coming back to it. It's not a cliche or counsel from Bobby McFerrin [https://www.

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling For some reason, the first week of December is always the worst: jammed with activities. After that, things are a bit better. This week, we only have stuff going on Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday evenings. In other words, I have Monday and Wednesday off, which is

Sunday

I'm shocked. Do big corporations act morally when not pressured by political power, or are they simply moral non-agents that do whatever they think most expedient? They ought to be the latter, despite the modern trend of corporate jurisprudence that says it's within a corporation'

Saturday

McInnes' latest isn't great, but it's good [http://takimag.com/article/reality_bites_gavin_mcinnes#axzz4SR996Yx2]. I really liked this anecdote: > In a recent episode of The Anthony Cumia Show, U.K. comedian Jeff Leach was asked to explain why refugees don't

Friday

Brews You Can Use Whew. Whatta week. Basketball games Monday and Tuesday, charity event Wednesday, office party Thursday, basketball game tonight. I'm looking forward to the weekend so I can just unwind. I doubt there's much drinking in the cards. I made a big batch of

Thursday

From the Notebooks Averroes (1126-1198): Islamic Aristotelian. His relentless pursuit of natural reason in the name of Aristotle would have squashed many of the revealed truths of God. If Aristotle said it, it was true, regardless of what revealed "truths" said. The simple people should follow religion; the

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Final lettuce haul of the year. I grabbed this Tuesday evening from a cold frame.

Wednesday

Gardening Results Well, I can finally say I definitely broke the $1,000 mark for produce. The estimates below are courtesy of Marie, who was instructed to be conservative and use prices you'd find at Kroger for in-season produce. The figures, in other words, don't take

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Cleveland.com, which identifies itself as a "partner" of The Plain Dealer, posted this soul-searching editorial last week: "Redesigning politics coverage after missing the big story of 2016 [http://www.cleveland.com/opinion/index.ssf/2016/11/redesigning_politics_coverage.html] ." It's

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Far out: Italy joins the United States and Britain in rejecting the centralizing efforts of the elites [https://www.yahoo.com/news/italys-renzi-loses-referendum-constitutional-reform-exit-polls-221129482.html] . The Popularism tide continues to roll. In a past life, such a thing would've made me nervous, but in light of the

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Please patronize TDE this holiday season by accessing Amazon through the widget in the upper-right corner. Thanks!

Sunday

Congratulations, Penn State! Big Ten Champs! And still the ugliest institution in America, a school that, out of common decency, should have disbanded its football program after the Sandusky scandal . . . the cover-up, the facilitation, the student riots when they thought their precious football program might suffer. Heck, I'm

Saturday

I've been reading (too much) about the dubia controversy. It seems Carl Olson's recent essay about the whole affair offers the best summary and analysis. It's worth a read: "The Four Cardinals and the Encyclical in the Room [http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Item/

Friday

Great drinking lore, courtesy of the British Museum:

Thursday

Could gnosticism become a hot discussion point, at least in Catholic circles? Al Kresta last week did a segment on the new EWTN documentary, "Wolf in Sheep's Clothing [https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/ave-maria-radio-kresta-in/id316247661?mt=2&i=378123836] ," about Saul Alinsky. The producers

Wednesday

Footage of Corktown. Notice the huge swaths of darkness. You can't see anything . . . because there isn't anything to see. It's just vacant blackness.

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling: Detroit An old philosophical problem: If you're sitting in an otherwise pitch black room with a single candle burning it, are you noticing the candle or the darkness? I traveled to downtown Detroit Friday night. My in-laws told me about a great cocktail bar in Corktown

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling: Football About once a year, I see one of my teams get so spiflicated by bad referring that I doubt the integrity of the game. Normally, it is with the Detroit Lions, who, as ESPN's Mike Wilbon (a Bears fan) noted last year, "How many

Sunday

Welcome to Advent. I enter mine worn out and weary. I'm hoping to rebound. If you need a boost, too, maybe these will help. From GKC's The Everlasting Man: “Any agnostic or atheist whose childhood has known a real Christmas has ever afterwards, whether he likes

Saturday

I'm glad Marie has a good sense of humor. She got her London pictures back earlier this week. She was whipping through them, handing them to the kids and me with quick commentary. She handed this one to us and said, "This is 10 Downing Street, where

Friday

Random Welcome to Black Friday. If you're reading this, you realize you have better things to do today than to rip our your soul in order to save $250 on a big-screen TV. Congratulations. This is basically a four-day holiday for me, so I don't have

Happy Thanksgiving

“Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.” Samuel Johnson “I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought; and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” G.K. Chesterton “Gratitude is characteristic only of the humble. The egotistic are so

BYCU: Special Edition

Black Wednesday I'll confess a conceit: I think I became aware of Black Wednesday before anyone else. When I first started talking about it in the late 1980s, it was scarcely "a thing," in the sense that nobody looked at it as a cultural phenomenon as

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The major op-ed in Monday's Post, by editorial editor Fred Hiatt, was titled, “The Fight to Defend Democracy,” implying American democracy is imperiled by a Trump presidency. The Post's lead editorial, “An un-American Registry,” compares a suggestion of Trump aides to build a registry of Muslim

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling Special BYCU, Black Wednesday, edition coming tomorrow. As of this writing, I don't know what I'll drink about, but I'm sure something will come to me. Message to Englanders: Start pumping out boys! It's like London is the opposite

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I don't like dogs. Well, I thought I didn't like dogs. After my trip to London, it appears I don't like American dogs. I don't like American dogs because they invade my space: my ears with their barking, my heart

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If the media had bothered to publicize the fact that Rodney King had two partners with him who didn't get beaten by police that fateful night because they obeyed orders to stay on the ground rather than repeatedly getting up and attacking them like King did, the Los

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To test Twitter's ideological bias, someone calling himself “Albert Dumbledore” posted the following two tweets under different accounts and then reported them to Twitter as abusive: I fucking hate white people and their inconsiderate asses for voting for Trump. Fuck you. I fucking hate black people and their

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> Marine Le Pen Takes Huge Lead https://t.co/FH6xyy6SU9 > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) November 20, 2016 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/800414015574933508]

Sunday

The UK reaction to Trump: Wow! If I gave you a blow-by-blow account, this post would stumble into thousands of words, so here are the highlights. First, when we left Detroit Metro, it just started to look like Trump could pull it off. Florida had apparently gone Trump, and it

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My favorite song for a spell when I was about eight years old. I listened to that 45 over and over. I think it leaked into my subconscious, hence the typo in the Saturday post.

Saturday

Here's Marie in front of Big Ben, last Saturday evening. After Mass at Winchester Westminster Cathedral, we bought a few cans of gin-and-tonic (a nifty product that I haven't seen in the States) and walked along the Thames. Our entire time in England was enjoyable, but

Friday

Well, I made it to the Inklings hangout. The current owners capitalize on the connection, but tastefully so. If you find yourself in southern England, I would definitely recommend a trip to Oxford and lunch at the Eagle and Child. The food was very good (as far as British food

Thursday

We got home a few hours ago, following a 20+-hour travel ordeal. I'm among the walking dead right now, but wanted to take a moment to post this picture from Merton College (where Tolkien taught and spent many, many hours). He lived in the building behind me,

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But of course, I will be traveling to Beaconsfield to see GKC's home. I've been reading about it for years in Gilbert Magazine and it appears it's on 40, which is the route we're taking for a day trip to Oxford.

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I have every expectation of taking in lunch and beer here: The Eagle and Child Pub, where the Inklings gathered on Tuesdays to drink beer and discuss loftier things [http://catholicexchange.com/cs-lewis-and-the-tao]. My goal is to make it here on Tuesday, but since we're supposed to be

Paris

Today is our day trip to Paris. To be honest, I've never much wanted to see Paris. Unlike London, which I intuitively acquaint with Chesterton, Dickens, and Mary Poppin, I intuitively acquaint Paris with the French Revolution, rudeness, and ineffective arm deodorant. Nonetheless, it is a major city

Sunday

Our hotel isn't far from Westminster Cathedral [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westminster_Cathedral]. Hopefully, this morning will find me at Mass there. I'd rather go to Mass at Westminster Abbey, but of course, it hasn't been returned to the RCC after Henry VIII&

Saturday

While looking for pubs in Camden (where we're staying), I saw a list of "pubs" and a separate list of "bars." I didn't know there was a difference, but apparently there is. Here's a comparison chart [http://www.diffen.com/

Friday

God willing, you're reading this while I'm in England, celebrating my 25th wedding anniversary with Marie. We are staying in Camden [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Borough_of_Camden]. We are very close to the Charles Dickens Museum [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Dickens_

Op-Ed

St. Dann You ever notice how many saints die of drug overdoses? It's amazing. A newspaper article will recount a man or woman's last days in a way that makes the person sound sweeter than St. Francis, and then, buried in the middle of the article,

London

"St. Pancras is believed to be the first Christian church in England, established by Augustine himself, and is reported to contain the last bell which was able to toll during the Mass." Peter Ackroyd. Later this month, I'll be staying in the heart of St. Pancras.

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling Last Saturday presented yet another example of why neo-Prohibition tactics are harmful. Our school sponsored its annual big fundraiser (chicken dinner and raffle party). For years, a parishioner donated a bottle of wine for every table, with the result that people got smashed people loosened up a

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Do-it-yourself standing desk [https://www.reddit.com/r/funny/comments/5bkkjz/my_coworker_decided_he_wanted_a_standing_desk/] .

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling My son wrote a college-admission essay. It was about why he values his Catholic faith. I told him that wasn't a good idea, given higher education's ensconcement in the far left. "You might as well," I told him, "write an essay

Sunday

The Amish don't quite "get" it. From a real (not online) magazine cover:

Saturday

Bullets I met Marie thirty years ago today. We met in a bar. She was 18 and needed someone to buy her alcohol. I was 20 and had a fake i.d. Thirty years . . . and many bars . . . later, we're still together. Upset alert: Michigan: Maryland is playing tough

Friday

BYCU This story has it all [http://www.adweek.com/news/advertising-branding/amid-disappointing-sales-bud-light-calls-early-end-its-rogen-schumer-campaign-174341] : Bud Lite doing poorly and its ads with the lamentable Amy Schumer doing poorly.

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling "Since the first debate, there's a sharp drop in undecided voters in the polling averages. As people make up their minds, Trump is up and Libertarian Gary Johnson is down [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/11/01/as-people-make-up-their-minds-trump-is-up-and-johnsons-down/] ." Makes sense. Gary

Wednesday

Not a bad All Saints Day harvest: On top of these harvest remnants, we have oodles and oodles of lettuce, spinach, and kale.

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling "Calling the saints to mind inspires, or rather arouses in us, above all else, a longing to enjoy their company, so desirable in itself. We long to share in the citizenship of heaven, to dwell with the spirits of the blessed, to join the assembly of patriarchs,

Halloween

Miscellaneous Rambling Another Halloween is upon us. And my streak of 21 straight years of trick-or-treating is getting snapped. Meg (15) wants to take Max (13) and Tess (11) out tonight. I thought the little kids would be disappointed, but no. I think their reaction was, "Okay. Doesn'

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> How rotten this administration is to the core when the attorney general takes the Fifth to avoid incrimination https://t.co/EuVmAFk4JT > — Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) October 29, 2016 [https://twitter.com/DineshDSouza/status/792476966293217281] Everyone, remember what the Fifth Amendment says: no person "shall be

Wow. Giving Me Faith in Black America

Sunday

> In order to live the religious life in any of its forms, exterior silence is indispensable: https://t.co/JJv8vXzavx > — Sophia Inst. Press (@SophiaInsPress) October 28, 2016 [https://twitter.com/SophiaInsPress/status/792037028233940992]

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> As prophetic as it was cutting. Tolkien's response when the Nazis asked whether he had Jewish ancestors. https://t.co/Zliq7UpggN > — Daniel Hannan (@DanielJHannan) October 28, 2016 [https://twitter.com/DanielJHannan/status/792030431210311680]

Drink Yuengling

> Beer drinkers tap out on Yuengling after owner endorses Trump https://t.co/fVTwXQnD0R > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) October 29, 2016 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/792159932925829125]

Friday

BYCU As TDE readers know, I'm enjoying the cocktailing fad. But at some point, the drinks pass from craftsmanship to self-indulgence, kinda like the way weightlifting goes from the pursuit of health to running your hands over your oh-so-beautiful pecs. Exhibit A: Most of the drinks featured a

Viewing Tonight

At 8 p.m. ET, Thursday, Oct. 27, EWTN's “The World Over” with Host Raymond Arroyo will air an exclusive interview with Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump, which will be of interest to people across the United States. “He reveals the reason he switched his position on the

Thursday

Well, if you don't mind the feline reference for the nether region, Taki has put up a couple of good pieces this week: "Martin Luther King, _________ Grabber [http://takimag.com/article/martin_luther_king_pussy_grabber_kathy_shaidle#axzz4OEu83yPZ] ." A local school teacher said she couldn&

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> The Week of Maximum Overdrive https://t.co/0y5zOOBqmB > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) October 27, 2016 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/791446730000699397]

Wednesday

I honestly don't know what to think, but I'm predicting a big victory. I just don't know who is going to win. Here is my unfounded theory: The Democrats know they're in big trouble. Here's what we know: Their primaries

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling: Football and Politics Michigan keeps chugging along and OSU loses to Pedophile State University . . . a team Michigan beat 49-10 a few weeks ago. Time for the Michigan faithful to get cocky? Nope: the road to the playoffs still runs through Columbus. And besides, Michigan must still travel to

Sunday

An Establishment in Panic [http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/10/21/an_establishment_in_panic_132123.html] . What do people do, Buchanan asks, when the establishment rigs the system? They rebel, and that's why the establishment is panicking, now that Trump is pointing out that the establishment

Saturday

Another must-read from this week: The Cave Man Versus the Borg Queen [https://stream.org/cave-man-versus-borg-queen/]. Excerpt: > Trump knows that men can be dogs because he has for decades been one. He knows that businessmen will take whatever advantage the law allows them because he has done so. He&

Friday

BYCU I bounced from my house, to a block party, to my new favorite watering hole last Saturday, starting with gin and tonics, switching to wine, then finishing (unwisely) with a new concoction I'd never even heard of: liquid marijuana. It was great. It looks harder to make

Thursday

And Yet More Miscellaneous Rambling Yes, day four of Miscellaneous Ramblings. I've been told people like this feature. If you're not one of them, my apologies. If you don't like the feature, please email me. And for that matter, if you like it, please

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling "Scenes From The Apocalypse" - Mass Immigration Ruins The Streets Of France. [http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-14/scenes-apocalypse-mass-immigration-ruins-streets-france] Unbelievable video footage. [http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-10-14/scenes-apocalypse-mass-immigration-ruins-streets-france] The number one rule everyone needs to understand about immigration: Immigration without assimilation is conquest. Or,

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling This is hands-down the best analysis I've seen of the Trump craze [http://www.cracked.com/blog/6-reasons-trumps-rise-that-no-one-talks-about/] (PG-13 language). Highly, highly recommended. Excerpt: "Blacks riot, Muslims set bombs, gays spread AIDS, Mexican cartels behead children, atheists tear down Christmas trees. Meanwhile, those liberal Lena

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> Northern Michigan colors pic.twitter.com/my744JLXT6 [https://t.co/my744JLXT6] > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) October 15, 2016 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/787381090885435392] Northwestern lower peninsula, near Traverse City, yesterday. The color is good, but not great. A testament to our warm fall.

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> Alan Yuen: > "A fearless heart is free of desire . . . > ❖#Zen [https://twitter.com/hashtag/Zen?src=hash] #Buddhism [https://twitter.com/hashtag/Buddhism?src=hash] #quotes [https://twitter.com/hashtag/quotes?src=hash]pic.twitter.com/0X9A2RtDgC [https://t.co/0X9A2RtDgC] > — Zen Proverbs (@ZenProverbs)

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Gosh, I hope these realtors are just joking around:

Friday

> Lets go! The 1st set of brands to be confirmed for the Manchester Rum Festival include @ChairmansUK [https://twitter.com/ChairmansUK] & Admiral Rodney of St Lucia Distillers! pic.twitter.com/yfQWAO931u [https://t.co/yfQWAO931u] > — Manchester Rum Fest (@McrRumFestival) October 14, 2016 [https://twitter.com/McrRumFestival/status/

Thursday

Must read from Matt Walsh about the Wikileaks. [https://m.facebook.com/MattWalshBlog/posts/1317997811566659] At first, I thought maybe Walsh was merely exaggerating, but his version is at least partially corroborated by WaPo [https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/10/12/wikileaks-emails-show-clinton-spokeswoman-joking-about-catholics-and-evangelicals/] . EWTN News article [http://www.

Wednesday

Yet More Miscellaneous Rambling Yesterday, I wrote that phrase, "available at Amazon," with a pang of guilt. I don't know if you've noticed it or not, but Catholic apostolates have been "guilting" supporters into buying books from their sites instead of from

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling It's the feast day of St. Theophanes the Branded. And man, his death is as grueling as his name implies. Geesh [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theophanes_the_Branded]. Tommorow, incidentally, the Eastern Orthodox honor St. Symeon the New Theologian. Though not a saint in

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Here's an intelligent no-holds-barred perspective not to be missed [http://www.pravoslavie.ru/english/97513.htm]. It's by a Russian Orthodox priest, and I first found it at Rod Dreher's post, The Whip of God [https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/the-whip-of-god-muslim-migrants/] . Excerpt:

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Yup, it was a lewd conversation, not remotely acceptable . . . and not remotely surprising. But Trump supporter and social conservative Tony Perks said it best, "My personal support for Donald Trump has never been based upon shared values.” > Christians desperately clinging to Trump not a sign of lack of

Oops

"Ruth's Chris Steak House in Ann Arbor started a promotion last week giving Michigan fans a percentage off their total food bill equal to the final winning point differential." Link [http://www.freep.com/story/sports/college/university-michigan/wolverines/2016/10/09/michigan-football-rutgers-notes/91818548/] . Michigan: 78

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> There's a reason Dodgers broadcaster Vin Scully kept mentioning God during his farewell tour – GetReligion https://t.co/wyilCy82dL > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) October 8, 2016 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/784704463277875200]

Friday

BYCU: Bullets **Rough night last night. I was home with my two youngest, waiting for Marie to bring Jack home from college. I decided to experiment with new vodka concoctions. They all sucked. I first tried vodka, blue curacao, and 7-Up (a poor man's Electric Lemonade). It was

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> Autumn Ocean pic.twitter.com/6SRY4EryvP [https://t.co/6SRY4EryvP] > — Ellen Fraher (@ellenfraher) October 6, 2016 [https://twitter.com/ellenfraher/status/784157824783937540]

Thursday

“There are two things you should know about the poor: they tend to smell, and they are ungrateful.” I remembered those words by Dorothy Day as I walked through my community garden plot yesterday, discovering that some dirt bag had stolen half of my winter squash: my non-gmo, organically-fertilized winter

Wednesday

Sir Gavin unleashes the Pen of Truth yet again: "Now, obviously we're angry at the Muslims responsible. Dahir Adan was the Somalian who did the stabbings in Minnesota, while Afghan Ahmad Khan Rahami appears to be responsible for the ten bombs surrounding NYC. They were both immigrants

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling St. Francis' feast day today. One of my favorite anecdotes: St. Francis journeyed to Egypt in the middle of the Fifth Crusade and walked into Saracen territory to convert the “Soldan of Babylon” (the Muslim ruler of Egypt and the Holy Land), even though the Soldan

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling This was wardrobe-changover weekend. For a large family, we live in a small house. Only 2,100 square feet, a "hardship" that is significantly alleviated by an additional 2,100 square feet of living space in the basement but alleviated enough. The result: Marie and my

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> Things I trust more than Hillary and Trump pic.twitter.com/gEhVzDCPSw [https://t.co/gEhVzDCPSw] > — Meninist (@MeninistTweet) October 1, 2016 [https://twitter.com/MeninistTweet/status/782283220826009600]

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The Month of the Saints: Lisieux, Francis, Avila, Bruno, Ignatius of Antioch, Luke, Anthony Claret, Simon, Jude, John Paul the Great, and John XXIII.

Saturday

Great police report. Note: I haven't verified the reliability:

Friday

Wednesday was "National Drink Beer Day." Wednesday isn't a bad drinking day. When I was in college, it was Number 3 on list of party days (Friday, Saturday, Wednesday, Thursday, Tuesday, Monday, Sunday . . . at least in my cloudy estimation/recollection). But still, you'd think

Thursday

"The reality of scheming, planning, wondering, planning, uncertainty as to what to do. The lot of most people. It occupies so much of one's thoughts, one can well see how people can think these days so little of God." Day "It is so hard to

Wednesday

Gavin McInnes makes an interesting assertion: Inner-city life isn't dangerous [http://takimag.com/article/rioting_the_unbeatable_high_gavin_mcinnes/print#axzz4LMpFjYt7] . It's non-stop fun and adolescent behavior, and the riots are merely the ultimate high. I think he overstates the case, but he has a

Tuesday

Funny stuff. PG-13.

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling If you missed it, Bishop Chaput's lecture earlier this month at Notre Dame is a must read [http://www.catholiceducation.org/en/controversy/politics-and-the-church/sex-family-and-the-liberty-of-the-church.html] . Excerpt: "But here's my larger point: We've reached a moment when our political thinking and

White Net Attacks Black Man

Bring in the rioters > Kicking net 1, Odell Beckham 0 https://t.co/b2sZ76tFoP > — Barely In Bounds (@BarelyIn) September 25, 2016 [https://twitter.com/BarelyIn/status/780132013638610944]

Saturday

It's only a matter of time until we kill in the name of goodness. Oh wait, we've been doing that on a massive scale for the past 150 years. > Want to Slow Climate Change? Stop Having Babies, Bioethicist Travis Rieder Says - Bloomberg https://t.

BYCU

Brews You Can Use: Bites I drank a lot of mojito last Saturday evening. It gave me a pretty bad hangover, considering that I stopped drinking early and pounded about fifty ounces of water afterwards. I don't know if it was the rum or other factors at play.

Thursday

> What we have been seeing worldwide, from India to the UK to the US, is the rebellion against the inner circle of no-skin-in-the-game policymaking “clerks” and journalists-insiders, that class of paternalistic semi-intellectual experts with some Ivy league, Oxford-Cambridge, or similar label-driven education who are telling the rest of us

Wednesday

Skittles or immigrants? I'm not sure what the fuss is about. Was the analogy flawed? Of course: all analogies are, by their nature, flawed, or else they wouldn't be analogies. Was the analogy "disgusting" or inhuman, as Democrats and liberal Catholics [https://twitter.com/

Tuesday

I have to spend one day every year, working at my service club's food booth at the county fair. Every year, I find the chore exhausting, and I don't know why. It's not hard work, the people are nice, and it's a

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Okay, I'm now "all in" with Trump: Donald Trump just unveiled a huge tax break for stay-at-home moms [https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/game-changer-donald-trump-just-unveiled-a-huge-tax-break-for-stay-at-home-m?utm_source=LifePetitions+petition+signers&utm_campaign=bae5c98dff-Petitions_List_Family_9_159_15_2016&utm_medium=email&

This coulda been me as a young man

> The story behind the most popular post card of all time. https://t.co/5fyqm9JTtA ”¦ pic.twitter.com/uCjLQIzbuG [https://t.co/uCjLQIzbuG] > — Bob Toomey (@bob_toomey) September 18, 2016 [https://twitter.com/bob_toomey/status/777592540405047297]

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I have his two exorcism books from Ignatius Press, but I've never been able to get into them: > Rome's exorcist, Father Gabriel Amorth, dies at age 91 -via @cnalive [https://twitter.com/cnalive] https://t.co/u5Yb1Psk4K > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) September 18, 2016

Swiping at the 1960s Ahead of Time

> One of the strangest delusions of the Western mind is to the effect that a philosophy of profound wisdom is on tap in the East // @laotzunit [https://twitter.com/LaoTzunit] > — HL Mencken (@HLMenckenBot) September 16, 2016 [https://twitter.com/HLMenckenBot/status/776692122564988929]

Friday

BYCU I've never had a zombie, much tried to mix one myself. It looks like a remarkably-complicated drink. You can find its history and the two alleged originals recipes here [http://drinkwire.liquor.com/post/rise-of-the-zombie-cocktail_1376529006?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=sf#gs.F4LVCVw] . Excerpt: >

Rodney

One of the funniest five minutes of late night ever. PG-13.

Wednesday

Yet More Miscellaneous Rambling I really like Gavin McInnes. I find his quality uneven, but he was on fire with this piece: Lena Dunham Killed Phyllis Stewart Schlafly [http://takimag.com/article/lena_dunham_killed_phyllis_stewart_schlafly_gavin_mcinnes/print#axzz4JZXSQMj0] . "Young girls look up to [Lena Dunham]

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling I feel fortunate that, so far, all seven of my children seem to be turning out alright. Don't get me wrong: I'm not cocky. I know one could make a terrible mistake or go rogue quickly. But then again, I think I have a

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling The fall garden is in: peas, lettuce, and spinach . . . and lots of 'em. New features: two portable coldframes that will hopefully let me keep getting lettuce and other cold-hardy greens until late December. I put one cold frame in the front yard. It was a revolution, with

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> Tiny living: this house is only 160 square feet https://t.co/qm7UIefOi1 pic.twitter.com/S4fcnDeHqo [https://t.co/S4fcnDeHqo] > — Forbes (@Forbes) September 11, 2016 [https://twitter.com/Forbes/status/775061355065901057]

Friday

BYCU It might not technically be brews you can use, but video games are kind of the 21st-century counterpart to 19th-century opium, so this is kinda BYCU appropriate. Plus, it's an interesting development: College bringing gamers on board as varsity athletes [http://www.toledoblade.com/Education/2016/08/

Thursday

"Contemporary, peer-reviewed medical studies of near-death experiences provide convincing evidence of our spiritual nature. We have a spiritual dimension (like a transphysical soul) that leaves our bodies after clinical death. This 'soul' has the capacity to see, hear, remember, recall, think, feel emotions, and be self-conscious. Furthermore,

RIP

> 1973: Schlafly's a nut for saying men will share public restrooms w/ women. 2016: Schlafly's a nut for opposing men using women's restrooms. > — Joe Carter (@joecarter) September 6, 2016 [https://twitter.com/joecarter/status/772972349910085632]

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Another crazy weekend closes out another crazy summer. We moved Jack back to school on Saturday, dug up potatoes Sunday morning, then hung out with Marie's brother and his family on a pontoon boat just a quarter inch from the Indiana border. The latter was accompanied

Happy Labor Day

It's gotta be the most melancholy holiday of the year. Enjoy. > Things are lovely in Santa Barbara today. pic.twitter.com/jMfQuHYouy [https://t.co/jMfQuHYouy] > — Steve Martin (@SteveMartinToGo) September 2, 2016 [https://twitter.com/SteveMartinToGo/status/771746755054493696]

A Modern Masterpiece

The book is great, too: David Scott, A Revolution of Love [http://amzn.to/2bMZkhy]

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> Anger snowballs into anger, calm snowballs into calm. https://t.co/CZkqeqsXx0 > — Daily Zen (@dailyzen) August 28, 2016 [https://twitter.com/dailyzen/status/769984650068590592]

Friday

Brews You Can Use The summer wraps up. As always, it's been a long, hectic one, but I'm sad to see it come to an end. Fortunately, I'm an autumn fan. I love everything about the fall: good sleeping weather, the color, cooler days,

Thursday

In honor of the last good drinking weekend of the summer, I'm running back-to-back drinking items. This one isn't really "BYCU." Rather, it's brews you could've used . . . back before the 18th Amendment was repealed: 10 Fascinating Facts About Prohibition Speakeasies

Wednesday

Sowell's latest, writing about the University of Chicago's resistance to the PC Fascists and its history of bucking conventional idiocy [https://www.lewrockwell.com/2016/08/thomas-sowell/pushback-campus-cultural-marxism/] . Excerpt: > At Harvard, not only have invited speakers been shouted down and sometimes assaulted, even a Harvard

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Heard on "Open Line Wednesday" with Mitch Pacwa: St. Jerome struggled with lust. Every time he was tempted, he studied Hebrew. He became perhaps the greatest Hebrew scholar over the course of 1,500 years. If a few bright men applied the same principles to their

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling My two youngest start school today. Michigan public schools don't start until September 6th, but my diocese has apparently yielded to the largely fictional notion that more schooling equals better schooling, which is like concluding that, the more you eat, the stronger you get. Don'

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> Because who better to represent "happily ever after"? pic.twitter.com/qF9rewga7z [https://t.co/qF9rewga7z] > — Joanna Wyld (@notesuponnotes) August 23, 2016 [https://twitter.com/notesuponnotes/status/768143944127488000]

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> Without submission to concrete authorities, the self becomes its own magisterium–But this is a lonely and sad thing.https://t.co/8I8eI15eeQ > — First Things (@firstthingsmag) August 27, 2016 [https://twitter.com/firstthingsmag/status/769565238379241472] > The Nones' reluctance to commit to organized religion may also stem

Friday

Hopelessly behind in life and office, so no time for blogging today. Just this quip to keep in mind as you try to live Escriva's injunction to make life more pleasant for others while drinking with them this weekend: “Never make people laugh. If you would succeed in

Thursday

One of those passages worth pondering: "One of the troubles with love is that it gets buried in the debris of life." Dorothy Day

Wednesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity by Nabeel Qureshi. He was interviewed by Al Kresta on Monday. I learned a fair amount. Among other things, he believes jihad is here to stay. He also said some first-century Jews understood the godhead as a plurality . . . like

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Tuesday

My favorite Evelyn Waugh quote. If memory serves, he was explaining how he could be both a devout Catholic and such an unpleasant individual: > “Without supernatural aid I would hardly be a human being.” - Evelyn Waugh > My latest at Aleteia.#evelynwaugh [https://twitter.com/hashtag/evelynwaugh?src=

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling The vegetable gardening dopamine find of the year: potato harvesting. This is the first year that I've grown potatoes, and I've just started "digging my hills." Well, I am digging 'em: shovel out dirt, kneel down, look for potatoes. When you

Low Tunnels

Feel Good Story of the Month

> Waiter tipped $500 for act of kindness https://t.co/mmyGsOPY0K pic.twitter.com/VACbq7JOA1 [https://t.co/VACbq7JOA1] > — WESH 2 News (@WESH) August 20, 2016 [https://twitter.com/WESH/status/766953185370046465]

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> "I know for a fact Ryan Lochte got robbed, my girlfriend was there and saw the whole thing."- Manti Te'o pic.twitter.com/PtEJZcGmhQ [https://t.co/PtEJZcGmhQ] > — Fake SportsCenter (@FakeSportsCentr) August 18, 2016 [https://twitter.com/FakeSportsCentr/status/766350960083996673]

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> The amazing backdrop scenery to the vineyards of Mendoza in Argentina! #wine [https://twitter.com/hashtag/wine?src=hash] pic.twitter.com/CMXhOyFAWf [https://t.co/CMXhOyFAWf] > — The Wine Wankers (@winewankers) August 18, 2016 [https://twitter.com/winewankers/status/766424050197377024]

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> Lovely present from our house guests this week! German gin... pic.twitter.com/hQYcsbaZAM [https://t.co/hQYcsbaZAM] > — Leah Hyslop (@LeahHyslop) August 18, 2016 [https://twitter.com/LeahHyslop/status/766390091359158272]

Great Pic

> They're all winners. #USALager [https://twitter.com/hashtag/USALager?src=hash] pic.twitter.com/vjlyqFjp0y [https://t.co/vjlyqFjp0y] > — Yuengling Brewery (@Yuengling_Beer) August 18, 2016 [https://twitter.com/Yuengling_Beer/status/766390474772877312]

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> You can legally kill as many Bigfoots as you want in Texas - 10 Bizarre Legal Actions Regarding Mythical Creatures https://t.co/MqL3kEU62H > — Listverse (@listverse) August 17, 2016 [https://twitter.com/listverse/status/765745110873214976] "In Texas it is perfectly legal to kill Bigfoot. It started with

Wednesday

Miscellaneous Rambling I watched two rounds of Olympic boxing last night. I knew nothing about the fighters. I had the sound off. I told Max, "Man, this dude from the United States is just destroying this guy." At the end of the third round, the judges gave it

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling "[R]esearch indicates that young men with less than a four-year degree (according to virtually all data, that's an increasing number) are spending their days unemployed and unmarried, but not un-amused. “The hours that they are not working have been replaced almost one-for-one with leisure

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling When . . . will . . . this . . . [expletive] . . . humidity . . . break? I don't know when the last time was that we saw such a run of muggy days. I'm absolutely swamped at the office, and i really don't mind. I kinda feel like it's January:

Saturday

Autobiographical Corner A most-agreeable day yesterday: 7:15 to 8:30: work 8:30 to 9:15: mass 9:15 to 11:45: work 11:45 to 2:45: exercise, lunch, nap 2:45 to 6:30: work with two short breaks and period for rosary 6:30 to 7:

Friday

Brews You Can Use: Bullets ***That mojito I drank last Friday night during the opening ceremonies was killer: freshly-squeezed lime juice, simple syrup, muddled mint leaves (plucked fresh from my garden) white rum, and club soda. I really, really liked it. ***Last night, I tried the lazy man's

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling The cultural bludgeoning continues, the likes of which haven't been seen since early 1930s Germany: 25 LGBT groups send letter to Big 12 urging it to shun BYU [http://www.foxsports.com/college-football/story/25-lgbt-groups-send-letter-to-big-12-urging-it-to-shun-byu-080816] . Whatta wild swing of the pendulum it's been. If

Wednesday

I gotta read more St. John of the Cross. Marie grabbed Carmelite Studies: John of the Cross for $1.00 at that garage sale. I picked it up random yesterday evening, opened to page 50, and read this: "But this 'Little Seneca, as St. Teresa used to refer

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Found at a garage sale for $2: The Psychology of the Saints by Henri Joli. Not found: Any meaningful information about the book. I'm guessing it's a classic, but there's a dearth of web discussion out there. If you know anything about

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling: Olympics We're enjoying the Olympics so far. The Roku helps a lot. I get to see a lot of sports that NBC doesn't show on the network (which might be why their ratings are so bad this year [http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/live-feed/tv-ratings-olympic-competition-opens-917873]

The World's Most Useless Job

Saturday

I watched the opening ceremonies last night. I greatly enjoyed it. Of course, that could've been the eight shots of rum mixed in the form of a MOJITO, but regardless, it was good. I hate to admit it, but I had rum-fueled tears when Greece marched in first.

Friday

BYCU The Kalamazoo Gazette ranked its top ten new breweries in Michigan [http://www.mlive.com/dining/index.ssf/2016/08/michigans_best_new_brewery_our_2.html#30] . Pretty interesting list that illustrates the booming phenom that is craft beer. Number one hails from Frankenmuth, Michigan, which long-time TDE

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling Gavin McInnes on Dinesh D'Souza on Hillary [http://takimag.com/article/dinesh_dsouzas_america_gavin_mcinnes#axzz4GJhp1mIW]. Good stuff. [http://takimag.com/article/dinesh_dsouzas_america_gavin_mcinnes#axzz4GJhp1mIW] Not a bad little piece, if you're into Farmer's Almanac stuff: 28 Pieces

Wednesday

If you haven't jumped on the Fr. Robert Spitzer bus yet, ya better get on it. He has written what might be the most important apologetics work of the new millennium: > "[G]iven the incredible fine-tuning that must have been present at the Big Bang (the

Tuesday

Crime and Politics Steve Sailer is always worth reading. In his most-recent piece, he recounts the rise, fall, and rise of crime in New York City . . . pointing out that it consistently rises with liberal mayors: > During New York's 1946”“58 Yogi Berra Golden Age, the city never

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Back to the grind. Ten days in northern Michigan. I'll try to write about it later. From last week's comments box: "YouTube has great interviews with Walter Hooper, personal secretary to Lewis." I'll have to check it out. I believe

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> "A room without books is like a body without a soul." - Marcus Tullius Cicero pic.twitter.com/hhg8HTrGaC [https://t.co/hhg8HTrGaC] > — Catholic Thinker (@ThinkerCatholic) July 30, 2016 [https://twitter.com/ThinkerCatholic/status/759398846170562560]

Friday

Returning from vacation today. Nine days in Alpena, Michigan, and the Upper Peninsula. Splendid trip. If you get up there, I highly recommend Munising and its Falling Rock Cafe. No drinking, just nice fun. Live band playing classic country tunes, good sandwiches, board games, books for sale, lattes. And a

Thursday

While on vacation this week: > Tess and I had a viciously tight game of Trouble pic.twitter.com/p1EDvWKC20 [https://t.co/p1EDvWKC20] > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) July 24, 2016 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/757326692679577600]

Wednesday

St. Johnny Appleseed: "[T]here is a Russian saying that if a man plants 3 trees in his life he will never go to hell." Dorothy Day. Of course, according to The Smithsonian [http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/real-johnny-appleseed-brought-applesand-booze-american-frontier-180953263/?no-ist] , Johnny wasn't a saint. He was

Tuesday

"Kirk first encountered the Shroud [of Turin] while offhandedly visiting the Cathedral of San Giovanni Battista in Torino, Italy, in 1957 when he attended a Mont Pelerin Society conference. Here, he claimed, he encountered the face of God. 'The face was wondrously distinct, almost accurate as a plaster

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling That Kirk quote yesterday got me thinking about George Gissing's The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft. It's a beautiful little book, one that tugs at every wannabe nerd who can't be that nerd because the affairs of the world keep him strapped

Saturday

My brother-in-law got this handbill while in Chicago last weekend: "The Most Reluctant Convert [https://fpatheatre.com/production/the-most-reluctant-convert/]." It's showing in Chicago, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, Cleveland, and Tulsa (Tulsa?). If I were going to Chicago, I'd definitely check it out. Also intriguing: C.S.

Friday

BYCU Interesting introduction to absinthe: "THE NOTORIOUS ABSINTHE, which scandalized late 19th-century Europe, was embraced by the literary and artistic café society of the mid-1800s. Purportedly addictive, it was the drink of choice for artists, writers, and poets, most notably Toulouse-Lautrec, Van Gogh, Baudelaire, Oscar Wilde, Rimbaud, and Verlaine.

Thursday

That new Russell Kirk biography features extended descriptions of the thought of Irving Babbitt, Paul Elmer More, Albert Jay Nock, and Isabel Paterson (four figures who greatly influenced Kirk). I'm only part way through the first one (Babbitt), greatly enjoying it, and really looking forward to the description

Wednesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Interesting piece about one of the only sites I visit every day: the Drudge Report [http://www.businessinsider.com/drudge-report-trump-2016-7]. It says Drudge may have been able to stop Trump. I found the story linked at . . . Excerpt: "Last week, SimilarWeb, an analytics firm, ranked the Drudge Report

Tuesday

I haven't seen Gilbert Meilaender's name for awhile: > It is right to want to live longer, if we don't want life simply for its own sake. https://t.co/MS5HrJEEHr > — First Things (@firstthingsmag) July 17, 2016 [https://twitter.com/firstthingsmag/status/754805387472228352]

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling A TDE reader referred me to a David Warren piece [https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2016/07/09/sacralizing-violence/]. David used to write for Gilbert Magazine, back before the days I became editor. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed his work. Great line from that Warren piece: "

Ride on, Target, Ride on!

> A transgender “woman” was arrested for secretly taking pictures of a woman in a @Target [https://twitter.com/Target] dressing room. pic.twitter.com/1VemXt0I3h [https://t.co/1VemXt0I3h] > — The Stream (@Streamdotorg) July 17, 2016 [https://twitter.com/Streamdotorg/status/754812959352684544]

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> Thomas Sowell: 2 Cherished Myths in the War on Cops https://t.co/f5v6cPW9Ld @billhobbs [https://twitter.com/billhobbs] pic.twitter.com/LEn5Xw1g4K [https://t.co/LEn5Xw1g4K] > — The Stream (@Streamdotorg) July 13, 2016 [https://twitter.com/Streamdotorg/status/753194692737585152]

Saturday

BYCU The red currant-infused vodka was . . . alright. It was pretty sour. I first tried it with unsweetened cranberry juice and a splash of lime. That was way too sour. I then tried it with the juice and cranberry Sprite. That was better, but still too sour. I then tried it

Friday

BYCU Well, I stumble into Friday. Hands-down the worst two weeks of my professional career. I've clocked more hours sleeping on my office floor than I care to count, and if I see the sun come up from my office one more time, I'll vomit. So

Thursday

Other than some mesclun [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesclun] blends I really like and some red lettuces, I'm not sure I'll ever grow any lettuce than Black Seeded Simpson. It's more nutritious than many lettuces, I never see it in stores (I'

Wednesday

Shows my ignorance. From that Russell Kirk biography I mentioned yesterday: "Marjorie Rachel Pierce Kirk gave birth to her son, Russell Amos, on October 19, 1918, in a prefabricated house, ordered originally from Sears, Roebuck, and Co., in Plymouth, Michigan, and built by his grandfather in 1913, but with

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Here's a unique Top Ten list: Top 10 Catholic Cities, USA From sea to shining sea, these communities exude the Faith in their history, landscape and cultures [https://www.osv.com/osvnewsweekly/byissue/article/tabid/735/artmid/13636/articleid/9926/top-10-catholic-cities-usa.aspx] . Unfortunately, I've

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling One of the more interesting stories out of the Far East this year: Duterte anti-drug vigilantes kill 100 in seven weeks [http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/asean/1031673/nine-more-killed-in-dutertes-war] . The Philippine Daily Inquirer has been compiling its own "kill list" of suspected criminals. It showed 119

Sunday

Nice little piece about one of those songs I've always enjoyed but not enough to buy. That might change. July marks the song's 50-year anniversary. 50 Years Ago, This Catholic Wrote a Song That Made the Beatles Jealous [http://m.ncregister.com/daily-news/catholic-songwriters-walk-with-musical-success/#.V4JHt1WrTnB]

Saturday

Zero Hedge, on the first identified shooter: "However, something else that has emerged and is now confirmed regarding Thursday night's attack, which the police described as a carefully planned and executed ambush, is that according to Dallas Police Chief David Brown, who said that during the exchange

Friday

Brews You Can Use Really jammed these days at the office. Just a bit of "drinking news" for today: "31 Year Old Hedge Funder Trashes $20 Million Hamptons Mansion In Wild Midget-Tossing Party, Is Fired [http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-07-07/31-year-old-hedge-funder-trashes-20-million-hamptons-mansion-wild-midget-tossing-par] ." Excerpt: "[O]ver

Thursday

I'm floored, absolutely floored, that The Washington Post ran a brutally honest piece like this: > Hillary Clinton's email problems might be even worse than we thought - The Washington Post https://t.co/K38fHifg1s > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) July 6, 2016 [https://twitter.com/

Wednesday

From the Gardening Journals I worked hard to turn my garden into a system of sorts. I have a potting station with an always-ready assortment of potting/soil materials. I have pots of every size. I have work gloves and knee pads and hand shovels scattered throughout the garden. I

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Expect a fair amount of London and English history references over the next year or so. Marie and I are going to London for our 25th wedding anniversary. I'm listening to the Great Courses' lectures on early medieval English history, and I am going to

Happy Fourth

Enjoy today and the resulting four-day week.

Sunday

"The hostages were given a test: recite verses from the Quran, or be punished, according to a witness. Those who passed were allowed to eat. Those who failed were slain." Yahoo News AP Story [https://www.yahoo.com/news/commandos-storm-dhaka-restaurant-6-attackers-dead-13-050930701.html] . Are the Elites and Leftists ever going

Saturday

Rush explains why Hillary won't be [http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/daily/2016/07/01/we_re_being_played_by_the_clintons] indicted. He's spot on: > These are Democrats first. I know people want to believe that we still have people who will still put institutions

BYCU

Summer Tom Blues There ain't no cure for the Summer Tom [hangover] Blues . . . Black raspberries grow wild in my neighborhood. I met with the vodka master yesterday morning, and he told me black raspberries would probably work great in lieu of blueberries. He was right. I mixed up

Thursday

"It is human to need the Sabbath. The U.S. military found this out the hard way back in the 1940s. In order to make ambitious quotas, the government asked its munitions plants to extend the workweek to seven days, round the clock. Most plants complied, but some didn&

Wednesday

"My love of peace and quiet inclines me always to want to do nothing. This drag to take my ease is like the pull of gravity. Will it always be so? My first impulse is always to say no. God forgive me for this unwillingness which pollutes all my

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling World Youth Day 2016 starts next month. My daughter Abbie still gets elated, thinking about her experience in Rio de Janeiro in 2013. I never knew what exactly to think about WYD, but after seeing its effects first-hand, I endorse it. This WYD is in Krakow. This nifty

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Return from Vacation Day. It's not nearly as sad as it sounds, but then again, I worked most of Friday and a little bit on Saturday, so it's not like I'm walking back into a hell hole of uncertainty. Like most things,

Sunday

"Dwight Eisenhower, who had admired Hitler's autobahn and got one of his own: the tellingly titled National System of Interstate and Defense Highways. Cohesive working-class neighborhoods in countless American cities were sacrificed to the Road Warriors." Bill Kauffman. The destruction of Detroit's Corktown is

Saturday

The Telegraph had perhaps the best passage I read yesterday about Brexit [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/politics/britains-decision-to-leave-the-eu-is-hillary-clintons-worst-nigh/] , in speculating what the vote could mean for Trump: > As Brexit proves, working people around the world are in no mood for common sense. They are angry, restless, uncooperative.

Seen Earlier Today at Reddit

The fire happening now in California's Lake Isabella area

Brexit Vote by Area

Interesting [http://www.bbc.com/news/politics/eu_referendum/results]. If you take Scotland (the public assistance capital of the Isles) out of the mix, it wasn't even close: 53.4% to 46.6%.

Friday

BYCU Whoa! Hot dog! The preliminary reports out of Britain were wrong!!! It's a major step away from globalization. I honestly never thought it would happen. Even if, I figured, British voters overcame the elites' marketing campaign and mustered the votes, the elites would rig the final

Dang!

Brexit fails: 52%-48%. It's not official, but that's the news leaking out of Britain.

Wednesday

"I love the Maritains for their love for St. John of the Cross." Dorothy Day. And I love Dorothy Day for her love of the Maritians for loving St. John of the Cross. And you, dear TDE reader, can love me for loving Dorothy Day for her love

Frustrating

H.I.F. "[D]espite ample evidence that Islam's tentacles were all over the Orlando attack, much of the progressive media turned the focus to guns and homophobia. This was not Islamic terrorism, they insisted, it was an NRA-enabled hate crime against gays. (In case you didn&

Tuesday

Well, I've made it official: I'm a big fan of Taki Magazine. I have now added it as a favorite to Google Chrome and iPhone Safari. I think it produces at least five great pieces a week and, more importantly, the ratio of great pieces to

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Welcome to the longest day of the year. If you want to know more about the summer solstice than I, click here [http://www.vox.com/2016/6/19/11966856/summer-solstice-2016]. So what saint can we spend the longest day of the year imitating? None. According to my

Sunday

Pretty much sums it up: Government programs = reallocation of wealth = reallocation to those closest to the people doing the reallocating.

Saturday

Bullets Curses! Trader Joe outlets in Michigan don't sell liquor! Dang. I was really looking forward to trying their Jail House Gin. The garden is in full swing. We snagged over $100 worth of strawberries, with a few quarts still left in the tank. The peas were really

Friday

I know TDE is a reward in itself: the witticisms, whimsy, erudition, humility. But once in awhile, I like to give TDE a tangle benefit. Today is that day. I learned about the vodka pictured above from a friend who used to distill and sell his own vodka. His vodka

Thursday

"The Bushies and their courtiers, who know as little of our history as Janet Jackson knows of Jane Austen, haven't the faintest idea that Republicans have often been the party of peace and non-interference in foreign wars. As President Benjamin Harrison once remarked, 'We have no

Wednesday

Ah, so it's not unique to me: "Thief, hypocrite, lacking in hospitality, charity, and brotherly love, lazy, a malingerer, expecting others to do all the work while I went traveling around the country, a liar, cheat, deceiver, perverter of Peter's teaching. People have so trembled

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling A page of my life will come to a close this week. After ten seasons as a dugout coach (actually, nine as dugout coach, one as head coach), my last regular season little league game is this Friday. I admit: I'm greatly looking forward to it.

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Whew. Fifty dead. Unbelievable. I have nothing to add, except the obvious: America and Islam are incompatible. That doesn't mean the majority of Muslims cannot live here peaceably, but I'm not sure how we separate the good ones from the bad, so I'

Saturday

> In 1980 there were only 101 breweries in the United States. Today there are over 4000. #Progress [https://twitter.com/hashtag/Progress?src=hash] #beer [https://twitter.com/hashtag/beer?src=hash] #Murica [https://twitter.com/hashtag/Murica?src=hash] > — Drunken History (@DrunkenHistory) June 5, 2016 [https://twitter.

Friday

BYCU My small town had a stroke of good fortune this month: a new Meijer store opened up here. It's the third biggest in Michigan. I took my daughters there for our first visit Wednesday night and was greatly impressed. I don't care much for shopping,

Thursday

Caddyshack, one of my all-time favorite comedies, turned 35 yesterday. Mental Floss has published 15 interesting facts about the movie [http://mentalfloss.com/article/56693/15-things-you-might-not-know-about-caddyshack] . Excerpt: > At first, Murray's appearance as oafish groundskeeper Carl Spackler was planned as a quick cameo, but his characterization was so

Wednesday

Truth in advertising: "While there are no key details about what the filmmaker's next film will be, he will be on producing duties for a new Western that is set to shoot in Los Angeles later this month - and it's already generated vitriol through

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Versatile Gardening Tool of the Year 2016: The plastic fork. I bought a big batch of them a few years ago. Our cat was ravishing my pots and I read that, if you line the pots with plastic forks, they deter felines. It worked (though, this year, they

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling "Norway becomes first country in the world to commit to zero deforestation [http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/norway-becomes-first-country-in-the-world-to-commit-to-zero-deforestation-a7064056.html] ." That's great, except if I were an environmentalist, I wouldn't be proud to have Norway in my corner. Supposedly the

PSA

> Warehouse sale: $5 and $10 Catholic Books: Sophia Institute Press. Great titles! https://t.co/uq0Mfb8hgg > — Ellen Finan (@efinan57) May 17, 2016 [https://twitter.com/efinan57/status/732564601934614528] > Catholic Book of the Month Club https://t.co/q5P0S6a1vg > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) June 4, 2016 [https:

Friday

I'm skeptical of some of the facts I read at Drunken History, but this one rings true enough for me: > Irony: experts estimate the consumption of hard liquor actually increased by 15% during prohibition and dropped 25% after repeal. > — Drunken History (@DrunkenHistory) June 1, 2016 [https:

Thursday

Can we make one thing clear? Libertarianism does not deny original sin. I was listening to a Tom Woods podcast last weekend, and he remarked that, following an online debate between a libertarian Christian and traditional Christian, the comments box filled up with traditional Christians who think libertarianism doesn'

Wednesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Welcome to June. The honeymoon with warm weather nears its end. The hell of summer heat is nigh. Sorry to be such a downer, but I detest heat. You'd think I'd be more concerned about global warming. Great piece: 15 Freewheelin' Facts About

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling I hope everyone had a good holiday weekend. Marie and the kids were gone. I spent my time "putting my garden in" (a phrase I've long disliked for some reason) and cleaning out the areas of the house and garage I had usurped for

Monday

> Why aren't Trump's critics trying to rein in the powers of the office he seeks? Excellent piece by @conor64 [https://twitter.com/conor64] https://t.co/v2UjSqUY2u > — Jack Hunter (@jackhunter74) May 24, 2016 [https://twitter.com/jackhunter74/status/735083219079462912]

Sunday Miscellany

Headline of the day. That must be one strong and skilled kid: Gorilla killed after 4-year-old falls into zoo enclosure [http://www.cincinnati.com/story/news/2016/05/28/police-child-taken-hospital-after-falling-into-gorilla-pen/85095094/] . > Postal workers are voting on whether to strike. They mailed their ballots so we should know in about

Saturday

Whew. I'm further behind at the office than I thought. It took about three tall vodka tonics (accented with the most excellent Fee Brothers bitters) to get through my pile of stuff . . . and that was just basically cataloging and prioritizing things. I'll head back Monday to

Friday

BYCU If I were asked to nominate a nontraditional day as The Drinking Day of the Year, today might get my nod. The Friday before Memorial Day has a ton to recommend it. It is, of course, the start of a three-day weekend, which is always nice. But it'

Thursday

The farmers drove their tractors to breakfast this morning:

Wednesday

Wow. I gotta think seriously about going to this. It's at my alma mater, only 50 minutes from my driveway: Front Porch Republic Annual Conference [http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2016/05/fpr-annual-conference-october-8-university-notre-dame/] . > This year we'll be at The University of Notre Dame. The theme of

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Gardening season is obviously in full swing. I have grown from seeds all the tomatoes I'll need. I should have extra for my neighbor. My sweet pepper sprouting, as always, has been far less successful, but I think I have about a dozen seedlings that will

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Those pictures yesterday perfectly capture a project I've long thought (fantasized) about: building a local outdoor shrine. An actual "shrine," of course, requires designation by the bishop, but it'd be a shrine in intent, if not official approval. I always thought such

Sunday

Due to an odd confluence of events, I ended up going to Mass by myself at this great little church yesterday evening (well, 4:00): I then trekked ten minutes south and stopped by the memorial celebration of a long-time client of mine. I had no idea he had built

Multiply this by ten today

> “We have now sunk to a depth at which the restatement of the obvious is the first duty of intelligent men.”-G.Orwell pic.twitter.com/B7l1OVeCuQ [https://t.co/B7l1OVeCuQ] > — Catholic Thinker (@ThinkerCatholic) May 12, 2016 [https://twitter.com/ThinkerCatholic/status/730860719202148352]

Friday

Dang it! I'm kicking myself. I had a pretty good BYCU planned, then got so wrapped up in gardening and drinking last night, I forgot to blog. So I'm going to save it. For today, I'm merely going to mention the Moscow Mule I

Thursday

> Precisely! Fascists just a cheap brand of envy-driven hatred for only REAL force of progress worldwide: Bourgeoisie. https://t.co/NOEi4genWR > — John Zmirak (@JZmirak) May 19, 2016 [https://twitter.com/JZmirak/status/733121821634007048] > #NeverTrump [https://twitter.com/hashtag/NeverTrump?src=hash] people act like there was nothing

Wednesday

"Prostitution is legal in Nevada but mandatory in D.C." Bill Kauffman _____________________ ". . . an isolationist America is a peaceful America; had we minded our own business, bin Laden and his deranged murderers would be as indifferent to our land as George W. Bush is to the works of

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling If my Vegas posts inspire you to visit Sin City, check out this great piece about the hipsterdom of downtown [http://www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/travel/usa-long-haul/las-vegas-starts-pulling-cool-7965131] . I guess I must be a hipster at some level, though you'd hardly know it by seeing

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I really enjoy vegetable gardening, but I have a hard time justifying it if I'm merely pulling produce at the time that I can find cheap fresh-cut produce throughout my rural area at a dozen frontyard stands: 25 cents a cucumber, 20 cents a tomato, $1

Sunday

So I get back from Traverse City late yesterday afternoon, go to Mass, get dinner, and doze off on the family room floor. A local high school game of assassin wakes me at around 11:00, with a bunch of excited teenage kids coming through the house. A friend, in

Friday

I've long been jealous of whiskey drinkers and their dedicated bars. It turns out there are a growing number of rum bars. This article highlights some of the nicer ones [http://www.liquor.com/articles/rum-bars-beyond-tiki/?utm_campaign=trueAnthem:+Trending+Content&utm_content=5731399a04d3010ab07f4f30&utm_medium=

Thursday

"The political and journalistic world can boast of very few heroes who compare with Father Damien of Molokai. The Catholic Church, on the contrary, counts by the thousands those who after the example of Fr. Damien have devoted themselves to the victims of leprosy. It is worthwhile to look

GKC Wednesday

There's something about this sketch I really like: > #drawing [https://twitter.com/hashtag/drawing?src=hash] #pencil [https://twitter.com/hashtag/pencil?src=hash] #ink [https://twitter.com/hashtag/ink?src=hash] pic.twitter.com/BK7cKI9rmt [https://t.co/BK7cKI9rmt] > — Delineatas Ù† (@Delineatas) May 3, 2016

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling I've begun listening to Al Kresta a lot. I catch him when I can on my car, but I spend very little time commuting (during these warm months, I ride my bike more often than not). He has a nice demeanor and features interesting guests. Last

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Jack and Michael went to prom Saturday night. I went to watch the "Grand March," a community event where the kids walk through the gym while the adults and younger siblings clap. Two gay dudes came out together. That sucked. But of course a handful of

Sunday

> Weekly Top Stories: Blood-red Trevi fountain a wake-up call on Christian persecution https://t.co/zimyz6ao9h pic.twitter.com/Udcp1GL3Ni [https://t.co/Udcp1GL3Ni] > — The Pilot (@TheBostonPilot) May 7, 2016 [https://twitter.com/TheBostonPilot/status/728861984465133568]

Saturday

It's Derby Day [http://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/horseracing/2016/05/05/kentucky-derby-horses-20-field-inside-info/83969774/] ! Far out. Of course, I haven't watched the event in over ten years, but I like it: my brother and I went to the local horse track and bet on it

Friday

This blog post combines history, drinking, and entrepreneurship [http://sanduskyhistory.blogspot.com/2016/04/cask-villa-in-vermilion.html]. Possibly the most enjoyable idiosyncratic thing I've seen on the web all year. > During the 1920s, William J. O'Neill purchased over twenty wine casks from a wine wholesaler in

Thursday

> Catholic Vote has done a pretty good job of capturing my opinion of the current situation [http://catholicvote.org/what-now/]. I bold the parts I particularly agree with: > Catholics of good will disagree about Trump. On the one hand he has pledged to nominate a qualified replacement for

Wednesday

Taki Theodoracopulos has led perhaps the most charmed secular life of the modern era. I just ordered his memoirs, which should make great outdoor reading this coming season. His most recent column at his online magazine is worth checking out [http://takimag.com/article/dinner_is_served_taki/print#axzz47Pf5r7LN]

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Amazon runs some pretty good daily deals. I'm going to start including a link at the end of my Miscellaneous Ramblings posts, both as a reminder to TDE readers and myself to check them out. Hope you don't mind. Remember: Every dollar generated for

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling So I'm at Abbie's Baccaleurate Mass Friday evening. Some doofus was in the front row, wearing a long-sleeve Michigan State t-shirt. It was one of those things that would make a good Seinfeld diner conversation: Jerry: "He was wearing a MSU shirt."

Sunday

Some good late night from last week: "Today is Take Your Kid to Work Day. It's really the most uncomfortable day of the year for the adult film industry." Kimmel "During Donald Trump's foreign policy speech yesterday, he said when it comes to

Saturday

Graduation and the Jesuit Abbie graduates from the University of Michigan today; Alex turns 23 today. Both are in Ann Arbor. The idea of sitting through a two-hour graduation in "The Big House" terrifies me, so I attended the Baccalaureate Mass last night with my Mom and two

Friday

Brews You Can Use One of the more interesting articles about gin I've seen lately: 8 Surprising Facts You Never Knew About Gin [http://www.liquor.com/articles/8-surprising-gin-facts/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=FA%20-%2004.27.16%20-%20Mother%27s%20Day-ab&

Thursday

I wasn't going to vote for Trump, but according to Catholic radio this morning, he said last night that we need to do much, much more for the Middle East Christians and we need to stop the in-flow of non-citizen Muslims. The man may have just gotten my

Wednesday

What the hell has Europe done to itself? "On the heels of State Department spokesman John Kirby's renewed proclamation that "US is committed to admitting more refugees," we thought this brief clip from France's picturesque Mantes La Jolie (in the western suburbs of

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Sign the Target boycott petition [https://www.afa.net/action-alerts/sign-the-boycott-target-pledge/]. [https://www.afa.net/action-alerts/sign-the-boycott-target-pledge/] Lol: The AFA has been listed as an extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center, an organization that monitors hate groups. The AFA “has been extremely vocal over the years

Monday

From the Notebooks Conservatism is the response to the liberal's efforts to replace God. More particularly, conservatism is the attempt to push the immutable truths–the human condition, natural law, the rule of law, objective morality–back into the public sphere, in opposition to the myriad of liberal

Sunday

Whew, packed weekend. Irregular blogging coming up, but bear with me.

Saturday

(From Crystal Zevon's warts-aplenty 2007 portrait of her ex-husband, I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, comes this account of the Zevons' child-custody dispute: “Warren got on the phone; he was obviously drunk. . . . He said, 'I'm to the right of your father

Friday

Release your inner homosexual: > A probar https://t.co/fXT1BgbTHl > — In Situ (@Insitumezcal) April 20, 2016 [https://twitter.com/Insitumezcal/status/722926911060590592] I'll be releasing this weekend with some Electric Lemonade. My basic mix: "Fill a Collins glass with ice. Pour in vodka, blue curacao

Thursday

H.I.F. You ever wonder how you get away with that wretched signature of yours on credit card acknowledgements? > In his book, Prank the Monkey, humorist John Hargrave recounts a wonderfully hilarious experiment he conducted that is, importantly, quite capable of being repeated on a massive scale. Hargrave

Wednesday

Chesterton Short(s) It sounds like the 2016 G.K. Chesterton Conference [http://www.chesterton.org/35th-annual-chesterton-conference/] is going to be a humdinger. It's being held at Slippery Rock University, which is about 4.5 hours from me. I'm tempted to register, but I'm

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling I wear a pedometer. On Saturday, I gardened almost the entire day, taking brief walking breaks. By 6:00 (start of evening Mass), I had logged in 18,000 steps. I'm hoping the constant activity, punctuated with days of outright exercise, will allow me to

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Wow, what glorious weather. It actually got too hot for my taste, but I'll take it. I'm focusing on greens this year more than ever. Planted over the last six weeks: six types of lettuce, three types of spinach, endive, chicory, green mustard wave,

Death Valley

As part of our trip to Las Vegas, we hit three parks: Fire Valley State Park, the Grand Canyon, and Death Valley. Here's us on the floor of Death Valley, temperature: 100 degrees:

Grand Canyon

Me at the Grand Canyon, kinda:

Friday

Gin season quickly approaches. I'm looking forward to it, though I doubt my vodka consumption will suffer much: > This tasty gin cocktail combines the Last Word and the Gin Fizz: https://t.co/TToBTopqCC pic.twitter.com/LB9KsvBIss [https://t.co/LB9KsvBIss] > — Liquor.com (@Liquor) April

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling A few more Vegas thing. First, O'Hare Airport absolutely sucks [http://www.flychicago.com/ohare/en/home/Pages/default.aspx]. Our flight out to Vegas was delayed five (yes, five) hours. While we were trying to sleep, O'Hare decided, of all the gates in

Wednesday

Here are videos taken with my phone, with the corresponding degree of professionalism.

Tuesday

Things to Do There's one reason to go to Vegas: The huge array of things to do. There's no good way for me to explain it in general, so I'm just going to list the things we did and offer commentary. The casino hotels-resorts.

Las Vegas

First, The Caveat Marie and I have long wanted to to to Las Vegas. We're not big gamblers, and I hope we're not big decadents, but it has become a big city with huge cultural significance. Like Chicago that went from nothing to huge in the

Some Random Tweets

> Clinton Campaign Treasurer Crushed To Death After Stack Of Campaign Funds Topples Over https://t.co/Tqpnt9xH3n pic.twitter.com/1AQlrH63oy [https://t.co/1AQlrH63oy] > — The Onion (@TheOnion) April 9, 2016 [https://twitter.com/TheOnion/status/718827089726697473] > "Sometimes, I feel the past and the future pressing

Sunday

Every sin gushes from a complex soul. In the biblical tradition, it is the heart, which the Pseudo-Macarius, a master of intimate theology, describes as follows: > The heart itself is but a small vessel, yet dragons are there, and there are also lions; there are poisonous beasts and all

(Untitled)

> Actual wall where Capone carried out the massacre pic.twitter.com/DRLxAJnwEO [https://t.co/DRLxAJnwEO] > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) April 9, 2016 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/718599646441041920]

Friday

I just returned from a week in Sin City. What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, but I'll tell you all about it shortly. In the meantime, here's a picture of my kids (the five who could make it), standing outside the New York New York

Thursday

From the Notebooks When the first anti-liberal thinkers started publishing widely-acclaimed books–Friedrich Hayek's Road to Serfdom in 1944, Richard Weaver's Ideas Have Consequences in 1948, William F. Buckley's God and Man at Yale in 1951–liberalism had by and large come to control

Wednesday

How would a cat react if deprived of sleep? How does a car perform when deprived of oil? What happens to babies if no one holds them? I don't know how the cat would react, but I bet it would grow highly irritable and eventually violent. The car,

Tuesday

Never a truer passage about contemporary politics has been written (a slight, but only slight, exaggeration): > Richard Hofstadter in The Paranoid Style in American Politics (1964). Hofstadter ascribed all dissent from the Cold War-Great Society consensus, whether on left or right, to mental illness. This was a gentler version

Monday

From the Notebooks To understand how liberalism's ejection of God contributes to aimlessness, it helps to understand the “genealogy” of the institutional permanent things as found in the Christian tradition. First, there is the Triune God, the very first Permanent Thing. From God comes what I call the

Sunday

"I get so impatient at times that I have to go off by myself and read St. Francis de Sales' letters to calm myself." Dorothy Day, Diaries. Great idea. I don't have his letters, but I do have Pauline Books' nifty Courage in Chaos,

Saturday

From the Notebooks The liberal intuitively wants aimlessness and the resulting banality. Aimlessness is the opposite of rootedness, and rootedness is the trait of a person whose feet are in the soil of the permanent things, and the permanent things ultimately stem from God. Liberalism, by definition, is the effort

Friday

Just a minor sidelight of the major socio-economic rape-disruption that was the English Reformation: > When Henry VIII dissolved monasteries monks applied their trades commercially, including monastic distillers & created commercial distilling > — Drunken History (@DrunkenHistory) March 29, 2016 [https://twitter.com/DrunkenHistory/status/714962889661157376] Neat: > Ketel One Vodka

Thursday

Amen. And it pertains to every governmental welfare program: > When A annoys or injures B on the pretense of saving or improving X, A is a scoundrel. > — HL Mencken (@HLMenckenBot) March 30, 2016 [https://twitter.com/HLMenckenBot/status/715181824729870337] Kinda tough but accurate: > “To be a Christian

Wednesday

"I had a friend named Henry Clune who lived to the age of 105. He was a well-known novelist and newspaperman. Until he was in his late nineties, Henry ran wind sprints on his front lawn every day. Even at 105 he still wrote in his diary every morning,

Tuesday

Fr. Schall, discussing a topic I have long found confusing, soothing, and potentially sinister, all at the same time: social justice. > Is Social Justice a Right? https://t.co/K0yuPxZNAl > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) March 26, 2016 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/713859999110471680] Excerpt: > The principal agent

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling R.I.P., Mother Angelica. Died on Easter Sunday. With a $50 million annual revenue nonprofit as a legacy. Surely you heard the words from Matthew 25:23 yesterday. Happy Easter Monday. * * * * * * * And welcome to some pretty good weather, until this weekend, when a nasty cold front is

Easter

"When the disciples saw the risen Christ, they beheld “him as a reality in the world, though no longer of it, respecting the order of the world, but Lord of its laws. To behold such reality was different and more than to see a tree or watch a man

Holy Saturday

Nyssa, Tolkien, and Gibson By killing Jesus, Satan had swallowed God's bait. He didn't know he had swallowed the Godhead, thereby inviting Full Being into his fortress of nothingness and bringing about the ontological fall of his nothingness. In the words of St. Gregory of Nyssa:

Good Friday

“The Son of God suffered unto the death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like His.” George MacDonald "The cross cannot be defeated. . . For it is Defeat." G.K. Chesterton On those who hate Christianity: "They do not dislike the Cross

Holy Thursday

"[I]n the agony of Gethsemane the ultimate consequences of our sin had their hour. . . . God permitted his Son to taste the human agony of rejection and plunge towards the abyss. . . Gethsemane was the hour in which Jesus' human heart and mind experienced the ultimate odium of the

Wednesday

“'Spy Wednesday,' the day Judas decides to betray Christ. A Tenebrae (darkness) service is sometimes held this day, in which all the light in the sanctuary is extinguished. Start the Rosary or night prayer with several lit candles; extinguish them halfway through." Link [http://www.ncregister.com/

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Benedict Groeschel frequently recommended that people sit down and read a gospel in one sitting. He said it would take 30-60 minutes, depending on which gospel (Mark being the shortest) and it would prove a powerful experience. I've tried it. I'm not sure I&

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling: Holy Week Edition Jack Kerouac once vowed to write about nothing but Buddhism. I'm guessing he kept the vow for less than five minutes (iron resolve, he didn't have), but don't all people experience a desire along those lines: to throw it

(Untitled)

Lots of technical difficulties. Please bear with me.

Wednesday

Miscellaneous Garden Rambling My first late winter garden is in: three large beds of lettuce (occupying space until May, at which time the ground will be used for summer crops, my pea bed, a mini-bush pea grow box, and a bunch of spinach in the cold frames or containers. If

Tuesday

Rambling: Catholic Convert and Catholic Cardinal Gavin McInnes breaks down the reason comedians hate Trump: Comedians: Doing the Jobs Happy Americans Won't Do [http://takimag.com/article/comedians_doing_the_jobs_happy_americans_wont_do_gavin_mcinnes/print#axzz42cbvIx9N] . Note: This might be the most colorful article I&

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Welcome to Clean Monday [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clean_Monday] "Clean Monday (Greek: Καθαρά Δευτέρα), also known as Pure Monday, Ash Monday, Monday of Lent or Green Monday, is the first day of Great Lent in the

50

Many years ago, I was at the local drinking club, talking with a guy I really enjoyed hanging out with. He mentioned he was 50. I'm pretty sure I felt a chill go down my spine. He didn't look or act 50 at all. I felt

(Untitled)

> "I forgave everybody, I gave up, I got drunk." Jack Kerouac (born today 1922) #quotes [https://twitter.com/hashtag/quotes?src=hash] > — Drunken History (@DrunkenHistory) March 12, 2016 [https://twitter.com/DrunkenHistory/status/708705451349827585]

Enough Already

In human years, TDE is probably about 95 years old. I can substantiate that it was started by 2004, but I'm pretty sure I started it in 2002. In any event, I can honestly say that over the course of those 95 cyber years, TDE has only a

(Untitled)

Less likely than whom? > A study found that Vodka drinkers are less likely to suffer from a stroke. > — Did You Know? (@engrossingfacts) March 10, 2016 [https://twitter.com/engrossingfacts/status/707981913181396992]

BYCU

Sure it wasn't just sand from all those commercials? > ICYMI: Corona Recalls Beer Due to Glass Particles Inside Bottles https://t.co/fjwjYtJYFc pic.twitter.com/onWI9IkWOC [https://t.co/onWI9IkWOC] > — Liquor.com (@Liquor) March 10, 2016 [https://twitter.com/Liquor/status/708055858618310656]

I Can't Say I'm Shocked

"Don't judge a book by its cover" you say? I say, "Short of spending a lot of time reading it, what else are you going to judge it by?" And in Chumlee's case, you could see from the cover that he comes

Thursday

"Like H.L. Mencken, Gore Vidal, Ernest Hemingway, and other original Americans, Bradbury 'had the advantage,' wrote Russell Kirk, 'of never attending college,' which 'constricts people,' in Bradbury's words." Bill Kauffman, Poetry Night at the Ballpark and Other Scenes from

Wednesday

And Yet More Miscellaneous Rambling Have you ever considered starting a worm farm to produce your own vermicompost but don't want to deal with all the hassles? I think I have a solution: Simply use a self-watering container (one with the indents and holes at the bottom that

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling My over-wintered spinach crop came through splendidly this year. No surprise, of course: I think we've had the mildest winter ever, and it's in one of my permanent cold frames. I took my first crop last week. I pulled my spinach pots out

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Happy spring. Yeah, I know. I'm jumping the gun, but I've optimistic. The ten-day forecast is gorgeous. Of course, these next two months are the bane of weather forecasters, so I shouldn't be so optimistic. As I've complained on previous

HB

Happy birthday to my lovely wife, Marie, a long-suffering woman who's determined to make me a saint . . . or take us both to hell trying.

Sunday

Some good Seth Meyers: Chris Christie was asked today about his vacant expression during Donald Trump's Super Tuesday victory speech, and told reporters, “I wasn't anything other than happy.” Well, if that expression means you're happy, then my wife was thrilled when I forgot

Saturday

I don't listen to Rush Limbaugh much any more. As I turned more and more libertarian, Rush sounded more and more wrong, especially when he relentlessly attacked Ron Paul during the 2012 primaries. But as a liberal friend once said to me, "Rush always has his facts

Friday

I'd bathe in it: > Slovenian town goes ahead with beer fountain plan https://t.co/wrBR2I3OBD > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) March 4, 2016 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/705568022501527552]

Thursday

"Why can't people let each other alone and not obtrude on each other?" That's Dorothy Day, a "Servant of God" (declared by JPII). A woman who gave of herself constantly . . . constantly. And yet, she harbored at least a bit of resentment toward

Wednesday

Miscellaneous Rambling I was contributing to a community site, but was shut out for the fourth time in five months due to technical difficulties. It dawned on me that I rarely have technical troubles at TDE, but I've never acknowledged my web guy, so here's the

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Last week was the week of Twitter leads. Maybe this will be the week of Miscellaneous Rambling. How is your Lent going? Mine is going surprisingly well. Sure, I've slipped a few times on my Lenten pledge, but everything else is good. One thing has helped

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Happy leap year day. It may not seem like much, but the extra day adds a nice little boost for those professionals who get paid by the hour. Heh, heh, heh. Hectic weekend, but due to an odd confluence of events, I actually had all seven kids home

Sunday

Candy that's okay for Lent: Of course, there's no need to eat kale bars today. It's the day of the resurrection, which trumps His death. Whenever a Christian tells me it's cheap to "cheat" on Sundays during Lent, I screw

Saturday

It's over: > Chris Christie Delivers Major Blow to Party Elites Resisting Trump https://t.co/SHFKofqEOl via @bpolitics [https://twitter.com/bpolitics] > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) February 27, 2016 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/703561173191540736] Unless maybe: > How Can Rubio and Cruz Stop Trump? Flip

Friday

> Alcohol facts that are really interesting: https://t.co/VfrTMShGKx > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) February 22, 2016 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/701567031934656512] This is a great list of facts. And I think they're true. I knew of a few of them already, and I spot-checked

Thursday

Swell. Just swell: > In Catholic TV interview, Bernie Sanders praises pope's 'socialism' - National Catholic Reporter: https://t.co/49zU0X8u5q via @NCRonline [https://twitter.com/NCRonline] > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) February 24, 2016 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/702315478958608384] Yes, the week of Twitter

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I took this picture from my house. Marie fell for it. (Later addendum: Marie assures me she understood the 1/2% discount, but bought it because it was in a clearance aisle where everything was an additional 50% off.) > Big savings! pic.twitter.com/12CdCMEFF2 [https://t.co/12CdCMEFF2]

Wednesday

> Whatever Happened to Noblesse Oblige?–The Imaginative Conservative - https://t.co/Ucik1Fgjef > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) February 24, 2016 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/702304490083459072] "Hampy lived out the principle of noblesse oblige–which is a fancy way of saying, “To whom much is given much

Tuesday

> 11 Lucky Facts About 'Dirty Harry' https://t.co/cLL2eAc8Hm > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) February 22, 2016 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/701901830889086980] One of my favorite movies of all time. My apologies if the blogging is a bit lame. I'm still struggling to

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Terry Crews on pornography [https://youtu.be/GKGmMe5rLNk]. Share it with teenagers.

Monday

> Loyola University beach, shore of Lake Michigan, Chicago, in February. Braved the 61 degree weather. pic.twitter.com/XlWW9iigk2 [https://t.co/XlWW9iigk2] > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) February 21, 2016 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/701409685988122625] Marie and I spent the weekend in Chicago with our niece, Mary,

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> The Unreal, Eerie Emptiness of China's 'Ghost Cities' | WIRED https://t.co/GXlfbJy1f0 > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) February 20, 2016 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/701021253193310208]

American Catholic: Trying Times Indeed

Whatta horrible week to be an American Catholic. 1. We lose Justice Scalia. No more needs to be said. 2. Our Pope makes political statements, all-but saying that, if Donald Trump believes what he says about immigration, he's not a Christian, which is, depending on a number of

Friday

A TDE reader sent this picture to me last weekend. Whatta great find. "Pub crawl your way through the sacred seasons with this entertaining and useful collection of cocktail recipes, distilled spirits, beer, and wine for virtually every occasion on the Catholic liturgical calendar. One part bartender's

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> Trump and the Pope https://t.co/SJ65nZYd7Z > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) February 19, 2016 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/700503848918470656]

Thursday

From the Gardening Journals Gardener extraordinaire, Carol Deppe, channels Nassim Taleb and Albert Jay Nock in this passage about gardening: > As part of our bias toward seeing stories, we tend to interpret sequences of events in terms of causation. We see cause where there is only correlation. I think

Interesting

H.I.F. I remember hearing about five years ago that governments would try to ban paper money so they could better control the subjects. I thought, "Yeah, right. You conspiracy nuts will believe anything. if that actually happens, I'll buy into all the conspiracy theories."

Wednesday

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 file full

Tuesday

“[H]ypermobility . . . is the great undiagnosed sickness of our age.” p. 89. “Today we know Mother Jones primarily as the name of a magazine for consumerist liberals whose idea of a radical act is selling their R.J. Reynolds stock and buying Starbucks. The real Mother Jones–Irish-born Mary Harris

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Sanders' free tuition program? It's a way to funnel even more money to the universities, of course, which overwhelmingly support the Democratic Party. That, I trust, everyone knows. But did you know it's also a way to funnel money into pensions? American Thinker

RIP

"[Justice Ruth] Ginsburg once said that Scalia was 'an absolutely charming man, and he can make even the most sober judge laugh.' She said that she urged her friend to tone down his dissenting opinions 'because he'll be more effective if he is not

Saturday

Back in my teenage and young adult years, I was an avid National Review fan . . . and loved the Misanthrope column by Florence King. I didn't know she was kind of a lesbian. "She called herself, at least once, a conservative lesbian feminist, and she was not to

Friday

Brews You Can Use I should've called this entry "Miscellaneous Rambling: Day Three." I had a backlog of BYCU-worthy entries for the past couple of months, but now find myself dry. I've had to do something I really don't like to do:

Thursday

These are the days of politics (the primaries) and religion (Lent). So when I ran back across this great quote, I decided to past it here: “The Virgin and St. Thomas are my vehicles of anarchism. Nobody knows enough to see what they mean, so the Judges will probably not

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling: Day Two Long-time TDE readers know that my weekly Miscellaneous Rambling column sometimes runs to two days. This week is one of those weeks. * * * * * * * Is that alright? Do people like the Miscellaneous Rambling column? It's probably my longest-running feature, but I've never gotten any

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Mardi Gras is here. The New Orleans parade schedule is here [http://www.mardigrasneworleans.com/schedule.html]. * * * * * * * You'd think some cable channel would televise the parades. Talk about cheap programming for an event many people are curious about. * * * * * * * I went to Youtube, thinking maybe I could

Sunday

Here's how I spent my Saturday morning Office at 6:15 AM: Office at 10:00 AM: It's far from perfect, but at least I can find everything on my desk now. Brutally-busy year this far. But hey, it beats starving.

Friday

Some Amis, with my commentary: "Wives and such are constantly filling up any refrigerator they have a claim on, even its ice-compartment, with irrelevant rubbish like food. Get one of your own and have it fitted with racks the thickness of a bottle apart." Kingsley Amis. Amen to

Thursday

Brownson said, on a speaking tour on “The Church and the Republic” that every society is exposed to two opposite dangers: absolutism of the state and absolutism of the individual. In order to mediate between the two dangers, and give each, the state and the individual, their due, there must

Wednesday

The social critic Lewis Mumford found the space program “anti-human.” Space travel, he argued, requires “the total mobilization of the megamachine, commanding to the point of exhaustion all the resources of the state: it is both a symbol of total control and a means of popularizing it and extending it

Tuesday

I always get a bit of blowback when I say I'm not voting in state and federal elections. Just so I'm clear on this: I have always voted. There is nary a vote--whether local, state, or federal--that I haven't voted in. I stood in

Friday

Brews You Can Use I should've called this entry "Miscellaneous Rambling

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Happy February. It's normally a great feeling to get January under our belt, but this January was so mild, I don't feel a great sense of relief. My gardening thumb is itching, though. I have microgreens planted in the living room. I should get

Earthquake Relief

A big earthquake with the strength of 8.1 on the Richter scale hits the Middle East. Two million Muslims die and over a million are injured. Iraq, Iran and Syria are totally ruined and the governments don't know where to start with providing help to rebuild. The

Saturday

Would I vote for Trump in the Republican primary? Probably not, for the simple reason I don't plan on voting at all. But if I were to vote, I'd be tempted to vote for the Donald. Yes, I agree with everything Catholic Vote recently pointed out

Friday

You're looking at one of the neater Christmas presents I've ever received: Monkey 47 Gin. > An incredibly fun gin that serves the purpose of getting sozzled better than all others. Haling from the Black Forest in Germany, the name comes from the number of botanicals

Feast Day of St. Thomas

I've read a fair amount writing by St. Thomas Aquinas, at least when compared to what I've read of other authors. When compared to how much he wrote, I've read only a little. I have, however, read a lot about Aquinas. I'm

Fallon

Last night CNN hosted a Democratic forum where Hillary Clinton said that if she's elected she wants to work together with Republicans and even said she'd give them all bear hugs. By bear hugs she means like the ones you saw in "The Revenant."

Wednesday

Allegations of Orestes Brownson's inconsistencies in later years are often misplaced. Recent biographer R.A. Herrera, for instance, alleges that Brownson's view on the democratic revolution that was picking up speed in the mid-nineteenth century flip-flopped. Herrera criticizes Brownson for saying, in 1856, that the democratic

Meyers

Jeb Bush joked in a new interview that he'd like to appear in a G-rated episode of the Showtime series "Homeland" and would like his character to kill a terrorist with his bare hands. So I think Jeb might be a little confused about what can

Fallon

Shonda Rhimes is set to executive produce a show on ABC that picks up at the end of Shakespeare's "Romeo and Juliet." So I guess no one at ABC read the end of "Romeo and Juliet."

Humorous

H.I.F. "The original candidate for DC Comics' first headlining black superhero was a character called the Black Bomber, a white racist who would turn into a black superhero under stress, and be later described by comics historian Don Markstein as 'an insult to practically everybody

Tuesday

“The principal purpose of the foreign policy of the United States is to maintain the liberty of our people,” said Taft. “Its purpose is not to reform the entire world or spread sweetness and light and economic prosperity to peoples who have lived and worked out their own salvation for

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling “There are two things you should know about the poor: they tend to smell, and they are ungrateful.” That's potential canonized saint Dorothy Day. I'll be wrestling with her words this week as I struggle with whether to get involved with a new poor

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> Canned beer made its first appearance on this day in 1935, so celebrate with your favorite 6-pack! Happy #BeerCanAppreciationDay [https://twitter.com/hashtag/BeerCanAppreciationDay?src=hash]! > — Bomber Brewing (@BomberBrewing) January 24, 2016 [https://twitter.com/BomberBrewing/status/691346198075052032]

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The 26.6 inches of snow that fell in Central Park on Saturday is a one-day record for New York City. [http://www.bigstory.ap.org/article/a2c422c5f539477eb8309e26cee7f64d/latest-gov-cuomo-lifts-new-york-city-travel-ban]

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> "My subject in fiction is the action of grace in territory largely held by the devil." - Flannery O'Connor pic.twitter.com/fXmRxLtFrW [https://t.co/fXmRxLtFrW] > — Catholic Thinker (@ThinkerCatholic) January 24, 2016 [https://twitter.com/ThinkerCatholic/status/691076511382802433]

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> It's winter again. That time of year when poor are making tough choices between food, heating, or getting that massive new tattoo. > — Offensive Tweetsâ„¢ (@TooMessedUp) January 22, 2016 [https://twitter.com/TooMessedUp/status/690528616992505856]

Meyers

Fast-food chain White Castle announced this week that they will be offering dinner reservations for Valentine's Day. It's the perfect way to tell the person you love that you don't.

Friday

BYCU This was a heckuva coincidence. Thursday evening, I was flipping through vodka cocktail recipes on my Kindle during timeouts of my kids' basketball games. I saw a reference to walnut liqueur and thought, "Man, walnut liqueur. That sounds nasty." Less than 48 hours later, a TDE

Ha

Wednesday

From the Gardening Journals Now I've done it. I came upstairs a few days ago and announced to Marie, "I just bought a pop-up coldframe greenhouse. At this point, I won't be buying anything for the garden except a handful of seeds and potting mix.

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H.I.F. Two Items 1. More on the German mass sexual assault on New Years Eve. This, from a Pakistani journalist: "I feel that Islamic culture and European norms are not compatible”¦. What happened in Cologne happens regularly in my homeland, Pakistan. The men are never ashamed, never

Tuesday

Been there on more than one self-righteous, delusional occasion: > The strange thing is that when you think you are totally detached, you discover an abyss of attachments. Catherine Doherty > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) January 17, 2016 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/688731740429512705] The full quote from Living the

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Happy Martin Luther King Day. Yes, I'm one of those who don't believe MLK deserves his own holiday, and I think it's absolutely absurd that he is the only person in the history of the United States (and the history of the

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> "The greatest need of our time is to clean out the enormous mass of mental and emotional rubbish that clutters our minds." - Thomas Merton > — Catholic Thinker (@ThinkerCatholic) January 13, 2016 [https://twitter.com/ThinkerCatholic/status/687268506279276544]

Sunday

> History's Most Powerful Photos https://t.co/XiGUn9s7Jl > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) January 16, 2016 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/688472338682236928]

Saturday

Man, the migrant stuff in Europe keeps piling up. This is a classic case of the elites screwing the ordinary people. Merkel and Co. live sheltered from the mess of living next door to migrants, just like Peggy Noonan pointed out last year in one of the best editorials of

BYCU

BYCU This is one of those articles that make you want to go on an adventure and check out its subject matter: 10 Detroit Dive Bars You'll Love [http://hellyeahdetroit.com/10-detroit-dive-bars-youll-love/]. Until you realize it's, well, Detroit. And that they're talking about "

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> "Everyone who breathes, high and low, educated and ignorant, young and old, man and woman, has a mission, has a work." - St. John Neumann > — Catholic Thinker (@ThinkerCatholic) January 5, 2016 [https://twitter.com/ThinkerCatholic/status/684360545789722624]

Meyers

Mexican officials revealed Sunday that fugitive drug lord El Chapo nearly escaped by using a secret doorway hidden behind a mirror. Which would have made it hard to capture him since Mexico has no extradition agreement with Narnia. The White House revealed over the weekend that President Obama privately met

Tuesday

I guess I'm behind the times. I just became aware of this funny cartoonist: Dave Coverly [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dave_Coverly]. He grew up near me (our high schools battle in the same athletic conference), he's just slightly older than me, he attended Eastern

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H.I.F: Frustrating This is the thing I've been complaining about for years: The elites, especially the media elite, allow their agenda, especially politically-correct agenda, override to run roughshod over accurate and full reporting. That's why I trust virtually nothing I read in the MSM,

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Welcome to ordinary time. First week. The brown volume. * * * * * * * Marie redecorated our family room (courtesy of insurance moneys from flood damage last fall). She and my eldest daughter concluded that the blue volume of the breviary fit into the decor. Hopefully, the brown volume fits as well. * * * * * * * I

Sunday

> A man knows when he has found his vocation when he stops thinking about how to live & begins to live. -Thomas Merton pic.twitter.com/gmH1Lwgq5B [https://t.co/gmH1Lwgq5B] > — Catholic Thinker (@ThinkerCatholic) January 6, 2016 [https://twitter.com/ThinkerCatholic/status/684600080007958529]

Saturday

H.I.F: Interesting Warning: I think hell has frozen over. A politician in Europe has finally stated the obvious truth: > Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico formally stood up to the Brussels supergovernment juggernaut and said his government will not allow Muslims to create "a compact community,"

Friday

Brews You Can Use I didn't drink a whole bunch during the holidays, but I am on a diet with the aim of losing twenty pounds (to get my weight to 165), so I need to watch my liquor intake. No less a hard-core drinker like Kingsley Amis

Fallon

Several companies are working together to replace thousands of pay phones here in New York City with free Wi-Fi hotspots. Officials say that New Yorkers need a more modern, more technologically advanced thing to [urinate] on when they're drunk.

Thursday

I implied a bit ago that Dalrymple seemed to have lost some zing on his essays, but he appears to be back on track. He penned this excellent piece [http://takimag.com/article/the_will_to_outrage_theodore_dalrymple/print#axzz3uiv8Uh9S] a few weeks ago, then followed it up with

Conan

It came late, but El Niño finally arrived here in Los Angeles. In case you didn't know, El Niño is Spanish for "Little Boy." So apparently the reason El Niño was so late is because it wanted to make sure Jared Fogle was

Fallon

Some people are upset about a billboard in Utah that advertises a dating site called “Where-White-People-Meet-dot-com.” Even more controversial – it's now Utah's state motto.

Wednesday

"[A new study out of Stanford] found that productivity per hour declines sharply when the workweek exceeds 50 hours, and it drops off so much after 55 hours that there's no point in working any more. That's right, people who work as much as 70

Meyers

China this weekend formally replaced its one-child policy with a new law allowing two children per family. That way, families will have one child to play with, while the other one's at work.

Tuesday

I got quite a few good presents this year. My eldest son, Alex, bought me the reputedly best gin in the world (more on that in a later BYCU) and my other kids got me a bunch of stuff to help with my hobbies (gardening and cocktailing). But one of

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling: Blah, Books, Wikipedia, and Charitable Phone Solicitations Welcome to the blah time of year. Truth is, I don't mind it. I enjoy the forced seclusion and quiet time. My waistline could use a break from the social commitments, and my leisurely study pursuits will make use

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Makes sense: "Israeli Public Security Minister Gilad Erdan in October eased citizens' access to guns, calling gun owners a 'force multiplier' in combating the nearly daily Palestinian stabbing and car-ramming attacks since September." Link [http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2016/01/03/reporter-points-out-vastly-different-ends-to-attacks-in-two-cities-and-its-connected-to-number-of-gun-carriers/] .

Saturday

Great assortment of quotes by Gregorian Chant expert and anarchist/libertarian Jeffrey Tucker [https://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/395323.Jeffrey_Tucker]. "An economy not bludgeoned by powerful elites is the ideal we should seek, even if it has a name that is wildly unpopular: capitalism” “Where there is

New Year

Happy New Year. Consistent with TDE tradition, no blogging today, though I will take a moment to reflect upon what one of the announcers said toward the end of the game last night: "You have to wonder what a loss like this does to the Michigan State brand."

Thursday

Regular TDE readers know I'm not a big fan of New Years Eve. Well, that's not exactly accurate. Relative to Thanksgiving Eve, I'm not a big fan of New Years Eve. Also, I'm more of a fan of New Years Eve afternoon,

Wednesday

Shockingly, this song is big with our youth today. It restores my faith in our country's future:

Sherlock

In case you missed it, the next Sherlock comes out on Friday [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/programs/features/news/sherlock-special-premiere-january-2016/] . > Benedict Cumberbatch (The Imitation Game) and Martin Freeman (The Hobbit) return as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in the acclaimed modern retelling of Arthur Conan Doyle'

Tuesday

> Here's what led "Obi-Wan Kenobi's" Alec Guinness to convert to the Catholic Church #StarWars [https://twitter.com/hashtag/StarWars?src=hash] https://t.co/E9Su348SIG > — Patrick Madrid (@patrickmadrid) December 28, 2015 [https://twitter.com/patrickmadrid/status/681614843108048898]

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> Philadelphia's Pink Sisters have prayed nonstop for 100 years https://t.co/EmAURP5Oh8 via nypost > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) December 29, 2015 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/681652663012986880]

Monday

The holidays and technical problems have combined to cripple TDE. Regular blogging will hopefully resume tomorrow.

The 26th

Today is the Feast of St. Stephen. The good old Catholic Church loves its paradoxes: The day of intense joy followed by a day of sobering reality (with the bloody feasts of the Holy Innocents and Thomas Beckett coming shortly). Joy and martyrdom, love and hatred of love, Everlasting Life

Christmas Eve

“He rules the world with truth and grace.” –Isaac Watts ++ “I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year.” –Charles Dickens ++ “The Incarnation”¦illuminates and orders all other phenomena, explains both our laughter and our logic, our fear of the dead and our knowledge

Wednesday

Looking for ways to stand out this Christmas? Here are some classy ideas: Replace all your manger scene characters with Star Wars figures. Hit on women while caroling at the local old folks home. Blare “I'm Mr. Heat Miser” from your house all night on Christmas Eve. Make

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling Welcome to the second-shortest day of the year (well, tied for second). * * * * * * * I don't know if I'm embarrassed or proud that I did most of my Christmas gift buying at the liquor store. * * * * * * * The IRS mileage rate is going down to 54 cents

The Shopping Trip

A couple were in a busy shopping center just before Christmas. The wife suddenly noticed that her husband was missing. She called him on the mobile. The wife said "Where are you? You know we have lots to do!" He said, "You remember the jewelers we went

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Welcome to the shortest day of the year. * * * * * * * It's the day when the sun stops waning and starts exerting its strength, hence I suppose the Roman holiday, The Birth of the Unconquered Sun (of Sol Invictus). There are lots of arguments about whether the Catholic Church

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Wow. One of the more disturbing untold stories about our nation's history: > The Nazi Kid From Brooklyn - Taki's Magazine https://t.co/MIVGW0zvGy via @tealdit [https://twitter.com/tealdit] > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) December 18, 2015 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/677961784955969538]

Saturday

I referenced Modern Drunkard Magazine's Clash of the Tightest yesterday. It's an enjoyable feature, but it's often hard to find the results. After much searching, I found a complete tournament bracket from the first tournament at this page [http://drunkard.com/issues/04_03/

Corden

A man in Houston, Texas, is in some hot water after shutting down traffic on one of the busiest freeways in the United States so he could propose to his girlfriend. If you think that's inconvenient, their wedding will take place on the day before Thanksgiving in the

Conan

A new poll came out and it found that, of all the Republican candidates, people think Donald Trump would make the best Santa Claus. In response, Chris Christie said, "Oh COME ON, what do I gotta do?"

Friday

BYCU So, I won a $25 gift certificate to our local bookstore at the office Christmas party last Friday. I went there on Saturday, looking to spend it and saw they had a single issue of Modern Drunkard Magazine [http://www.drunkard.com/] on the shelf. I bought it. Long-time

All You Need to Know about Alfred Kinsey

In three passages, all courtesy of Joseph Epstein: “The man I came to know,” Jones writes in his preface, “bore no resemblance to the canonical Kinsey.” Instead of a cool scientist, Jones discovered a man of missionary zeal, “a crypto-reformer who spent his every waking hour attempting to change the

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A young Arab boy asks his father, "What is that weird hat you are wearing?" The father said, "Why, it's a 'chechia' because in the desert it protects our heads from the intense heat of the sun." "And what is this

Wednesday

"Santayana, who was very smart on the subject of the end of life, remarked that one of the reasons older people often grow grumpy about the world is that they, with the presentiment of their own death, can't see what good it can be without them in

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I was explaining to my wife last night that when you die you get reincarnated but must come back as a different creature. She said she would like to come back as a cow. I said "You're obviously not listening."

Tuesday

So why haven't I weighed on on Trump? I don't know. Maybe I just haven't had enough time, but, like pretty much American, I've been thinking about him a lot. Here, in no particular order, are some of my thoughts: 1. I

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My neighbour knocked on my door at 2:30 a m. Can you believe that ... 2:30 a m? Luckily for him I was still up playing my bagpipes.

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling So I searched the TDE archives for any reference to "gaudete," and I came across this excerpt from the Monday after Gaudete Sunday: "I kinda feel like Gaudete Sunday ushered in the Advent season for me. Everything . . . was [busy]/ While at Mass Saturday night, it

Sunday

“Christian joy is granted to those who understand natural joy.” Paul VI. Happy Gaudete Sunday.

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> "Anxiety is the mark of spiritual insecurity." - Thomas Merton > — Catholic Thinker (@ThinkerCatholic) December 11, 2015 [https://twitter.com/ThinkerCatholic/status/675322519692435456]

Friday

My gift to you: The Holiday Tom. It's my own concoction, though I know with virtual 100% certainty that it's been made many, many times. It's not very complicated and it's basically the Tom Collins made with vodka. Here goes: 1/2

Thursday

A Random Passage "Jack [Kerouac] 'believed in a conservative working-class America' and in 'baseball, the Virgin Mary, Buddha, and apple pie,' according to his friend, the Beat publisher John Montgomery. Naturally, he supported constitutional Republican Robert Taft for president in 1952." Bill Kauffman "

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Wednesday

One doesn't often run across this dichotomy: > Professor Morson puts it: “Dostoyevsky believed that lives are decided at critical moments, and he therefore described the world as driven by sudden eruptions from the unconscious. By contrast, Tolstoy insisted that although we may imagine our lives are decided

Conan

Kim Kardashian and Kanye West had their baby over the weekend but they waited until today to reveal the name. When asked why they waited so long, Kim and Kanye said, "We're very private people." In the United Kingdom, a sperm donor has fathered 54 children.

Tuesday

Pictures of a pile of spinach and kale that I harvested on December 1st. None of these greens were taken from the cold frame, which is bursting with spinach right now. I have a legitimate chance of providing fresh non-gmo greens from my garden until Christmas. It's always

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Happy Pearl Harbor Day, so to speak. * * * * * * * It's a good day to remember the large degree of fiction fed to us by our country's institutions. WWII is often touted as America's greatest moment. And allow no doubt: America flexed some serious muscle

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Sunday

> "No one is useless in this world who lightens the burdens of another." - Charles Dickens pic.twitter.com/UkWQnAgkAN [https://t.co/UkWQnAgkAN] > — Catholic Thinker (@ThinkerCatholic) December 3, 2015 [https://twitter.com/ThinkerCatholic/status/672223570572009472]

Saturday

> The untold story of the Titanic's Catholic priest who went down hearing confessions | Blogs | LifeSite https://t.co/Q8jgIr9k3a > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) December 4, 2015 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/672914284142321665]

BYCU

Man, I really, really wish I liked bourbon and whiskey: > Southern writer Walker Percy insisted that a good julep should hold at least 5 ounces of bourbon: 5 ounces bourbon/Several sprigs fresh spearmint/4 to 5 tablespoons superfine sugar/Crushed ice . . . Into a silver julep cup, a highball

Thursday

From the Notebooks A Buddhist tries to answer that age-old question: How to live in the present but also plan prudently for one's future. I'm not sure he gets us there, but I think it's helpful: "Living mindfully in the present does not

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Related to posts for the past two days. Also calls into question the whole Pascalian criticism of "busy-ness" and the (supposedly, according to the classical tradition) numb-skull avoidance of ennui through constant activity. From Escriva's Furrow: > Sadness and uneasiness grow in proportion to the time

Wednesday

A few other thoughts related to yesterday's post about the world of total work and whether one ought to love his work. In his classic study, Pieper was not really criticizing the world of total work that I mostly live in right now. He was criticizing the notion

Tuesday

Here's a decent piece by Peter Lawler at The Imaginative Conservative about whether a person should love his work [http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2015/06/dont-make-love-and-work.html] . It criticizes the work notions coming out of Silicon Valley these days, so I like it, but I'm not

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Another whirlwind holiday weekend: Black Wednesday, followed by a (mostly) hangover-free Thanksgiving, then a 40-hour trip to Detroit that entailed a lot more driving once I was there, then over to Portage (a Kalamazoo suburb) to get my son to his high school basketball scrimmage, then to the

Humorous

H.I.F. The Anglican Church will not be denied: It will lead mainstream Christianity to the pits of the absolute absurd: Church of England Lady Bishop Advocates Nudism [http://www.patheos.com/blogs/standingonmyhead/2015/11/church-of-england-lady-bishop-advocates-nudism.html] .

Saturday

From Bill Kauffman's Poetry Night at the Ballpark and Other Scenes from an Alternative America: "Joseph Smith ran for president in 1844, at least until a mob killed him in Illinois. He was thus the first U.S. presidential candidate to be assassinated. (Those in the best

Humorous

H.I.F. Seen at a Reddit thread. Funny stuff, and even though I think the Western policies since the fall of the Ottoman Empire have contributed to this problem, the attempt of the multiculturalists to absolve Islam is ridiculous . . . as outlined in this clever piece. The Jihadists are tired

Thursday

“Thanksgiving Day originated in New England when the Puritans realized they had succeeded in exterminating their neighbors, the Indians, instead of getting exterminated by their neighbors, the Indians.” Mark Twain “Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.” Samuel Johnson “Beggar that I

BYCU Special Edition

Black Wednesday Far out. Here we are again: Black Wednesday. The hardest part about writing about Black Wednesday from a Catholic perspective is the, um, Catholic part. Let's face it: Black Wednesday is occasionally referred to as "black out Wednesday." It's not exactly a

Tuesday

My final "outdoor" (i.e., "non-coldframe") harvest of the year. I brought it in Thursday evening. Big batches of lettuce, kale, and spinach. It's probably more than we can eat. I took these two pics of some of my coldframe spinach Sunday afternoon, after

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Whew. Quite the storm on Saturday. That was one of the top 5 weather turns in my lifetime. And now it's supposed to melt away. * * * * * * * Even though I forgot to put the cover on the cold frames Friday night, I got them on Saturday morning after

Kramer

Saw this iconic Rockwell the other day for the 100th time, and the similarity struck me for the first time.

Saturday

H.I.F. I greatly enjoyed the first Zoolander, and I seem to recall that our funniest Catholic writer today, John Zmirak, ranks it among his favorite comedies of all time. This only increases my desire to see part two: > An online petition created by Sarah Rose is urging

Fallon

And I saw that an animal rights group is suing an amusement park in Louisiana for letting a chimpanzee named Candy drink soda and smoke cigarettes. Meanwhile, the chimp was like, “You nerds need to mind your own business!”

The Tom Collins

Having grown a bit tired of tonic water, I've started experimenting with classic mixed drinks. My first target: The Tom Collins. I started with the basic recipe: three shots of gin, one shot of lemon juice concentrate, one shot of simple syrup. Shake well. Fill the Collins glass

Meyers

A 50-year-old Washington man is facing assault charges after his neighbor says he swung a Klingon sword at him during an argument about trash. Man, if there was any time you'd think two neighbors would get along, it's when they both know what a Klingon sword

Conan 

RadioShack just announced they will be celebrating Black Friday on Wednesday. Mostly because Radio Shack's worried they won't be around on Friday.

Corden

There is a new Barbie doll called Hello Barbie that is a high-tech interactive version of the toy. The Hello Barbie has more than 8,000 phrases she uses to keep up conversation with you. In order for it to work, you have to speak right into her breasts. For

Fallon

In Pope Francis' latest weekly address, he criticized people who use their phones at the dinner table. Which begs the question: Who is on their phone while they eat dinner with the Pope? In a new interview, Mark Zuckerberg said Facebook will be more intelligent than humans in 10

Wednesday

What, you say, I referenced Romano Guardini yesterday but then wrote nothing about him, instead dedicating the day's primary post to Dostoyevsky? What am I, some sort of Serbian Orthodox with an anti-Catholic chip on my shoulder? No, not at all, but yesterday's post had already

Tuesday

Hey, Pope Francis and I have something in common: admiration for Dostoyevsky and Guardini [http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/what-pope-francis-has-to-say-about-dostoyevsky-and-guardini-76130/?utm_source=hootsuite] . I went on a major Fyodor kick in my twenties. I read all his major works (except The Idiot, which, for some reason, I could never penetrate)

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I received a copy of Merchants in the Temple [http://us.macmillan.com/merchantsinthetemple/gianluiginuzzi], which I've started reading. Expect commentary as I plow through. * * * * * * * TDE readers know I enjoy running good jokes from the late night shows, but man, they've been awful lately.

(Untitled)

> Facebook keeps removing satyrical photo of Mizzou "cribullies". Retweet it. #MizzouHoax [https://twitter.com/hashtag/MizzouHoax?src=hash] #Mizzou [https://twitter.com/hashtag/Mizzou?src=hash] #MissouriProtests [https://twitter.com/hashtag/MissouriProtests?src=hash] pic.twitter.com/5wW6rkIFqN [https://t.co/5wW6rkIFqN] > — James Parisi (@NY_2_

Humorous, Interesting, and Frustrating

H.I.F. How bad was the racism at the University of Missouri? Pretty bad: an incident every 800 days. First the Michael Sam charade then this debacle. Missouri has become a joke. Well, all higher education is a joke, but somehow, Missouri has gotten itself in the idiot vanguard.

Saturday

Paris The Paris horror [http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2015/11/paris-attack/415953/?utm_source=SFTwitter] . I'm just shaking my head. Western imperial policies over the past 100 years and a religion rife with violence have combined to create a terrible, terrible situation. Part of me just

Friday

BYCU Booze lists often leave me cold. Even though I like lists and like booze, it seems many of the lists are, well, "contrived." I'm not sure that's the correct word, but almost like the authors are just reaching for script to fill their

Thursday

I enjoy works that impart broader truths in the context of a narrower subject. A great example from Kingsley Amis' Everyday Drinking: > Never despise a drink because it is easy to make and/or uses commercial mixes. Unquestioning devotion to authenticity is, in any department of life, a

Wednesday

One of the more interesting pieces I've seen lately [https://mises.org/library/activists-seek-impoverish-thai-villagers-save-monkeys-slavery] , though the prose is pretty rough. I didn't even know the protest idiots had been targeting monkey labor practices. This article discusses it, as well as the severe shortcomings of the protests

Tuesday

Are sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll taking their toll? Steve Sailer thinks it's possible, as he analyzes the increasing death rates among the baby boom generation [http://www.unz.com/isteve/is-there-a-generational-explanation-for-rising-white-death-rates/] . Excerpt: > I think there is definitely a pattern in that coming of age in the Late

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling One little cross I stumble with every time: logistics. Or what some people call a "cluster" (which also has a more colorful variation related to copulation). Marie thrives on the cluster like some people thrive on their favorite hobby. Saturday was Marie's day to

Sunday

So Michigan State finally loses. This is not a very good team. I think Dantonio has done a great job with this program, but this year's team could just as easily be 4-5 right now as 8-1. I've always kinda like Dantonio, but a friend said

Saturday

> Office of Civil Rights says disguised boy has right to shower with girls https://t.co/VTTomA74rU > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) November 4, 2015 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/661877310921048068]

BYCU

BYCU Michigan's microbrewery posterboy is Bell's Brewery in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Every microbrewery in Michigan wants to become the next Bell's. It makes one of the best wheat beers of all time, Oberon, and many of its other beer names, like Hopslam and Two-Hearted Ale,

BYCU Eve

I met my adorable wife 29 years ago tonight. At a bar in Ann Arbor. I think I'll revisit the romance tonight and have a few drinks. I might even take her with me (chuckle).

Thursday

While exploring Bradley Birzer's works earlier this week, I came across this essay of his about foul language [http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2015/10/foul-language-decorum-and-the-soul.html] . It's worth reading: > One of America's most insightful cultural critics, Tom Wolfe, has correctly labeled this relatively

Wednesday

I cancelled by audible.com membership last Sunday, then saw this passage from an essay by Bradley Birzer: "[B]ecoming enthralled with audible.com and the joy of being read to, my “reading”–a mix of real reading as well as listening to books–has at least doubled and

Tuesday

Two Twitterable paradoxes (found from that manuscript I referenced yesterday): "Reality is simultaneously knowable and unfathomable." Josef Pieper "The medical establishment has become a major threat to health." Ivan Illich I then remembered this piece at "Catholic Exchange" [http://catholicexchange.com/tsunami-theologians-and-the-question] that I

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling All Souls Day. You got out of a day of obligation this year. Why not "make it up" this morning (if your boss allows it)? * * * * * * * Two of my favorite holy days of the year, incidentally. * * * * * * * Brutal weekend. High school football playoffs nearly 90 minutes away Friday

ASD

Happy All Saints Day. A festivus for the rest of us, you might say . . . at least those of us that were saints but not officially recognized.

(Untitled)

> Was the last 'witch' of Boston actually a Catholic martyr? https://t.co/Mf9LbHcluc #Halloween [https://twitter.com/hashtag/Halloween?src=hash] #faith [https://twitter.com/hashtag/faith?src=hash] > — Catholic News Agency (@cnalive) October 31, 2015 [https://twitter.com/cnalive/status/660501570321166337]

Meyers

In more Apple news, a new poll shows that the Apple Watch is struggling to gain popularity, and experts are calling the watch the worst device Apple has ever made. At least until the debut of the upcoming Apple Fax.

Conan

China announced it is going to start allowing couples to have more than one child. Which means nine months from now, Apple's work force in China will double. For Halloween, Google Maps has created a Street View tour of the world's scariest locations. The scariest locations

BYCU Supplemental

A TDE reader sent me this classic. It brought back some nostalgia and even a hankering for a Stroh's, even though I haven't touched that stuff in thirty years:

Friday

BYCU For about a decade, Founders Brewing Company's Breakfast Stout label has depicted a Norman Rockwell-esque drawing of a baby eating a bowl of oatmeal. Unfortunately, the Michigan Liquor Control Commission administrative rules prohibit alcohol containers to “depict or make reference in any manner to minors.” The MLCC

Thursday

Twitterables Courtesy of Seneca: When one is busy and absorbed in one's work, the very absorption affords great delight. Unblest is he who thinks himself unblest. When a man has said: "I have lived!", every morning he arises he receives a bonus. Study cannot be helpful

Wednesday

Twitterables Courtesy of Joseph Epstein If the same progress as had been made in education were made in the culinary arts, we should today still be eating soup with our hands. The physicist Wolfgang Pauli used to respond to the inadequate answers of his less than brilliant students by saying,

Police Brutality?

Officer flips student out of her desk [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/27/us/officers-classroom-fight-with-student-is-caught-on-video.html] . I have no opinion about whether the officer acted appropriately, but have you ever tried to get a kid out of a school desk against his or her will? I have (albeit as

Grocery Store Sign

A little extreme, it would seem. And what's with the capitalization?

Tuesday

Twitterables Courtesy of Bill Kauffman: Henry James's definition of a cosmopolite: a little bit of everything and not much of anything. Three a.m., the soul's midnight, as Ray Bradbury calls it. Conversation is the casualty in the empire of noise. Ray Bradbury's Dandelion

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Whatta glorious Indian Summer! I'm really enjoying the extra time outdoors. I've done all sorts of stuff to get the garden ready for next spring, so much so that I'm reminded of Luke 12 and the parable of the fool who stored

Sunday

H.I.F. Well, at least he has the decency to admit it, which is more than any leaders in the federal government are wiling to do: Tony Blair apologises for 'mistakes' over Iraq War and admits 'elements of truth' to view that invasion helped rise

Saturday

> A must-read: Cardinal Danneels: A Wolf in Shepherd's Clothing | The Stream https://t.co/dHHa3YMfy5 > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) October 20, 2015 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/656611295920267265]

Friday

One of the best Catholic news pieces appeared last weekend at National Catholic Register: Monks, Beer and Christendom [http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/monks-beer-and-christendom]. It combines a handful of things that have interested me for awhile. First, it revolves around the Monks of Nursia, which I assumed was a large,

Thursday

From the Gardening Journals I had a great day last Sunday: getting the garden ready for winter. It's possibly my most pleasant task of the year: pulling up the tomato and pepper plants that were destroyed by Saturday night's freeze, adding to the compost pile, doing

Wednesday

Fascinating episode on EWTN Live earlier this month: "After suffering a spinal injury and praying for Cardinal Newman's intercession, Guest Deacon Jack Sullivan's healing on August 15, 2011 sparked calls for the Cardinal's beautification." Link to MP3 [http://www.ewtn.com/vondemand/

Tuesday

Speaking of Ayn Rand (see yesterday's Rambling), I think I found another Catholic libertarian: Jay Wesley Richards. He doesn't call himself a libertarian in "Why Libertarians Need God [http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2014/03/libertarians-and-religion.html] ," but he has clearly spent a lot of

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Ah, one of nature's great gifts is unfolding: the Indian Summer. We had a freeze Saturday night, followed with gorgeous weather on Sunday and a gorgeous forecast for the next ten days. It's definitely my favorite time of the year, weather-wise. * * * * * * * Interesting essay at

Sunday

Rough sports day yesterday. First, Meg loses her cross-country meet at the last second (18:40:9 to 18:40:7), then Michigan loses to Michigan State even though MSU, literally, held the lead 00:00 minutes of the game. I thought MSU played a decent game and I congratulate

Saturday

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

Friday

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

Thursday

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

Wednesday

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 file full

Monday

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

This Week

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 whose

Sunday

> 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]

Saturday

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

Meyers

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.

Kimmel

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,

Thursday

The Art of Goodbye Like every summer, I had a lot of company in August and early September. And like every summer, I was struck by different visitors' approaches to leaving. While chewing on this phenomenon during random gardening time, I decided that this is probably one of those

Conan

A controversial 1,200-year-old document has been found that shows evidence that Jesus was married. I don't believe it. What married guy gets to spend all his free time with his 12 buddies? Bud Light has created a new device that alerts you when the beer supply in

AI

Fr. Stinessen explains the psychological underpinning of every American Idol contestant . . . and why they're so grossly misdirected: "Every person comes into the world with a dream of doing something great with his life, something that will make an imprint and bear fruit. God himself inspires this dream.

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Fr. James Schall offers his insights into the Pope's visit last week [http://www.catholicworldreport.com/Blog/4225/is_it_good_for_the_pope_to_be_a_star_reflections_on_the_papal_visit.aspx] . Schall is clearly leary of Pope Francis, including his naivety in economic

Monday

There's certainly angst over the upcoming Synod on the Family. I've been catching snippets from Rorate Caeli [http://rorate-caeli.blogspot.com/] and John Zmirak's Twitter feed [https://twitter.com/JZmirak]. Rorate Caeli seems to think the pro-gay position is already baked into the outcome.

Sunday

> "All men matter. You matter. I matter. It's the hardest thing in theology to believe.” - G.K. Chesterton pic.twitter.com/hQzMwuCnCw [http://t.co/hQzMwuCnCw] > — Catholic Thinker (@ThinkerCatholic) September 24, 2015 [https://twitter.com/ThinkerCatholic/status/646892070267973632]

Saturday

Three Posts in One I have three posts for this morning, but time for only one. So you, TDE reader, are hereby the beneficiary of three posts combined into one efficient, pithy, post: 1. Jobs report yesterday was abysmal, but the stock market rallied. If that doesn't scream

Friday

BYCU A statement from Dr. Obvious: The Internet really pumps out novelties in the area of drinking. If you subscribe to the (in)correct Twitter feeds, you'll see an unusual drink every day, often more than one. Come Christmas, hundreds (billions?) of holiday drinks will be splashed across

As We Prepare for Absurd Pink October

TIL: In a report from 2013, most of the funds raised by the NFL don't fund cancer research. In the end, after everybody has taken their cut, only 8.01% of money spent on pink NFL merchandise is actually going towards cancer research.

Meyers

The CDC is accusing Big Tobacco of using different flavors of e-cigarettes to try and lure in young people. They're especially concerned about the newest flavor, Cheerios in a Ziploc Bag.

(Untitled)

Daughter Meg is having a good cross-county season her freshman year of high school. Here she is with daughter Abbie after clocking 18:58 last weekend in Jackson, Michigan:

Thursday

More good passages from his Poetry Night at the Ballpark and Other Scenes from an Alternative America "[T]he Cinematic World On Its Head Act of 1991 . . . mandated that all judges in movies and TV be stern black females while the meaty criminal parts must go to white actors,

Meyers

A referee in a professional soccer match in Brazil pulled a gun out during a game last week because he was tired of being treated poorly by players and coaches. And then out of habit, several players fell down and pretended they had been shot. China is now home to

On Stalin

Presented without comment: "Joseph Stalin was a great man; few other men of the 20th century approach his stature. He was simple, calm and courageous. He seldom lost his poise; pondered his problems slowly, made his decisions clearly and firmly; never yielded to ostentation nor coyly refrained from holding

Conan

Justin Bieber says he has three or four albums he hasn't released yet. Bieber says, “You have until midnight to meet my demand.”

Tuesday

Could everyone do me a favor? Be careful when you use the conjunction "as." I just saw this last Sunday: "The Big Ten is making a comeback, as they have not had schools in the top two of the rankings since back in 2006." That'

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Okay, I'm a bad Catholic. I wasn't able to muster hardly any enthusiasm for Pope Francis' trip. I was looking forward to it, but then I turned on the EWTN coverage when he arrived. I saw him shaking hands and smiling with President

Saturday

The Meditations: Confessions of a Roman Opium-Eater? I doubt it, but it appears the last of the Good Emperors liked a bit of opium: Ten Historical Figures Who Used Opium [http://listverse.com/2015/09/25/10-historical-figures-who-were-dependent-on-opium/] . > Marcus Aurelius was never a physically strong man. However, being emperor of

Friday

BYCU Michigan got a new Liquor Control Commissioner a few years ago. I don't know him, but he seems to be doing a lot of things right. Although I still dislike dealing with liquor matters because it's a morass of absurd restrictions created by special interests

Meyers

New York City plans to deploy an extra 6,000 police officers to help guard Pope Francis during his visit. It'll be the most protection a Catholic has ever used. President Obama this morning gave Pope Francis a sculpture of an ascending dove made with pieces of the

Meyers

Dr. Ben Carson defended his comments about Muslims being unfit for the presidency, and posted on Facebook that he believes Sharia law is the central tenet of Islam. While most people on Facebook believe “Sharia Law” is a show about a black lady judge. A pair of Ohio teens were

Wednesday

This reminds me of the old joke: What's the definition of Cleveland? Answer: Detroit without the glitter. Content Marketing World invited John Cleese to speak at its annual conference in Cleveland. Cleese came and provided some advice, but not without first commenting on the host city [http://www.

Tuesday

Uber is cool. For those who aren't aware: Uber is a service that allows individuals to offer other individuals a ride in exchange for a fee. Drivers and riders connect through a phone app, which also conveys what the fee will be. The fee goes up during bad

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Happy first day of fall, my favorite season of the year. * * * * * * * I like everything about fall: the cooling weather, the harvest, the color. I even kinda like the shortening days, albeit in a conflicted way. I don't like the cold of winter, but I do like

Great Pic

I find this picture humorous, but I honestly can't join my fellow libertarians--and borderline anarchists--on condemning cameras in public places. If you're not doing anything wrong, what do you care? I think I understand their objections in theory. Cameras allow the State to gather information with

Saturday

Worth checking out: Mark Spitznagel Warns: If Investors Thought August Was Scary, "They Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet" [http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-09-18/mark-spitznagel-warns-if-investors-thought-august-was-scary-they-aint-seen-nothin-ye] . Long-time TDE readers know they don't want to take investment advice from me: Yes, I bought physical silver low

Chuckle

Friday

> If you're in LA & bored, get out and explore the areas oldest bars http://t.co/JcJRk5J8jB #roadtrip [https://twitter.com/hashtag/roadtrip?src=hash] > — Drunken History (@DrunkenHistory) September 13, 2015 [https://twitter.com/DrunkenHistory/status/643098204121116673] Many of these kinds of articles suck, but

Thursday

I frustrate my staff with my insistence on getting rid of every typo or clerical mistake in my documents. Why am I so petty? Because I make mistakes that don't get caught. If I then also allow mistakes that I catch go uncorrected, the documents will be a

Meyers

Taco Bell has opened a new line of more upscale restaurants they are calling “cantinas,” which will feature open kitchens. It's pretty cool. You can see both microwaves. Kellogg's announced today that it will be spending $450 million in an effort to expand its food distribution

Wednesday

I meant to mention this great piece back when it came out: Chrissie Hynde was right about rape. Now feminists want to silence her [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/celebritynews/11835000/Julia-Hartley-Brewer-Chrissie-Hynde-was-right-about-rape.html] . It's all about what's become the norm: If facts and common sense

Pretty Much Sums Up the Situation

"If anyone wants to beat Trump in his own game, they will have to show and prove to the voters of America, that the existing system not only still works, but is worth saving in its current broken form. This is the biggest challenge to everyone - on the

Tuesday

Flogging the Middle Ages Chesterton pointed out that every stick is good enough to beat the Catholic Church with. The same could be said about the Middle Ages (for related reasons, btw): every stick is good enough to beat it with. I have a business acquaintance who repeatedly harumps "

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I'm typing this on Sunday, still thinking about that excellent Noonan piece, which TDE reader Mike says can be found here [http://commentators.com/the-migrants-and-the-elites-wsj/]. * * * * * * * That link will take you to Commentators.com. What is that site? I'd never heard of it, but it

Sunday

Remember the dead immigrant toddler on a beach in toddler? It turns out, he wasn't an immigrant. He was the son of an immigrant smuggler, who was along for the ride for . . . an unknown reason [http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-09-12/media-propaganda-full-frontal-father-drowned-syrian-boy-was-people-smuggler] . I'll be honest: That

Saturday

I've always liked her work, but I think I'm falling in love with Peggy Noonan. Here she is yesterday [http://www.wsj.com/articles/the-migrants-and-the-elites-1441924372] (if link doesn't work, try accessing WSJ through Drudge), talking about massive, uncontrolled immigration and the western elites'

Meyers

The new Guinness Book of World Records came out today and Andre Ortolf of Germany managed to get in for three records including fastest 100-meter dash wearing ski boots, and fastest 100-meter dash wearing clogs. Ortolf is, of course, best known as the long-time holder of the world record for

Friday

Some advice from Kingsley Amis' Everyday Drinking, with my commentary in italics: "If the red strikes you as thick, dark and heavy, feel no shame in cutting it with the local bubbly mineral water; worth trying in parts of Italy and Spain." I'm gonna have

Thursday

Miscellaneous Rambling: Loud People ITunes has again (for, what, the 14th time?) changed its lay out. I'm not even going to try to figure it out. I swear, the time commitment to keep up with Apples' endless tinkering amounts to a part-time job. I detest Apple, and

Fallon

In an interview last week, Hillary Clinton called Donald Trump's candidacy “an unfortunate development.” Incidentally, “an unfortunate development” is also what Trump says when his wives turn 40.

Wednesday

The Benedict Option [https://www.catholicvote.org/catholic-political-activism-and-the-benedict-option/#.VVfWFoMUwiM.twitter] . Or the Dominican Option [http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2014/10/the-dominican-option]? Withdrawal society or contrast society? Those might be the only questions on the societal level that an American Catholic needs to contemplate these days as the liberal experiment

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling: Busyness and EMU Move-In Day Whew. Summer is over. The four weeks from mid-to-late August to Labor Day blew through like a whirlwind with eight different sets of house guests and four out-of-town commitments. Each individual commitment by itself is fine--the house guests are all good folk that

Monday

Happy Labor Day. Consistent with TDE tradition, light blogging today. Just this: > When is it not okay to answer your cellphone? http://t.co/lIJU5er5hw pic.twitter.com/rLSCchY0hx [http://t.co/rLSCchY0hx] > — Forbes (@Forbes) August 29, 2015 [https://twitter.com/Forbes/status/637772219238715392] I find it disturbing

Sunday

Philosophy teaches us how we ought to live. And with a little effort, it brings us more money, too. The Earning Power of Philosophy Majors [http://www.theatlantic.com/notes/2015/09/philosophy-majors-out-earn-other-humanities/403555/] .

Saturday

This is a remarkable story [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3222526/Streams-whiskey-Lightning-destroys-Jim-Beam-factory-Kentucky-releasing-800-000-gallons-bourbon-lake-catches-fire-struck-Firenado.html] . First, it's a river of fire made from bourbon. Even more amazing, the writer uses the word inflammable, which is the correct version of flammable, which, according to E.B. White, should only be

Friday

Clergy and ale. Some great pics to kick off your holiday weekend libations.

Thursday

Brownson had insight at the very first stages of the feminist movement. Although he was initially favorable to the incipient feminist movement and was attracted to its earliest proponent, the pretty and sex-loving Fanny (Frances) Wright, he quickly saw that feminism wasn't just about equal rights, but also

Wednesday

After recounting all those Jewish jokes and the history of Jewish humor in the United States, Epstein offers this, I think, poignant observation: "[A' epigraph from the English comic novelist Howard Jacobson: 'This is not the place to examine why I, a Jew, feel more threatened by

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling I have more to ramble about and yesterday's blog post was growing too long, so it has spilled over to Tuesday. * * * * * * * The talk yesterday about seers and mystics reminded me a book I read about ten years ago: The Miracle Detective by Randall Sullivan. I really

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling So I'm listening to a recent Open Line Wednesday with Mitch Pacwa yesterday while gardening. A caller asked about Charlie Johnston. Johnston is a supposed seer who supposedly communicates with (supposed-heavenly) angels, and he says massive economic and military disruptions are coming soon [http://www.mysticsofthechurch.

Sunday

From the Notebooks Common, overlapping, theme: "The Importance of Doing Nothing [http://www.forbes.com/sites/insead/2014/07/01/the-importance-of-doing-nothing/] " (Forbes), provides empirical evidence for the anecdotal evidence Albert Jay Nock laid out in "Snoring as a Fine Art," which brushed up against the philosophy

Saturday

Peggy Noonan at the Wall Street Journal has written possibly the most important op-ed of the election season. It's a must-read. America is So in Play [http://www.wsj.com/articles/america-is-so-in-play-1440715262]. I read it last night and proceeded to dream about it (literally). America is fed up

Get Your Loan On

My eldest son, Alex, is now a mortgage banker with Quicken Loans. If you know of someone looking to buy a house and they want to use a nice young Catholic man to help with the financing, try Alex. Even if you're just mildly interested and merely want

Friday

BYCU That's the good thing about booze: You drink when you're happy and you drink when you're sad. You drink when you have plenty of money, you drink when you don't have enough money to do anything else. And you drink when

Thursday

Epstein on jokes about Jewish wives: "Jewish wives have been the target of enough jokes to warrant establishing a special branch of the Anti-Defamation League. What does a Jewish wife make for dinner? Answer: Reservations. 'A thief stole my wife's purse with all her credit cards,

Wednesday

Excuse the colorful language, but this cracked me up:

Tuesday

Romanticable Me Friday evening, I sat on the front porch, enjoying a nice late summer evening and some drinks. I was streaming Pandora from my iPhone into my (splendid) bluetooth Sony wireless speaker [http://amzn.to/1WLsJ9a]. The channel: 70s Lite Rock Radio. I was really digging it, which was

Kinda funny . . . very clever

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling We'll see what the market does today. I wonder: How much of this "crash" is due simply to people pulling money out of the market to pay college tuition? I haven't seen that explanation anywhere, but it seems it would be a

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Ben Stein asks four questions [http://spectator.org/articles/63835/where-there%E2%80%99s-smoke]: I had an e-mail from my smartest friend, P. He asked three questions, which I pass on to you, dearly beloved readers: “1.) We are advised not to judge ALL Muslims by the actions of a

21

My eldest daughter, Abbie, turns 21 today. Man, I'm getting old, but I probably don't feel as old as she does this morning.

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My sixteen-year-old was able to crack me up last week with this tweet: > Counting down the world's greatest philosophers 5. Socrates 4. Plato 3. Confucius 2. Aristotle 1. Anyone on twitter who just had a break-up > — Michael Scheske (@ScheskeMichael) August 19, 2015 [https://twitter.com/ScheskeMichael/

What's with Jeb's left hand?

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The Dow rattles and the doom and gloomers are running again. This, after predicting that, at the latest, total economic meltdown would occur by 2013. They're frauds, the lot of them: every economic forecaster, whether of MSNBC stripe or Schiffian: > Dow 5,000? Yes, it could happen

Conan

A study found that many types of head lice have mutated and now have become resistant to over-the-counter treatments. The problem has scientists scratching their heads.

Friday

BYCU I kinda feel like the craft beer revolution is becoming like the French Revolution: It devours its children. The constant innovation and cutting beer names is growing tiresome. It used to be fun. For the first couple of years and the first 22,000 craft beer names and first

Meyers

According to a new list, Nashville is the friendliest city in America. While Philadelphia beat up the person who was putting together the list.

Thursday

A TDE reader sent this along. He assures me this regularly ran on TV. If you can watch this and have a shred of respect for anything you see on TV, you're an awfully-accepting individual:

Wednesday

Some more great passages from Kauffman's Poetry Night at the Ballpark and Other Scenes from an Alternative America: Writings, 1986-2014: Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote his wife, “I want nothing to do with politicians–they are not men; they cease to be men, in becoming politicians. Their hearts wither away,

Meyers

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said today that Hillary Clinton's arrogance is “breathtaking.” Of course, he also said the same thing about a flight of stairs. Employees at a Days Inn in Tampa are claiming that managers told them to flip a mattress instead of replacing it after

Conan

A man set a new world record after kicking himself in the head 134 times in one minute. He broke the previous record of zero.

Tuesday

You know what I'm really beginning to hate? And I mean "hate," with a pathological loathing that makes me wary of it everywhere I go? Small talk. Yes, I've grown to hate small talk. Let me be clear with what I mean by "

Monday

Monday Miscellany Yeah, my apologies for the lame blogging lately. I'm struggling just to post something. Fortunately, I think I've found enough whimsical stuff to justify your click over here. If not, well, you already have my apology. * * * * * * * Will things improve this week? Yeah, a little.

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In his essay, "You Could Die Laughing: Are Jewish Jokes a Humorous Subject?" Joseph Epstein notes that for many years, Jewish comedians made their living by making fun of Jews, but then, in the 1960s, they started branching out and taking aim at other minorities. He then gives

Meyers

Donald Trump said in a new interview that he believes his performance in the polls shows that he has not crossed the line of appropriateness. You can read the entire interview in this month's issue of Juggs magazine. According to a new study, stripes don't actually

Friday

Now that's a great way to get volunteers. From the Muskegon (Michigan) Polish Festival:

Random Thursday

The garden books talk about how prolific zucchini is. Poppycock, I say. I've never gotten more than a handful of zucchini from a single plant. If you want a prolific plant, try cucumbers. This year, I planted three of each. The results so far? Four zucchini, forty cucumbers.

Conan 

A new bar in London specializes in something called "breathable booze." As we called that growing up in my house, standing next to uncle Patrick for five minutes.

Miscellany

Something seems amiss at The Roller Coaster Capital of the World [https://www.cedarpoint.com/]. For the first hour or two of the day, the rides' lines don't move or the roller coasters are shut down. I'm a big fan of Cedar Point, and the

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Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I got terribly excited Saturday night. On my way back from a local watering hole, which followed an extended stay at my town's righteous annual music festival, Marie told me that my nephew and his fiance were on their way to New York. I guess they

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> "Freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought." - St. John Paul II pic.twitter.com/BfksVvGUwy [http://t.co/BfksVvGUwy] > — Catholic Thinker (@ThinkerCatholic) August 3, 2015 [https://twitter.com/ThinkerCatholic/status/628354315154026496]

Saturday

Some good "Today I Learned" items from Reddit: TIL people used to do their laundry in Old Faithful; they put their clothes in the geyser and it would erupt with clean clothes. TIL That in 2004, police discovered a secret underground cinema with professionally installed electricity, phone lines,

Friday

I was probably fewer than five blocks from this joint. I'm kicking myself for not making it over: > It's official: The world's best bar is @deadrabbitnyc [https://twitter.com/deadrabbitnyc]. http://t.co/Jsa7TivHru pic.twitter.com/afPHvWkJw0 [http://t.co/afPHvWkJw0] >

Thursday

Random Passages "[T]he poverty rate in the United States fell from 95 percent in 1900 to around 12-14 percent in the late 1960s ”“ a period in which government antipoverty measures were fairly trivial. By the late 1960s, when Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty programs began receiving

Fallon

In a recent interview, Hillary Clinton said that one of the jobs that prepared her to be president was sliming fish in Alaska. As opposed to Bill, who learned by catching crabs in Cancun. Chris Christie, John Kasich, and Rick Perry are currently fighting for the final two spots in

Wednesday

Another Jewish joke that slayed me from Epstein's essay, "You Could Die Laughing: Are Jewish Jokes a Humorous Subject?, one of the few jokes, Epstein notes, to make it out of that terrible experiment known as the "Soviet Union": "On a laceratingly cold and

Tuesday

Greatly enjoying that new Kauffman book. Some more great passages: "[Al] Davis, as commissioner of the AFL, hired ex-Buffalo Evening News sportswriter Jack Horrigan as his PR man. When Horrigan was diagnosed with leukemia, writes Felser, 'Davis, a Jew, bought a votive candle in a Catholic religious supply

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One of the best things I've learned about gardening: You don't just "put your garden in" once and walk away. You continue to plant from spring through early fall (if you're so inclined). I put the bulk of my fall garden in

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I've heard from good sources that it's acceptable to bring a notebook to Mass and take notes, if it helps keep you engaged. Can a person bring a Bible to Mass and read from it? Maybe a spiritual book? I'm really struggling

Sunday

Another mileage marker on the Surreal Freeway of Idiocy: > A NY judge hinted that marriage equality could pave the way to rights for chimpanzees: http://t.co/ho7YY7ynYw pic.twitter.com/asUSB2iTv0 [http://t.co/asUSB2iTv0] > — Slate (@Slate) August 1, 2015 [https://twitter.com/Slate/status/627600511492063232]

Sweet!

No rush to use these coupons:

BYCU

We went to the Alpena Brown Trout Festival two weekends ago. While at the free concert, Meg tried out this huge chair: I really enjoyed Leinenkugels, back when I could drink beer. I've embraced my wine/vodka/gin regime with vigor, but I wince with sadness when I

Epstein

A joke from Joseph Epstein's entertaining essay, "You Could Die Laughing: Are Jewish Jokes a Humorous Subject?" "Walking along the beach, Goldstein finds a bottle, picks it up, and–surprise! surprise!–a genie emerges. The genie instructs Goldstein that he will grant him one wish,

Meyers

Snoop Dogg was arrested and released in Sweden this weekend on suspicion of using illegal drugs. Officials first became suspicious in 1991.

Tuesday

From the Gardening Journals Well, I finally went off the deep end: I spent nearly $90 on a hoe. Yes, a hoe. It's a Dewitt diamond hoe. It's six-feet long, supposedly guaranteed to last a lifetime, and quite nifty. What is a diamond hoe? It'

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I'm really digging the "Daily Review" at Amazon Kindle: > Daily Review is a tool to help you review and remember the most significant ideas from your books. It shows you flashcards with either your highlights and notes or the Popular Highlights from one

Sunday

To repeat myself: Satan is the representation of evil. No one, absolutely no one, worships evil for its own sake [http://www.holyangelssturgis.org/aquinas-corner/]. Therefore, no one, by definition, can worship Satan. I don't expect all people to share my religion, but I expect everyone to share

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Just returned last night from a ten-day trip to my ancestral vacation home in Alpena, Michigan. Nothing much today. Just this picture of a great rainbow that formed over Lake Huron Monday evening after a rain. It was a full arch, with a double-rainbow forming behind parts of it.

Friday

Brews You Can Use One of the better drinking lists I've seen this year, even if I don't recognize 30% of 'em: "10 Pop Culture Moments that Changed the Way We Drink [http://www.drinkmemag.com/10-pop-culture-moments-that-changed-the-way-we-drink/] ." I found Number One highly humorous

My Summary of Brownson

At least, with respect to his relevance as a Catholic political philosopher: Brownson was the first person to try to offer a complete theory of the role of the Catholic Church in America. He wasn't willing to concede America to the Church, and he wasn't willing

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

Fallon

The dating website AshleyMadison.com, which is a site where married people go to find someone to have an affair with, was hacked yesterday and now the hackers are threatening to release information about its users. This is one way to cut down on the number of people running for

Humility and Vianney, Part 2

The reasons for the combination of humility and wisdom are not easy to understand (and almost-certainly beyond the understanding of superficial and arrogant persons–today's all-too-common flipside of wisdom and humility–who would dismiss the combination as a mere coincidence or result of fanciful speculation by devotees). It

Humility and Vianney, Part 1

Socrates was an ugly, poor man with no pretensions. In the eyes of the world, he was a misfit and fool, a constant butt of jokes around sophisticated Athens, but he didn't mind. He was very humble, thinking little of himself and caring little for his earthly affairs.

Sunday

"States have successfully managed to persuade their subject populations that they themselves are the state, and therefore that any insult to the honor of the state is an insult to them as well, any questioning of its behavior or intentions a slap in their very own faces." That&

Saturday

Kontent from the Kindle “Equalization of wealth, progressive taxation, nationalization of industries, the raising of wages and improvements in working conditions, worker-management councils, housing ventures, death taxes, unemployment insurance plans, pension systems, and the enfranchisement of formerly voteless elements of the population have all been, in one country or another,

Friday

BYCU Slate magazine has never seen a politically-correct cause it didn't like. Last week, they jumped into the craft beer arena with this self-righteous tripe: Craft Brewing Has a Sexism Problem: There are gross puns and derogatory illustrations on far too many beer labels. The misogyny needs to

Thursday

A Few Random Passages I enjoy works that impart broader truths in the context of a narrower subject. A great example from Kingsley Amis' Everyday Drinking: > Never despise a drink because it is easy to make and/or uses commercial mixes. Unquestioning devotion to authenticity is, in any

Wednesday

Kontent from the Kindle A truer political truth there never was: "The Populists, as do all reformers, assumed that social good can be achieved through political action. They ignored the age-old fact that whenever the government does 'good' it acts in the interests of some at the

Kirk Reissuance

Great piece The Imaginative Conservative about the recent reissuance of Russell Kirk's Eliot and His Age [http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2011/02/faith-of-men-of-letters.html] . This is one of the few books of Kirk's I haven't read. I was able to write my essay biography

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Great weekend. I attended a high school reunion Friday night. About fifteen years ago, I pushed hard to hold "all-class" reunions on the evening before the main reunion. The idea has taken off, so this year, it's the Class of 1985's 30-year

Sunday

Kontent from the Kindle "The Weimar Republic, the near-republican Italian monarchy, the Spanish republic, the decolonized' free nations from Haiti to Tanzania, from North Vietnam to Indonesia, Latin America from Santo Domingo to Buenos Aires–all have been grievous disappointments to 'progressive' Americans, all terminating in

Saturday

Perhaps one of the most-interesting things on the web this morning: Does the US Need a Nationwide Exorcism? [http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/does-the-us-need-a-nationwide-exorcism/] It's from the National Catholic Register and it made it to the top of line of Drudge this morning. It concedes that a nation-wide

Friday

BYCU Like last Friday, I present a nifty little thing that shouldn't even exist: The Field Guide to Drinking in America: A Traveler's Handbook to State Liquor Laws [http://overcupbooks.bigcartel.com/product/the-field-guide-to-drinking-in-america] . * * * * * * * I guess I need to get out more: Coconut apparently is a

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

Tuesday

If you're like me and enjoy sports but only marginally like baseball, you might want to get a Roku and check out some of the lesser-known sports. ESPN3 shows a lot of great stuff: cricket, Arena Football, lacrosse, and ultimate frisbee. I only watch on Saturday nights when

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Nice holiday weekend. Unfortunately, I did my celebrating Friday night, with the result that I wasn't terribly inclined to celebrate Saturday night, so I laid in bed and read while my town had fireworks going off all over the place. * * * * * * * Michigan has an insane law regarding

Sunday

The persecution potential picks up steam: > Catholic School Teacher Fired for Same-Sex Marriage Files Federal Lawsuit http://t.co/0IIHWmVCLp > — Eric (@sturgiseric) July 3, 2015 [https://twitter.com/sturgiseric/status/616929377192816640] > From LA Times: Faithful churches and synagogues will lose their tax exemption in Hillary's

Reddit

I made my first post to Reddit this morning. It's currently in the top spot in the "Catholicism" subreddit. [https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/] https://www.reddit.com/r/Catholicism/comments/3c3bof/i_cant_tell_whether_st_francis_is_blessing_this/?ref=share&ref_

Happy Fourth

> “They ate based on how successful the firework displays were.” http://t.co/plq0lMFnwN pic.twitter.com/gce16C2rHX [http://t.co/gce16C2rHX] > — Forbes (@Forbes) July 4, 2015 [https://twitter.com/Forbes/status/617252007666130944] > How likely are you to get hurt by fireworks this Fourth of July? We

Friday

Brews You Can Use This is a pretty neat article, though it's depressing that the subject matter even exists: Ten Places in the USA You Can Legally Drink on the Street [http://www.drinkmemag.com/10-places-in-the-usa-you-can-legally-drink-on-the-street/] . Since most people are on holiday today, I'm not going

Thursday

I've long been fascinated by Nietzsche, in the sense that I've always found him wildly wrong and wildly right, wildly reckless and wildly insightful. That being said, he's enough of a nut that I've taken the time to read only one of

GKC Wednesday

Chesterton Short(s) Petty good piece at the Imaginative Conservative on GKC and Norman Rockwell [http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2015/06/gk-chesterton-norman-rockwell-and-the-world-turned-upside-down.html] . "Humility is particularly necessary in the case of Norman Rockwell, because his work itself has become trite. We think we know the pictures, so we do

Tuesday

Dosoyevsky, Brownson's junior by eighteen years, would write on a theme similar to Brownson's concerns about humanitarian democracy. Just as Brownson worried that North American progressives would sacrifice men on the altar of the abstractions known as “Man” and “The Rights of Man,” Dostoyevsky feared that

Everybody Out!

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Strange days indeed: Detroit casino sponsors garden to produce seedlings for Detroiters to replant throughout the city [http://detroitagriculture.net/the-farm/]. * * * * * * * I'm stunned at the growth of urban gardening. Last week while driving home from northern Michigan, I saw a billboard for a "rural urban

Sunday

Free Lunches Related to yesterday's rant: “Children are creating their own black markets to trade and sell salt due to First Lady Michelle Obama's school lunch rules." Link [https://www.lewrockwell.com/2015/06/pater-tenebrarum/would-you-eat-official-lunches/] . It's a good article, highlighting the folly

Saturday

A Rant "The whole world groaned," wrote Jerome, "and marvelled to find itself Arian." I returned from vacation and marvelled to find the world gay. And found the Supreme Court, led by conservative John Roberts, had again judiciously bent over backwards to save the Affordable Care

Friday

BYCU Whenever I think of Australian beer, I think of Foster Lager. Because it was my Dad's beer of choice back in the 1980s, it was my beer of choice ("If it's free, it's me"). I loved those big oil cans. When

Kimmel

The world's oldest person has died. Again. Third time this year. Someone is killing the world's oldest people and we do nothing about it.

Fallon

The Obama administration announced that a woman will replace Alexander Hamilton on the $10 bill starting in 2020. I want to be the first person to congratulate Caitlyn Hamilton.

Meyers

President Obama this weekend used the N-word when speaking about race relations in America. Which explains why everyone at Fox News today kept shouting, “And I quote ”¦” A Pennsylvania brewery said that it is introducing a new beer to honor the late Penn State football coach, Joe Paterno. And if

Kimmel

I hope everyone who deserved it had a good Father's Day. Kids will buy cards and T-shirts and even little trophies that say their father is the best dad in the world. But the fact of the matter is that simple math tells us the vast majority of

Wednesday

Chesterton Short(s) This isn't really GKC, but the current issue of Gilbert [http://www.chesterton.org/membership/]features an interview between Dale Ahlquist and Thomas Cook, a psychiatrist. This exchange cracked me up: Dale: You have worked as a forensic psychiatrist in a state hospital. That sounds

The Barbarians II

Ruminations on the Fall of Rome There were many other barbarian “tribes” milling around the Empire's borders, but of those who (by conventional understanding) initially set up kingdoms in the old Roman Empire in the West, all of them were forces within the Empire that worked with the

The Barbarians I

Ruminations on the Fall of Rome Mike Duncan, of The History of Rome podcast, on the coming war between Theodosius and Maximus (in the late 380s). Here's Duncan's description of Theodosius' army: “Theodosus' top field generals, Ricimer and Ricimer's nephew, Arbogast, were

Saturday

If you're crunched for a Father's Day gift this year:

Friday

Brews You Can Use This is one of the coolest things I've seen in awhile, even though I can't imagine I'd ever buy it: Palcohol (powdered alcohol) [http://abcnews.go.com/Health/palcohol-powdered-alcohol-approved-feds/story?id=29580363] . Of course the neo-Prohibitionists' radars are going

Meyers

A new study suggests that marriage is more beneficial for men than women. The results of the study were shouted at me through a locked bedroom door. Emerson College officials said that starting in 2016 they will offer students the opportunity to major in comedy. Or, you can just take

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Meyers

Donald Trump announced today that he is running for president. And based on the amount of bronzer he uses, he's also running for president of the Spokane NAACP.

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

Tuesday

A great distinction In his meditations on the growing tension and eventual war between the North and the South, Orestes Brownson favored the South's “personal democracy,” which he contrasted with the North's “humanitarian democracy.” The South's personal democracy recognized the individual's freedom

Monday

Monday Miscellany After reading The Leek last Tuesday, eldest son Alex told me that there is already a Catholic Onion out there: Eye of the Tiber [http://www.eyeofthetiber.com/]. It looks pretty good. About themselves: "We were the only Catholic news agency to report that Pope Francis had

Sunday

I had an enjoyable little evening with Marie, the two little kids, and the eldest daughter last night: Mass, brief showing at a friend's graduation party, bowling (with plenty of drinks), some arcade games, then a trip for fast food and home to watch an old episode of

On Hollywood

“In Hollywood a marriage is a success if it outlasts milk.” Rita Rudner “Half the people in Hollywood are dying to be discovered and the other half are afraid they will be.” Lionel Barrymore “It's a scientific fact. For every year a person lives in Hollywood, they lose

Friday

So I'm at a graduation party last Friday night. They had two drinks: Miller Lite on tap and the "Ami Cooler." I was a little bummed there was no vodka, but the host told me, "My grandfather had a bar in Ionia, Michigan. He would

Conan

We have a historic drought going on now in this state. Due to the drought, California Governor Jerry Brown said he has cut back on bathing. As a result, Californians have cut back on hanging out with Jerry Brown. A federal court has ruled that the U.S. Postal Service

Thursday

Apologetics 101 from Orestes Although Brownson was a collaborator with the radical Fanny Wright (and her partner, socialist Robert Owen), and had veered strongly toward agnosticism himself, he quickly found their anti-religion stance intellectually-clumsy. The radicals taught that religion/superstition (the two are synonymous for radicals) was coeval and co-existent

Wednesday

Chesterton Short(s) The 18.5 (volume 18, fifth issue) of Gilbert [http://www.chesterton.org/membership/] arrived recently. It's pretty amazing that this little magazine keeps plugging along. When I was editing it, someone told me that the average life of such niche magazines is something like

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Whew, another long weekend out of the way; one step closer to death. Little league game Friday night, followed by graduation parties (straight from fields, change into decent clothes in the back of my van, to parties). Blessed hours of gardening Saturday morning, then slept off grogginess from

Sunday

Always dig Taki: "Truman Capote famously said that On The Road was typing, not writing, but old Jack Kerouac was Jane Austen compared to some of the novelists of today. Making it sound easy is the hardest thing in writing, and I grant you that today's modernists

Saturday

On Jenner You know how out of it I am? A little while ago (like in early 2014, maybe late 2013), I asked my wife a question about the Kardashians. I'd heard of the attention-mongering sisters and their hangers-on, and I knew one of them was good-looking, but

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The Flannery bit made it over to Catholic Lane, a fine online resource. Here's a courtesy link [http://www.catholiclane.com/flannerys-existentialist-stamp/].

Friday

An excerpt: “I don't disagree that alcohol ruins lives, but those lives would get ruined one way or the other. It's kinda like gun control. By restricting guns, you keep them out of law-abiding citizens' hands. The lawless will get their hands on them. Same

Thursday

In honor of the Flannery stamp, I dusted off an abandoned essay and resurrected this excerpt In one of his last works before his masterpiece, The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoyevsky wrote The Dream of a Ridiculous Man. In this story, the narrator goes to another solar system and lands on a

Meyers

In the world of soccer, after the arrest of numerous other officials, FIFA President Sepp Blatter announced his resignation this afternoon. Sepp Blatter doesn't sound like the name of a guy who's stepping down. It sounds like the reason. If elected, Lindsey Graham would be the

Conan

In a recent interview, the Pope revealed he doesn't use the Internet and he hasn't watched television since 1990. Then he announced his plan to make Bill Cosby a saint. The Grateful Dead are putting out an 80-disc live performance box set. No word yet on

Fallon

According to an email from his staff, Donald Trump is set to announce on June 16 whether he will run for president. Seriously? At this point, Donald Trump announcing whether he's running for president is like soccer's World Cup – it happens every four years and no

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

Tuesday

If you didn't hear this neat piece of news: > The new Flannery O'Connor stamp. http://t.co/JS9V5RnI2d pic.twitter.com/lerrbXaiRv [http://t.co/lerrbXaiRv] > — David Scott (@DScottLA) May 28, 2015 [https://twitter.com/DScottLA/status/603798782992605184] "Award-winning American author and devout

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling The official (albeit rough) figures from the graduation party: 98 adults (21 or over), 15 or so little kids (pre-teen), and about 60 teens. Alcohol consumed (roughly): four fifths of hard liquor, two bottles of wine, and six cases of beer. So, approximately 250 drinks total (170 beers,

Sunday

A TDE reader sent this along, with the observation that they probably just changed the label on their Bud Light cans: > Anheuser-Busch brewery cans water instead of beer to aid Texas and Oklahoma flood victims | http://t.co/mTsyhAKksg > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) May 30, 2015 [https://twitter.

Saturday

Whew, the metaphysical hangover. We had Jack's grad party last night. Whatta whirl . . . last night and this morning. The thing I hate most about parties is that I always, without fail, wake up groggy and thinking about all the guests I didn't even say "hi&

Friday

BYCU So I'm talking with my oldest son, Alex, on my laptop. It's evening and he's drinking from a big, funky-looking can. I ask him what it is, and he says it's something his local beer seller recommended: Stiegl breakfast beer. I

Great to See

It looks like The University Bookman [http://www.kirkcenter.org/index.php/bookman/about/] is now offered on Kindle . . . or at least two of them. $2.99 apiece. I just bought the Edmund Burke issue.

Thursday

Nock Notions Albert Jay Nock on the Great Fiction upon which The Washington Party relies for its increasingly-aggressive power grabs against society: "Republicanism permits the individual to persuade himself that the State is his creation, that State action is his action, that when it expresses itself it expresses him,

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GKC Wednesday

Chesterton Short(s) A GKC sighting of sorts, through Terry Teachout, editor of the Second Mencken Chrestomathy, writing about Chesterton's contemporary (and occasional critic) H.L. Mencken: "He is the apostle of common sense." Was this an intentional parallel to GKC? I haven't the

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Top Ten List: You might have a book obsession if: 10. You'll never be able to finish all the books you've started. 9. You're kinda surprised there's not a medical term to describe a disordered erotic attraction to books. 8. You don&

Tuesday

Tuesday Trifles Good weekend here. I got all my garden stuff in, except those items that I am purposefully holding back to produce a staggered harvest. * * * * * * * I had a rough time with tomatoes and sweet peppers this year. Only 30 of my sweet peppers germinated and my tomato seedlings don&

Monday

From Reddit's Today I Learned: "TIL that in 2008 Detroit police used SWAT tactics to raid a party at an art museum. Guns drawn, they forced everyone to the floor before searching every attendee and confiscating over 40 vehicles... all because the museum didn't have

They Wanted $15 an Hour

http://i.imgur.com/08tLQUH.jpg The market is kinda like nature. You can keep beating it down, but unless you ruthlessly stomp it out like Lenin and Stalin did, it'll keep pushing forward, just like prairie land is overtaking once-concretized Detroit.

Saturday

The BYCU article I linked to yesterday referenced this nifty piece: Catholic Church opens a bar [http://www.patheos.com/blogs/deaconsbench/2015/03/cheers-catholic-church-opens-a-bar/] . "[A] bar recently opened in northern France with the backing of the Catholic Church. Bar Cana in Lille launched this month as part of

Meyers

* Scientists working on The Syracuse University Lava Project have discovered how to grill a steak using lava. The hard part is getting the cow up on the volcano.

Friday

BYCU This article had great humor potential: 19 Tips for Staying Catholic when you go to a Bar [http://en.catholic-link.com/2015/05/11/19-tips-for-being-catholic-when-you-go-to-a-bar/] . Unfortunately, the author is serious about giving tips to young Catholic professionals who need the bar scene as part of their social network (I

Conan

* A new report says that 80 percent of sunscreens either don't work or have questionable ingredients. In a related story, I don't have long to live.

Meyers

* Vladimir Putin reportedly scored eight goals during a hockey game in Sochi this weekend. And the goalie only had one save: his own life.

Conan

* A resort in Mexico has opened the first underwater bar. Shortly afterwards it became host to the world's slowest bar fight ever.

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling Last week's spring blitz put me behind with blog post leads, so I broke this week's "MR" into two parts. * * * * * * * Thanks, incidentally, to TDE readers who send me interesting links. It's greatly appreciative, especially in the spring when little

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You might be lethargic if: 10. Kneeling and standing during church cause you to break a sweat. 9. You break a sweat taking a shower. 8. You have nightmares about losing your TV remote. 7. You've tried to scam a handicap license plate. 6. You think Internet surfing

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Some of you may have seen my attempt to post another picture from Warren Dunes last week. The picture didn't upload, so I'm trying it again this morning. It's a picture of my kids. In the background is the dune/hill where

Calendar

Awhile back, I found an online Catholic calendar that gave an extensive list of saints whose commemoration fell on each particular day. Each day had anywhere from, say, five to 15 saints listed, with hyperlinks to many of them. It was really cool, but I can't find it

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Last fall, I dumped about fifty pounds of vermicompost on my asparagus bed. The crowns that are producing are kicking out some pretty fat spears, like this one. I don't know if it's the vermicompost or just the brand of asparagus, but they're also

From Reddit Today I Learned

"TIL during a 1957 Phillies game, Richie Ashburn hit a fan with a foul ball, breaking her nose. When play resumed he hit her again with another foul ball as she was being taken out on a stretcher."

Sanford and B.B.

Saturday

Do you know about farming "checkoff" programs? Slate provides a good explanation [http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2015/05/organic_checkoff_proposal_why_farmers_oppose_the_organic_trade_association.html?wpsrc=fol_tw] : "These are in essence taxes that farmers pay to a national fund,

RIP

I'll drink a few tonight to this song. Rest in peace, Blues Boy. B.B. King in photos [http://mashable.com/2015/05/15/blues-musician-bb-king-career-photos/?utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Mashable+%28Mashable%29&utm_cid=Mash-Prod-RSS-Feedburner-All-Partial&utm_medium=twitter&utm_source=twitterfeed] .

Friday

I live on the Indiana border. Our high school cross-country team often runs to Indiana as part of their practices, and I occasionally ride my Schwinn down there. When I sleep in the living room at night, I can hear the traffic from the 80-90 Toll Road, which runs across

Meyers

* A 94-year-old man is graduating from West Virginia University after studying at the school on and off for 75 years – though I'm guessing mostly off. * He's graduating from college at the age of 94. Just imagine how awkward it's going to be for the

Kimmel

* Kim Jong Un – it's really Catch-22 with him. If you close your eyes, you get shot for nodding off. If you open them, you get shot for laughing at his haircut.

Fallon

* Even the White House is weighing in on the deflate-gate scandal. Yesterday they encouraged Tom Brady to “be mindful of the way he serves as a role model.” And then President Obama stubbed out his cigarette and went golfing at noon on a weekday. * The White House encouraged Tom Brady

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We took our annual Mother's Day trip to Warren Dunes State Park last Sunday. We saw a total of seven other people while we were there, even though it's one of the most popular tourist attractions in Michigan. That's what 63 degrees and rain

Conan

* An Australian woman has gone on 136 first dates in 17 months, but never on a second date. In other words, she looks nothing like her Tinder profile picture.

Wednesday

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 file full

Conan

* Barbara Walters admitted to stealing an artifact from the White House. She said, "I was young, and I didn't think President Lincoln would mind."

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A sentiment Albert Jay Nock would heartily second: "Imperial Russia had a far larger percentage of illiterates than the American Middle West yet she produced such men as Dostoyevski, Myerezhkovski, Vyereshtshagin, Tolstoy, Tshaykovski, Solovyov, Pushkin, Rimsky-Korsakov, Turgenyev, Skryabin, Mendeleyev, and Mussorgsky." Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn

Tuesday

I'll let you know if this works: "A breathing trick can induce sleep in as little as 60 seconds, according to sleep expert Dr. Andrew Weil. "The technique, called the “4-7-8”³ method, was inspired by yoga and supposedly works by promoting a state of calm within

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Another cold snap coming today and tomorrow. I struggled with whether to put out my tomato plants last weekend, then finally settled on putting out nearly half of them. Temperature is supposed to drop to 41 tomorrow night. Under 40 is a danger zone for tomatoes, but they&

Sunday

I like it when the lettuce boxes come into full bloom. Heirloom Black Seeded Simpson produces this overflowing fluorescent glow every spring. BTW: Don't let anyone tell you lettuce has no nutritional value. It's a myth. Iceberg lettuce has no nutritional value. The others have varying

GK Saturday

David Mills has proposed his own GKC reading list for beginners [http://catholicexchange.com/reading-g-k-chesterton-a-guide-for-the-new-fan]. It's not bad. It prompted me to go to Amazon to see if I could get his Autobiography free (or for 99 cents) on Kindle. I couldn't find it, but I

Meyers

* The president of Tom Brady's California high school says the whole community is praying for Tom and his family. The whole community? Wow, that's a lot of pressure. If only there was a way to get rid of some of that pressure. * A new poll finds

Friday

Brews You Can Use This is perhaps the most-helpful drinking article I've seen in a long time: Infographics: 11 Wine, Beer, and Spirit Facts You Probably Didn't Know [http://www.drinkmemag.com/infographics-11-wine-beer-spirits-facts-you-probably-didnt-know/] A few samples: Contrary to popular belief, vodka does expire. The average shelf

Conan

* Authorities in New York busted a gun-running operation allegedly headed by a 500-pound gang member nicknamed “Wobbles.” The arrest took place on Saturday, yet the strip search of Wobbles still goes on.

Meyers

* A Brooklyn man has become an overnight celebrity for his uncanny resemblance to Vincent Van Gogh. Said the man, "What?"

Von Mises and Roepke

I've always wanted to understand better the differences between Wilhelm Roepke and Ludwig von Mises. This article is helpful: > Roepke and von Mises: The Difference http://t.co/HNOQ1TAEpt > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) April 26, 2015 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/592298580897046528] But the writer never

Conan

* A Florida man is suing a hospital for throwing his right leg away after it was amputated. The hospital says they're not worried about the lawsuit because the man does not have a leg to stand on.

Tuesday

As I mentioned yesterday, I was in charge of prom preparations on Saturday. I'm not much of a photographer, but I took my role seriously and did a pretty good job with my iPhone. Here are pictures of my second son right before heading out to pick up

Old Footage

Pretty wild. Berlin right after the War (summer 1945):

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling It's a sad time of life around here. Our oldest son, Alex, starts his real life today. He graduated from the University of Michigan on Saturday and starts at Quicken Loans this morning in downtown Detroit. It's a great job opportunity, and he'

Waugh v. Merton

I'm now blogging for my local parish. Here's a piece I wrote yesterday about the new collection of correspondence between Evelyn Waugh and Thomas Merton [http://www.holyangelssturgis.org/waugh-v-merton/]: > The twentieth century was filled with great Catholic literary converts (to read about them, see

Sunday

I'm gonna have to try this: > As soil warms, hunt for wild asparagus | Sandusky Register http://t.co/g5oMd3uQAq > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) April 26, 2015 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/592380392516231168] Thirteen of my asparagus crowns are producing. I think I planted 16. Looking forward

Saturday

I've continued to monitor the Gofundme site [http://www.gofundme.com/rogan] for the Rogan family. They're up to $466,000. If you haven't given, please consider it. If you need more background information, The Register tells the complete story this morning. "Crowdfunding&

BYCU

"The dipsomaniac and the abstainer are not only both mistaken, but they both make the same mistake. They both regard wine as a drug and not as a drink." Kingsley Amis This, of course, echoes GKC's "Omar and the Sacred Vine." > Drink because

Conan

* In Baltimore, the Orioles and the Chicago White Sox played a game today in a completely empty stadium. It was the first major sporting event to be played in an empty stadium, unless you count every professional soccer game in America.

Thursday

Consistent with my statement last Monday that I was going to start frequenting The American Spectator site more often, I did and immediately found a great article on McDonald's by Daniel Flynn [http://spectator.org/articles/62510/i%E2%80%99m-not-lovin%E2%80%99-it]. In short, Flynn isn&

From Reddit's Today I Learned Feature

No comment: "TIL that Martin Luther King Jr's assassin, James Earl Ray was once erroneously honoured during a parade which intended to praise the actor James Earl Jones. Lauderdale, Florida accidentally created a plaque in January 2002 which read 'Thanks James Earl Ray for keeping the

Meyers 

* Scientists have discovered that Tyrannosaurus Rex may have had a vegetarian cousin. Man, it must suck to have a vegetarian in the family when your arms are too short to cover your ears.

Wednesday

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 file full

Tuesday

I used to enjoy greatly boxing. I lost $5 on the Hearns/Leonard fight (big Tommy fan), which was a lot of money back in the early 1980s for a high school kid. I boxed at the University of Michigan for a short spell (club sport; no ability required). I

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Great Mencken article at The American Conservative [http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/h-l-menckens-merry-days/]. Three brief excerpts: "When Mencken started at the Baltimore Herald in 1899, the newspaper had a spittoon at every desk but not enough typewriters to go around." "Everyone involved in making the

Sunday

Nock Notions And anything that tears down society ought to be resisted by Catholics everywhere: "It is unfortunately none too well understood that, just as the State has no money of its own, so it has no power of its own. All the power it has is what society

Interesting

H.I.F.From the "Today I Learned" sub-reddit at Reddit: "TIL If you earn more than US$21,000 a year, you are part of the richest 4% of the planet." No wonder I walk with such a swagger.

Friday

BYCU This link has one of the best assortment of "info-graphics" (deplorable term) I've ever seen about drinking [http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/26xaST/OQ$bQuqT:1RS6rr!B/www.buzzfeed.com/jessicaprobus/wheat-beer-plus-lobster-roll-heck-yeah?bffb] . Want to identify the different types of wine glasses? See chart 1.

Wednesday

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 file full

Meyers

* An intruder was arrested at the White House last night after trying to jump the fence. Authorities aren't releasing the fence jumper's identity, but they did say that she tore her pantsuit.

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Anybody have any recommended podcasts? I seem to be running a bit low. It happens this time of year due to all the time I spend gardening and walking outside. * * * * * * * It's funny, I don't think I can garden without listening to a podcast. On

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My first participation in a crowd-funding event. > ACTION ITEM! I donated to Fund for Widowed New Mother of 8 http://t.co/i2cu1kGPEV via @gofundme [https://twitter.com/gofundme] #catholic [https://twitter.com/hashtag/catholic?src=hash] #tcot [https://twitter.com/hashtag/tcot?src=hash] > — Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

My Annual Weatherman Rant

Great weather last week. Of course, what goes up, must come down. We are now looking at very cold temperatures. Now, the fact that cold temperatures are following warm temperatures doesn't surprise me. I've seen that occur my entire life. What does surprise (okay, annoy) me

Saturday

Weekend BYCU I like it when another person thinks like me. This guy read a study, called "bull____," and used common sense/experience to explain why the scientific study is obvious bunk: What men really talk about in the pub [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/the-filter/11532781/

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I saw this poster in St. Louis.

Friday

I've never been a big horse fan, whether racing or otherwise. When I lived in Detroit, I went to the local racetrack and bet on the Kentucky Derby simulcast, which was pretty cool. To this day, I normally watch The Big Three (KD, Preakness, and Belmont), and I

Conan

* It's April 15, tax day. The federal tax code is over 74,000 pages long. But stick with it because after page 72,000, it gets really good.

Thursday

This is a bar in St. Louis. It's on the main floor of the City Museum. That's right, the City Museum, the St. Louis attraction that I described on Monday as, "an anarchic, do-what-you-want exploration playground for kids." But in the middle of this

GKC Wednesday

Chesterton Short(s) When Max Beerbohm took over for Shaw as the drama critic for the English Saturday Review, Shaw introduced him with the following, "The younger generation is knocking at the door, and as I open it there steps sprightly in the incomparable Max." "The incomparable

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Tuesday

I saw this restaurant in Clayton, Missouri. I couldn't tell whether it was a Panera Bread franchise rip-off or not: It reminded me of this movie scene ("I got the Big Mick"):

Monday

That's me, standing with Chuck Berry on Delmar Boulevard in Clayton, Missouri. [http://www.claytonmo.gov/] Clayton is one of St. Louis' most famous suburbs (after Ferguson, of course) and is so much a part of St. Louis, our tour bus went there, Delmar Boulevard is listed

Misty Mountain Hop, and Now This

> Once upon a time, Tolkien nixed the Beatles' proposal to star in LOTR (with Lennon as Gollum). http://t.co/rR6f6S9pHy pic.twitter.com/VJ6nKh4clb [http://t.co/VJ6nKh4clb] > — First Things (@firstthingsmag) April 12, 2015 [https://twitter.com/firstthingsmag/status/587398433780162560]

Sunday

I saw this book on display in St. Louis. I dang near bought it, but the price tag ($22) held me back: > Merton and Waugh: A Monk, A Crusty Old Man, and The Seven Storey Mountain http://t.co/KtPcDZSGAU > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) April 11, 2015 [https:

Saturday

I just returned from a short vacation to St. Louis. I hope to blog/ramble on about it Monday morning. For now, just this pic of a mosaic from its beautiful Cathedral.

Friday

BYCU Kontent from the Kindle Summer is coming, and with it comes gin and tonics. When I first abandoned beer, I turned to gin, but it occasionally gave me headaches, so I switched to vodka, which I've really come to enjoy. After reading this passage from The Drunken

Fallon

* John McCain addressed critics who believe he will be too old to run for a sixth term in the Senate, saying that he's still healthy and ready to go. Then people around McCain said, “Why is he talking to that mannequin?”

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

Tuesday

Bullets Have you heard Michigan's slogan? "Pure Michigan." It's never struck me as anything special, but I guess it's been so successful that other states are trying to come up with their own "Pure Michigan" type slogan. Branding Ohio [http:

Easter

“When the disciples saw the risen Christ, they beheld “him as a reality in the world, though no longer of it, respecting the order of the world, but Lord of its laws. To behold such reality was different and more than to see a tree or watch a man step

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Drudge's front page this morning: 'BLOOD MOON' RISES Links to [http://www.usatoday.com/story/weather/2015/04/02/lunar-eclipse-blood-moon/70831278/]

Saturday

Kontent from the Kindle A Testament to the "Wisdom" of Experts, Episode 1,200,902: "In the 1990s, conscious that their old, stately buildings were no longer able to contain the flood of printed matter, the directors of several major libraries decided to erect new premises to

Kontent

Kontent from the Kindle Are there half-monks, fish who must hurry to the sea half the time? All must withdraw on occasion, hence the strong allure of the poustinia, but must some withdraw more often than others? "Nevertheless–or rather, precisely because of this charitable activity, which brought such

Good Friday

“The Son of God suffered unto the death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like His.” George MacDonald "The cross cannot be defeated. . . For it is Defeat." G.K. Chesterton On those who hate Christianity: "They do not dislike the Cross

Thursday

“[I]n the agony of Gethsemane the ultimate consequences of our sin had their hour. . . . God permitted his Son to taste the human agony of rejection and plunge towards the abyss. . . Gethsemane was the hour in which Jesus' human heart and mind experienced the ultimate odium of the sin

Wednesday

From Wikipedia's entry on the Paschal Triduum [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paschal_Triduum]: "The period that lasted from Thursday morning to before Easter Sunday began was once, in Anglo-Saxon times, referred to as 'the still days.'" There's something about "stillness&

Tuesday

> The first reading was read in English and the second in Spanish. Thousands listen @cnalive [https://twitter.com/cnalive] #PalmSunday [https://twitter.com/hashtag/PalmSunday?src=hash] pic.twitter.com/BALeXr4Umo [http://t.co/BALeXr4Umo] > — Yahaira Jacquez (@YJacquez_) March 29, 2015 [https://twitter.com/YJacquez_/status/582094293277503488] Yikes,

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Welcome to EWTN 24/7 Week. Lots of good stuff out there. Take advantage of it. * * * * * * * Speaking of good stuff, if you haven't checked out the Fr. John Riccardo podcasts [https://www.avemariaradio.net/programs/christ-is-the-answer/] , you need to. He's probably the best Catholic

Palm Sunday

“The hour overflows with supernatural power. In these last days it is as if Jesus were gathering strength on strength preparing for the ultimate.” Romano Guardini, The Lord

Saturday

Congratulations to Michigan State University, which has plowed into the Elite 8 . . . as a seven seed. It makes you wonder: What was the selection committee thinking? Why in the world would you give MSU, which almost always turns into a Top 10 team in March, a 7 seed? I might

Friday

BYCU When I self-diagnosed myself with gluten intolerance, I swore off beer. I tried a few gluten-free beers, but only one of them tasted like a "real" beer. I'd been drinking beer for over thirty years, but I haven't gone back. It's

Thursday Thweets

> Where men are the most sure and arrogant, there they are commonly the most mistaken. David Hume > — Philosophers Quotes (@Philosophers21) March 18, 2015 [https://twitter.com/Philosophers21/status/577994336895430656] > Did You Know #Michigan [https://twitter.com/hashtag/Michigan?src=hash] Has One Of The World's

Fallon

* A man delivered a pizza to Pope Francis. Francis actually liked it more than the pizza he gets from his usual place – “Pope-a-John's.”

Wednesday

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 file full

Tuesday

Kontent from the Kindle "Among the worst aspects of the collapse of traditional conservatism is that my children will grow up in a world in which vulgar and belligerent nationalism will be presented to them as the alternative to leftism." Thomas Woods. "Economic historians have determined that

Monday

I finally made it back to Detroit's Greektown. It was my nephew's bachelor party. I picked up my son in Ann Arbor then walked around downtown Detroit for awhile (he was still trying to clear his head from the party his house threw the night before

Sunday

Good, clean short jokes: "I have the heart of a lion and a lifetime ban from the Toronto zoo." "I told my girlfriend she drew her eyebrows too high. She seemed surprised." "A termite walks into the bar and asks, 'Is the bar tender

Happy First Day of Spring

I'll do some of this as the weather turns nicer. Few things finer than sitting on the front porch with a drink. > The Zen of Drinking Alone. Modern Drunkard Magazine - http://t.co/b1C9s5F1x9 > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) March 8, 2015 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/

Friday

One of the most interesting things I read this week: > From Reddit: TIL a $1.99 bottle of wine, Two Buck Chuck, beat 2300 other wines to win the 28th Annual International Eastern Wine Competition > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) March 15, 2015 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/577085165052301312]

Meyers

* Blackberry and Samsung are working together on a new project to build a high-security tablet. The way it works is this: It says “Blackberry” on the back and nobody wants to steal it.

Thursday

> Black Like Kerouac | The American Conservative http://t.co/1UPBylFohk via @amconmag [https://twitter.com/amconmag] > — David Scott (@DScottLA) March 14, 2015 [https://twitter.com/DScottLA/status/576633158306635776]

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It would seem that a surge in William Graham Sumner [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Graham_Sumner#The_Forgotten_Man] (1840-1910) might do this country a lot of good: "Sumner celebrated “the forgotten man,” the independent middle-class man who falls between the cracks of the plutocrats on the

Wednesday

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 file full

From Reddit's Today I Learned

"TIL that on Saint Patrick's Day began as a "feast day" in honor of the anniversary of the day he died. To honor him, Christians could put aside their Lenten restrictions on food and alcohol consumption on this day, which is why excessive drinking has

Tuesday

Random Kontent from the Kindle "A student once asked him: 'If I haven't anything in my mind, what shall I do?' Joshu replied: 'Throw it out.' 'But if I haven't anything, how can I throw it out?' continued the

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> "Stop thinking, and end your problems." ~ Lao Tzu #tao [https://twitter.com/hashtag/tao?src=hash] > — Tao Essentials (@TaoEssentials) March 14, 2015 [https://twitter.com/TaoEssentials/status/576692796184211456]

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Do outdoor activities make a person tired? I've been outdoors a lot since the weather turned nice, and I've been unbelievably zonked out every night. But I still have some residuals from that terrible illness from two weeks ago, so maybe that's

Sunday

I've never understood minimum wage legislation. If you increase the cost of something, people will buy less of it. I thought that was a rule, along the lines of, "If you spit on someone, that person is less likely to enjoy your company." Sure, there are

Saturday

> It's been an honor Sturgis! pic.twitter.com/0garS7IVzs [http://t.co/0garS7IVzs] > — Jack Scheske (@ScheskeJack) March 14, 2015 [https://twitter.com/ScheskeJack/status/576571097900023808] The basketball season comes to a close. It was a long year: four kids in four different leagues, including a varsity

Friday

BYCU Even when I could drink beer, and greatly enjoyed craft beer, there was something about the "craft beer" movement that annoyed me. I don't know if it was the beer snobbery, or the idea that people were entirely too intense on something (beer drinking) that

Thursday

Kontent from the Kindle As March Madness heats up, it's interesting to remember what group of people used to dominate the sport. From A Renegade History of the United States (perhaps the best book of American history written in the past 15 years): "The first professional basketball

Wednesday

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 file full

Tuesday

Bullets I'm always open to blog recommendations. This one [http://www.serenityfarmcsa.com/] is by a family farm in Kansas that is trying some cool stuff. * * * * * * * This article isn't as interesting as its title implies, but it's not bad: Apocalyptic beliefs may explain why

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Boy, spring slams into us with a bang. From -2 temperatures on Friday to 42 on Saturday. That's a 45-degree swing in 48 hours. * * * * * * * I started up my garden over the weekend, erecting my little portable greenhouse, moving my micro-green trays from the grow lamp to

Sunday

My birthday is coming up. My mom gave me a birthday card early, since she'll be out of town. I present it here, virtually unmodified, to spite my three brothers and cause them much envy:

The Week of Coincidences

Three of 'Em I'm declaring this past week the "Week of Coincidences." First, there was the coincidence I mentioned earlier [https://thedailyeudemon.com/36181/] (regarding the Berry quote). And then these two: 1. On February 22nd, I blogged about the apparent virtues of essential oils

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The constant innovation that is America, even in the era of the jackboot socialist-wannabes in Washington:

Happy Birthday

And a BYCU, of sorts: Happy birthday to Marie. At age ___, she's as attractive as she was when we first met. That's an exaggeration, but not much of one. Last year, she got carded at a bar. When I then offered the barmaid my i.d.

Friday

47 pictures with incorrect use of quotation marks [http://news.distractify.com/avericlements/the-30-most-unnecessary-uses-of-quotation-marks-in-history/] . The writer's commentary beneath each picture is pretty good, too. Sample: ...Actually, this one is pretty on-point.

Thursday

The Zen of Lisieux Two passages from John C. h. Wu's The Golden Age of Zen that I ran across last week: "Tao is nothing else than the ordinary mind, every ordinary action is an expression of Tao." "[O]ne of the central insights of

Wendell

Great Quote So I took that Wendell Berry book off my shelf earlier this week and read a few pages. On the third page, I ran across this great passage: "What I'm arguing against here is not complexity or mystery but dualism. I would like to purge

Wednesday

I stated earlier that I like Zen because it represents the highest attainment of un-assisted philosophy. It dawned on me later that I should probably explain myself. What I mean by this is, Zen has sought the highest truths through naked thinking and meditation, without the assistance afforded by divine

Tuesday

More Miscellaneous Rambling Been meaning to post this article for over a week: Wendell Berry, Burkean [http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/wendell-berry-burkean/]. I need to try Berry again. I remember reading him over ten years ago, and something about his writing--the prose? the ideas?--just didn't click with

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Whew, I've nearly survived the basketball season: four kids, four leagues, including two in high school competition (JV-varsity). It felt like a part-time job occasionally. Marie and I got back from our last six-hour trip Friday evening and sighed relief. We have a couple of home

Sunday

For the oriental gardeners out there: > Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds you plant. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson http://t.co/3y5tDOfumD > — Zen Moments (@Zen_Moments) February 28, 2015 [https://twitter.com/Zen_Moments/status/571762135564488704] I planted five pots

Saturday

Time-is-tight weekend. Just this great quote today: "There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact." Mark Twain

A Sad Day

I just learned that my professor, mentor in the faith, and friend Charles Rice died Wednesday [http://www.cardinalnewmansociety.org/CatholicEducationDaily/DetailsPage/tabid/102/ArticleID/4015/Professor-Charles-Rice-Who-%E2%80%98Epitomized-All-That-Is-Best%E2%80%99-at-Notre-Dame-Passes-Away.aspx] . We lost touch over the years, last corresponding by email a few months ago, but he

Friday

Brews You Can Use I read once that the average lifespan of a blog is six months. I actually would've guessed three months, but maybe they count the blogs that start off strong, then peter out to one or two posts a month, limping along like that for

Humorous

H.I.F. There's a race war going on, but it's black on black. This from talk show host Byron Allen, criticizing Al Sharpton for selling out to big media interests: “Why is Sharpton on TV every night on MSNBC? Because he endorsed Comcast's

Meyers

Jamaica has officially decriminalized the possession of small amounts of marijuana for personal use. Which would be great news if anyone in Jamaica had small amounts of marijuana.

Meyers

Boston's city council is considering increasing its alcohol tax. The plan would raise an estimated $900 million billion trillion.

Thursday

I recently re-ran across this passage from John C. h. Wu's (the Chinese Chesterton's) The Golden Age of Zen: "The first and second chapters of the Tao Teh Ching constitute the metaphysical background of Zen." I'm not exactly sure what to think

Fallon

A group of teenagers in Colorado surprised their neighbors by shoveling 50 driveways and walkways for free. They didn't mean to. They were just too stoned to remember which house was theirs.

Wednesday

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 file full

Meyers

A woman in Mexico was arrested at a movie theater this weekend during "Fifty Shades of Grey." She was sad about being arrested, but really psyched about being handcuffed.

Tuesday

After linking to that Rod Dreher article yesterday, I Googled him. I used to correspond with him occasionally when we both wrote for Touchstone (he regularly, me whenever I wrote something they liked, which is the difference between an accomplished writer and a writing hack, though the hack often takes

As Long as I'm on Dreher

I saw this for the first time this afternoon: > New Book Notice: 'How Dante Can Save Your Life' | Rod Dreher http://t.co/UNAkZtxo6v > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) February 24, 2015 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/570014123712491520]

New Book Notice

I just saw that Joseph Pearce released a new book late last year. I haven't bought it yet, but my hand hovers over the "Buy It Now" button at Amazon. Catholic Literary Giants: A Field Guide to the Catholic Literary Landscape [http://www.amazon.com/gp/

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I started trying essential oils last fall. I'm slowly becoming a believer. Whenever I use them, good things happen: the inflamed tendon in my ankle feels better after I put peppermint on it, my son's hip that had been bothering him for months stopped

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> Icon representing the 21 Coptic Martyrs pic.twitter.com/di4DU7W2mN [http://t.co/di4DU7W2mN] > — Daily Saint Quotes (@DailyStQuotes) February 22, 2015 [https://twitter.com/DailyStQuotes/status/569316001562501120]

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> "Loss is not as bad as wanting more." ~ Lao Tzu #tao [https://twitter.com/hashtag/tao?src=hash] > — Zen and Tao (@ZENandTAO) February 21, 2015 [https://twitter.com/ZENandTAO/status/569053219411922947]

Kimmel

Gallup, the polling company, released its annual well-being index where they rank the health and happiness of residents of each of the 50 states. Alaska finished first and Hawaii was No. 2. It's interesting that the top two happiest states are the ones that are farthest away from

Kimmel

Little Caesars is about to deliver a bacon-wrapped deep dish pizza. It's a pizza with three and a half feet of bacon wrapped around it. I think we've reached a point as Americans where normal pizza has become too healthy for us. . . We will not stop

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> Who says you can't drink your #dessert [https://twitter.com/hashtag/dessert?src=hash]? http://t.co/aHWAeHdj8R > — Liquor.com (@Liquor) February 9, 2015 [https://twitter.com/Liquor/status/564873148353368064]

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In the wake of my bar name post earlier this week, A TDE reader sends along this picture of a bar near the birthplace of Thomas Edison:

Conan

The restaurant chain Salad Works has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Analysts attribute the failure to it being a salad restaurant located in America. The USDA has approved the first genetically modified apples that don't turn brown after being sliced open. The no-browning apples are being called groundbreaking,

Max's Most Recent Magnum Opus

> Pre-topple pic.twitter.com/WaUWbFzZLC [http://t.co/WaUWbFzZLC] > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) February 20, 2015 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/568585588724654083]

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Reddit Today I Learned

I hate to say it, but I kinda agree with John on this one: "TIL that John Belushi would sabotage anything written by women when he was on SNL, because he believed women were 'fundamentally not funny'" I mean, he shouldn't have sabotaged their

Thursday

Mini-Review The Holy Fire Robert Payne (1957) Choice quote: Gregory Nazianzen "feared no one. He had an unruly humor. He is the only man who is known to have dared to laugh at Basil. He was quick-tempered, sullen, unhappy in the company of most people, strangely remote from the

Conan

I had an amazing experience in Cuba. People there are fantastic. But I do have to say it's very nice to be back home in front of all of you capitalist pigs. There's a new device that allows airline passengers to completely isolate themselves from their

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My sons played high school basketball on the other side of the tracks last night. I saw this sign on a classroom door:

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> The Real #Saint [https://twitter.com/hashtag/Saint?src=hash] #Francis [https://twitter.com/hashtag/Francis?src=hash] of #Assisi [https://twitter.com/hashtag/Assisi?src=hash] pic.twitter.com/Z3gYN8AgAW [http://t.co/Z3gYN8AgAW] > — Father Ted Martin (@fathertedmartin) February 9, 2015 [https://twitter.com/fathertedmartin/status/564603054381473792]

Ash Wednesday

Welcome to Lent 2015. We all head in with high expectations. We all, I suspect, come out disgusted with our lack of progress. Maybe this year will be different. Maybe we can take Hemingway's advice: “Go all the way with it. Do not back off. For once, go

Fat Tuesday Celebration and Lenten Penance in One

Someone brought these into the office today for us to try. Probably the worst potato chip ever. Cooked, no doubt, in the fat fryers of Hell.

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> Get started on the #Chesterton [https://twitter.com/hashtag/Chesterton?src=hash] Reading Plan this Lent http://t.co/fXM26oan5w http://t.co/IZfgu1inHK > — Chesterton Society (@AmChestertonSoc) February 15, 2015 [https://twitter.com/AmChestertonSoc/status/566936011264233473]

McLuhan Quote

Sent by a TDE reader:

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Fifty Shades dominated the weekend box office. * * * * * * * Over the weekend, I thought about women who pursue the cloister and how the vast bulk of them are (I'm assured by anecdotal evidence) happy, perhaps the happiest people on earth. And then I thought about the millions of

Sunday

A Random Passage "Listening to gossip can be likened to receiving stolen goods; it puts you in immediate collusion with the person conveying the gossip to you." Joseph Epstein, Gossip, The Untrivial Pursuit.

Saturday

3.6 Shades When a new movie comes out, the ratings at IMDB are at their highest. Everyone's excited about it; they were the first ones to see a "great" movie; they plug it as a great movie. As time goes on, however, the ratings mellow.

BYCU

Brews You Can Use Hard cider is the rage. Here's a factoid you can take with you this evening to your local watering hole: "Cider has always been low in alcohol because the apples themselves are low in sugar. Even the sweetest apples contain much less sugar

Conan

NBC has suspended Brian Williams for six months without pay. Williams said he's not worried because soon his veterans' benefits will kick in. A new report says that last year Colorado collected $44 million in marijuana taxes. Unfortunately, they can't remember where they put it.

Zen Stuff

Who are the most Zen-like Christian thinkers? St. John of the Cross seems to be the one that's mentioned the most, with Meister Eckhart a close second. I've also seen at least two references to parallels with the thought of Blessed John Ruysbroeck. Van Balthasar draws

Meyers

Starbucks has confirmed that saxophone star Kenny G. helped create the Frappuccino. And that, by the way, was voted the world's whitest sentence ever uttered.

Conan

There's a rumor that NBC is going to have Tom Brokaw fill in temporarily as the NBC News anchor. When asked why, a network spokesperson said, "Because the only other NBC person we have is Bill Cosby."

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

Kimmel

Rosie says she's leaving "The View" to focus on her health. She said her doctors were concerned about all the stress that working an hour a day puts on the body.

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Similarly, the tough guy facade is a refuge of those suffering from arrested development: > Seriousness is the only refuge of the shallow. ~ Oscar Wilde http://t.co/UZy50d2aUY > — Zen Moments (@Zen_Moments) February 8, 2015 [https://twitter.com/Zen_Moments/status/564329826874818560]

Tuesday

Autobiographical Corner Something new for me: I woke up and headed to my basement study Sunday morning before my sons' spontaneous friend gathering had broken up. Granted, it was already 4:15 AM, but it was kind of odd to walk downstairs to the sound of contemporary music and

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More evidence that I need the lucky astrology mood watch (reference this morning's post). Or that I need to read more Montaigne, who early on questioned our culture's burdgeoning faith in science and reason: > Health Mag Editor Tests Accuracy of Several Fitness Tracking Devices and

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I almost started this Rambling with this statement, "Why all the horror over Brian Williams' fabrications?" I was then going to recount how Hillary Clinton's equally-mendacious statements about sniper fire in Bosnia and running with her "head down" a few years

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> Max's biggest domino set up yet. Hope to post toppling video later. pic.twitter.com/lLlFDLbiAn [http://t.co/lLlFDLbiAn] > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) February 8, 2015 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/564560110086029312] > Almost Max: http://t.co/f0VbKYL3zn via @YouTube [https://twitter.com/YouTube]

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One of the most disturbing things I've heard this year: > From the Land of the Not Free: Blacklisting the Boy Scouts by Mark Pulliam http://t.co/yUKDiAJJtM from @CityJournal [https://twitter.com/CityJournal] > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) February 8, 2015 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/

Sunday

Mencken rarely fails to crack me up, even when I don't agree with him. Here he is, writing about human rights: "A dog is a standing proof that most so-called human rights, at bottom, are worth nothing. A dog is proverbially devoid of any such rights, and

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And, I might add, the less loudly you need to say it. > The more you know the less you need to say. ~ Jim Rohn http://t.co/jhEFoiSlHl > — Zen Moments (@Zen_Moments) January 31, 2015 [https://twitter.com/Zen_Moments/status/561587775951355907]

Conan

Scientists have discovered that a 5,000-year-old mummy is covered with at least 60 tattoos. Scientists are calling him the earliest known member of the NBA.

BYCU

This is a neat article, but the tavern names are a bit disappointing: > Medieval Tavern Names http://t.co/Vjh1Afr5Tk pic.twitter.com/ToNOzR4kOM [http://t.co/ToNOzR4kOM] > — Medievalists.net (@Medievalists) January 31, 2015 [https://twitter.com/Medievalists/status/561646506747654144] Moderns are coming up with more creative names,

Some Notes Regarding the Conservatism of Walker Percy

How would a cat react if deprived of sleep? How does a car perform when deprived of oil? What happens to babies if no one holds them? I don't know how the cat would react, but I bet it would grow highly irritable and eventually violent. The car,

Meyers

Harper Lee announced today that she will release a sequel to "To Kill a Mockingbird,” which was published in 1960. Apparently she releases a new book every time the measles comes back. I think the sequel to "To Kill a Mockingbird” might be a little gimmicky though, because

GKC Wednesday

Chesterton Short(s) When Max Beerbohm took over for Shaw as the drama critic for the English Saturday Review, Shaw introduced him with the following, "The younger generation is knocking at the door, and as I open it there steps sprightly in the incomparable Max." "The incomparable

Tuesday

A few recent favorite tweets: > Your Concentration Training Program: 11 Exercises That Will Strengthen Your Attention (http://t.co/bQ5UPV2xmY) > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) February 1, 2015 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/561708314028175360] > Want To Hinder Hair Loss? Nine Natural Remedies. http://t.co/SoOFb7GtOI > — The

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling More Obamacare troubles [http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/01/us/politics/white-house-seeks-to-limit-health-laws-tax-troubles.html?_r=0] . Marie got us registered for Obamacare again this year. Unbelievably difficult and the system is riddled with incompetence. I've actually concluded that the people who put this monstrosity into place

Sunday

I think this writer at Forbes is right: "[B]ecause busyness has become a status symbol–a sign that you are in demand and thus important–it's easy to default to the word “busy” to describe your life. When we tell people that we are busy, in

Great, Just Freakin' Great

The "Catholic" Pelosi: > Today in 2014: Nancy Pelosi Receives Planned Parenthood's Top Margaret Sanger Award http://t.co/Y7Vfnsc7tW pic.twitter.com/4ZZbeC2DO0 [http://t.co/4ZZbeC2DO0] > — LifeNews.com (@LifeNewsHQ) February 1, 2015 [https://twitter.com/LifeNewsHQ/status/561705535922536448]

Saturday

Triggered Memory You ever hear something that triggers a memory from early childhood? That happened to me this morning while reading "Why I Hate the Super Bowl [http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2015/01/why_i_hate_the_super_bowl.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter] ."

Friday

BYCU Kinda interesting: Hops-growing workshop for Ohio growers [http://oardc.osu.edu/7388/Hops-Production-Workshop-is-Feb-13.htm]. I've wondered about the economics of hops growing. It looks pretty good: "Ohio State researchers estimate that within the first year growers can expect dry hops yields of 200 to 1,800

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Wikipedia founder, Hayek dude [http://i.imgur.com/T7yMjo3.jpg].

Thursday

I made my first planting of 2015 last weekend: three trays of microgreens. It felt good to get back in the gardening saddle and take my mind away from office concerns for awhile. * * * * * * * I actually do a fair amount of garden stuff during the dead of winter. I grow sprouts

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

Tuesday

Miscellaneous Rambling Yes, two straight days of "Miscellaneous Rambling." Though perhaps I should've ran this one as "Autobiographical Reflections" . . . * * * * * * * When I first read Josef Pieper's Leisure, the Basis of Culture, I was sold on Pieper's argument: The modern world is

On the Eighth Day

Back in the 1990s, I bought a lot of books from Eighth Day Books. I've always wanted to take a pilgimmage to that famed Wichita bookstore. In the meantime, I'll just enjoy Rod Dreher's description that I found last weekend: > I was reminded

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling My three oldest children and brother urged me to watch "Breaking Bad." They all love it. I've dedicated almost all of my TV-watching time to it over the past ten days and have squeezed in the first three episodes. I find it disagreeable. Very

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Ah, that's why no one around me converts: > Practicing charity is the best way to evangelize. @Pontifex [https://twitter.com/Pontifex] > — N. Catholic Register (@NCRegister) January 24, 2015 [https://twitter.com/NCRegister/status/559033345494220801]

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This Pope has given me some pause, but the rabbit comment didn't bother me. I think he basically said what everyone (well, every informed Catholic) already knows: You can use NFP to help regulate the size of your family if you have legitimate reasons for using it. The

Sunday

H.I.F: Interesting Corroborative evidence about the innate goodness of natural family planning: "Men who find themselves in the company of fertile women are more likely to make creative attempts at sentence structure to signify their mating fitness, a study has found. Researchers discovered that when young men

Saturday

"The Lamps are Going Out [http://takimag.com/article/the_lamps_are_going_out_theodore_dalrymple/print#axzz3PBPs3C7L] ." Pretty good piece by Theodore Dalrymple. Almost as an aside, he summarizes the socio-political problems with fiat money. There's a lot to think about packed into this passage:

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Everyone should go to college [http://i.imgur.com/1Xnsgpr.jpg]. Funny pic.

Friday

Brews You Can Use There's been some pretty good BYCU material out there this year. If your garden, like mine, has volunteer borage all over the place, consider this: borage fizz [http://www.kcet.org/living/food/the-public-kitchen/cocktail-recipe-borage-fizz.html] . My youngest son, Max, really likes to cook.

A Random Pic

This is the cover of the Second Mencken Chrestomathy. I wish I knew more about art. I really like this picture, but I don't know why:

Thursday

A Random Passage This HLM passage cracked me up for some reason: "Once, in a Madrid café, the two of us encountered a Spanish marquis who wore celluloid cuffs, suffered from pediculosis and had been drunk for sixteen years." Teachout, ed., The Second Mencken Chrestomathy. _______________ Great book, btw:

Kimmel

There's a viral video of a girl twerking in a moving car. She ends up falling out of the car. Hopefully she's covered by twerker's compensation.

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

Kimmel

The New England Patriots take on the defending champs, the Seattle Seahawks. Idina Menzel from the movie "Frozen" will sing the national anthem, and Katy Perry will perform at halftime. It's the first Super Bowl targeted specifically at 7-year-old girls.

Tuesday

The New Bigots Another story that broke last week during my 12-day hog-tie at the office (link [http://www.crisismagazine.com/2015/gary-sinise-lieutenant-dan]): > Must reading http://t.co/CsWyz8xQFU > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) January 18, 2015 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/556773712918507520] This whole Gary Sinise and Bret

Monday

Hey, Franclin! The year 2015 whirled in like a tornado. I was tied up with law office stuff for twelve-and-a-half straight days, finally knocking off late Saturday morning. It's not exactly the way I wanted to start the new year, but hopefully things are returning to normal now.

Sunday

Disgusting and disturbing. All phony and all lies all the time, like Obamacare but on the international level: The Truth "Behind" The Charlie Hebdo Solidarity Photo-Op [http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-01-17/truth-behind-cherlie-hebdo-solidarity-photo-op] .

Saturday

I oughtta run a coffee, Coke, Mountain Dew, energy drink, Gatorade, or other hangover cure piece every Saturday, like this one: 23 other interesting facts about the world's best-known brand [http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2910885/The-Coke-Bordeaux-mixed-cocaine-23-interesting-facts-world-s-best-known-brand.html] . > Interesting. Bet it woulda been a great hangover

Friday

BYCU A passage from a book that is currently on my top shelf, The Drunken Botanist: "Every great drink starts with a plant. If you're a gardener, I hope this book inspires a cocktail party. If you're a bartender, I hope you're persuaded

Conan

For the first time since 2007, the FDA has approved a new device to treat obesity. The amazing breakthrough is called a vegetable.

Thursday

Kontent from the Kindle Impressive company, though I must admit that I'd never heard of the last two books: "A Mencken Chrestomathy was published the following July, two months before Mencken's sixty-ninth birthday. It turned up on the New York Times best-seller list almost immediately,

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

Tuesday

"Rothbard famously observed that one could uncover the libertarian position on X by imagining a gang of thugs carrying out the state action in question." Thomas Woods, Real Dissent. It's a good example. The libertarian basically asks, "If you wouldn't tolerate your neighbor

Monday

I'm hopefully done with busy weekends. I had to go to Chicago on business this past one. It was a good time, but in the middle of a sub-zero cold snap and basketball season . . . not exactly a welcomed excursion. We went to Million Dollar Quartet Saturday night at

Sunday

A Random Passage Malcolm Muggeridge was fond of quoting from an ancient inscription that was found in the Libyan desert: “I, the Captain of a Legion of Rome, serving in the desert of Libya, have learnt and pondered this truth: 'There are in life but two things to be

Saturday

A Random Passage "Nock thought universal literacy a useless goal, as most people can't do anything valuable with it anyway." Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism Actually, those passages by Nock about the ridiculousness of universal literacy are some of his most enjoyable. There's something

Conan

Bill Gates released a video of himself drinking water that was filtered from human excrement. No word yet on whether Gates got into the fraternity.

Friday

BYCU As I get steeped more deeply in vodka and gin, I'm enjoying the lost art of mixology. Well, it was a lost art. With the advent of Mad Men, things like infusing vodka with herbs/spices and using bitters [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bitters] have made

On Bombings

> "It is the test of a good religion whether you can joke about it." G.K. Chesterton. > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) January 9, 2015 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/553344955381743616]

Conan

According to a new report that just came out, the average college freshman reads at a seventh grade level. Or if you're an optimist every seventh grader now reads at a college freshman level.

Meyers

According to sources, Pablo Picasso's granddaughter is selling off $290 million of Picasso's work. That's enough money to put a smile on anyone's forehead. Lindsay Lohan was recently diagnosed with a rare mosquito-transmitted disease called chikungunya. And the mosquito was diagnosed with

GKC Wednesday

Chesterton Short(s) Michael Coren recounts a great anecdote from Chesterton's years on Fleet Street: "Fleet Street was his domain, and he was as much a part of it as the El Vino and Cheshire Cheese watering holes which he frequented. Kenneth Baker, now a cabinet minister,

Book Review

Leisure, The Basis of Culture by John Pieper (1948). Choice quote: "[T]here can be unused space in the total world of work." Obsessed with efficiency? I am. At least I used to be. I'm a recovering efficiencoholic. It was bad, so bad that my time

More Evidence Against Neo-Prohibitionism

> Study finds Kentucky's "dry" counties have more meth lab seizures per capita than counties where liquor is legal. http://t.co/73HJjPBecf > — Timothy Aeppel (@TimAeppel) January 5, 2015 [https://twitter.com/TimAeppel/status/552105003477762048] Link [http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2015/01/04/local-alcohol-prohibition-laws-may-lead-to-less-liquor-but-more-meth-economists-say/

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Things return to normal . . . or kinda normal. The year is getting off to a frenzied bang, with out-of-town hearings and appointments all week that will take me to five towns in three states over the next five days. Ugh. Although I've come to appreciate that busy-ness

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I'd love to see this become the first crack in the arrogant NFL's hegemony: > Dallas Cowboys Tickets Going For Less Than Face Value For Wild Card Matchup Against Detroit Lions - http://t.co/KNgu5HWhvs > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) January 4, 2015 [https://twitter.

Epiphany

"Let us remain in adoration; and to Him, who, in order to save us, humbled Himself to such a degree of poverty as to receive our body, let us offer not only incense, gold and myrrh (the first as God, the second as king, and the third as one

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Nassim Taleb came up with, then Tweeted, a set of New Year's resolutions [https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/550273244289585152]. As with most of us his statemednts, they're enigmatic and meant to make you think. They've also spawned a lot of retweets and comments, especially

Saturday

H.I.F: Interesting Mall brawls breaking out across America. ABC News segment [http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/video/malls-high-alert-large-fights-break-country-27915285] . I can't tell whether they're trying to lay the blame on social media or on the trash demographic that's orchestrating them.

Friday

Out of It On Wednesday night, we had Ryan Seacrest's Rockin' New Year's Eve on the TV with the sound off, while the kids played games and I grogged off my hangover. At midnight, we turned up the volume and counted down, then we turned

New Years Day

Happy New Years. No blogging today, but I pass along this recommended Benedict Groeschel audio: "Conversion, the Real New Year's Resolution [https://www.ewtn.com/vondemand/audio/dload1.asp?audiofile=snl_01012006.mp3&source=file_index.asp&seriesID=7054&T1=] ." I've

New Years Eve

It'll be curious to see how this plays out on New Years Eve. I might have to sober up a bit before the ball drops: > [T]hose tasked to protect and to serve the Big Apple, appear to have decided to turn their back on their job

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H.I.F: Frustrating Why do we believe anything from anyone in the upper echelons anymore? "First it was, with 'absolute certainly', North Korea. Then, out of the blue, an even more ridiculous theory emerged about the origin of the Sony hackers: Russia. Now, we finally get

Tuesday

H.I.F: Humorous Why I support my local newspaper: "Local TV newsrooms ostensibly cover hundreds of towns in their broadcast area and rarely dedicate even more than a few seconds ”“ if that – to local government or school news. Unless your school district is going on strike or your

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Whew, the Christmas frenzy is over. Every year it's the same thing: High energy and expectations going in, utter exhaustion coming out, but with expectations more or less met. I was so tired last night, I was concerned that I was coming down with something, but

Sunday

A Random Passage Humorous anecdote about Albert Jay Nock: "He left the American in 1914 after claiming he wrote a deliberately bad article about Edison that was accepted and published." Brian Doherty, Radicals for Capitalism.

Saturday

If you've never read Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn's Menace of the Herd or Procrustes at Large, consider giving it a shot. It's a work of a bygone era, written by a man who lived in our era (died in 1999). When I read him,

The Day After Christmas

Today is the Feast of St. Stephen. The Catholic Church loves its paradoxes: The day of intense joy followed by a day of sobering reality. Joy and martyrdom, love and hatred of love, Everlasting Life and grisly death.

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From Today I Learned "TIL $44 billion worth of gift cards have gone unredeemed since 2008."

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Wow [http://i.imgur.com/xhk9Zvb.png].

Merry Christmas

“He is born poor, and he teaches us that happiness is not to be found in an abundance of earthly goods. He comes into the world without any ostentation, encouraging us to be humble and not to depend on the applause of men.” Francis Fernandez

A Christmas Carol

The Christ-child lay on Mary's lap, His hair was like a light. (O weary, weary were the world, But here is all aright.) The Christ-child lay on Mary's breast, His hair was like a star. (O stern and cunning are the kings, But here the true

Tuesday

A Random Passage I've been searching for some decent Christmas fare, trying to avoid any negativity. It's not easy to find, at least when one's bookmarks are filled with news sites. I did, however, come across this quote that should be helpful this time

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling "It's the most . . . wonderful time . . . of the year." All seven kids are home, which is always nice, but this year seems especially wonderful. I've had a grueling past six months at the office, but things are lightening up and this week promises

Sunday

A Random Passage Kinda makes you wonder if Balthasar, Guardini, and McLuhan kick things around in heaven: "Guardini claims that religious experience has historically grown darker and weaker in the technological world, if we compare this world to the mythological world of antiquity and the Middle Ages, in which

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> In 10th century Scandinavia any peasant who didn't brew a Christmas beer paid a fine & not brewing for 3 years resulted in loss of property. > — Drunken History (@DrunkenHistory) December 12, 2014 [https://twitter.com/DrunkenHistory/status/543213140045885440]

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Thank you, TDE readers, for your patronage. I just looked at my Amazon results for the month. I'm always stunned to see how a slew of small credits (ranging from one cent to, say, 39 cents) adds up. Of course, special thanks to the TDE readers who log

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> During the middle ages, monks usually had a ration of 2-4 liters of beer per day & typically increased over the Christmas season. > — Drunken History (@DrunkenHistory) December 14, 2014 [https://twitter.com/DrunkenHistory/status/544158636885700608]

Friday

Brews You Can Use: Special Holiday Edition Christmas is nigh. I've never been much of a Christmas drinker. Thanksgiving? Sure, but Christmas? Nope. I certainly don't have a religious problem with drinking, since, as long-time TDE readers know, I practically consider alcohol a sacramental, but there&

Meyers

A new poll about the 2016 election shows that just 27 percent of voters would be likely to support Chris Christie. And only 4 percent of chairs. After closing their final session, the outgoing 113th Congress has an approval rating of just 16 percent. To give you some perspective, Cosby

Thursday

A TDE reader sends along this email: "I sent my brother that Talib quote: 'Never listen to a leftist who does not give away his fortune or does not live the exact lifestyle he wants others to follow.' "He used it with co-workers, a flurry of

I Gotta Read More Bernanos.

Whatta great quote > "Pride has no intrinsic substance, being no more than the name given to the soul devouring itself." -Georges Bernanos pic.twitter.com/ZBaTFSGZUx [http://t.co/ZBaTFSGZUx] > — Catholic Thinker (@ThinkerCatholic) December 18, 2014 [https://twitter.com/ThinkerCatholic/status/545380696450404353]

Conan

The hackers who hacked into Sony have leaked the upcoming script for the new James Bond movie. Some of the executives said the news left them shaken but not stirred.

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I kinda feel like Gaudete Sunday [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaudete_Sunday] ushered in the Advent season for me. Everything from Thanksgiving through Saturday was crunched and rushed, from a flurry of meetings and appointments at the office to social obligations. While at Mass Satuday night, it

Humorous

H.I.F. A TDE reader sends this is, with "Beyond Parody" in the subject line. Presented with no further comment: "Toledo Councilman Jack Ford, a non-Catholic, said the Pope's comment compelled him Friday to move forward with calling for a program he had been

Sunday

A Random Passage Another piece of Hudge and Gudge history: "Another group that was overwhelmingly supportive of Italian fascism was American big business . . .". Thaddeus Russell, A Renegade History of the United States. Russell then goes on to provide an impressive (disturbing?) list of examples.

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One of the funnier Onion pieces this year: > The Onion's Person Of The Year 2014: (TIE) Malala Yousafzai And John Cena http://t.co/CxFrR0Hhr2 #OurAnnualYear [https://twitter.com/hashtag/OurAnnualYear?src=hash] pic.twitter.com/X9xMhm0rdA [http://t.co/X9xMhm0rdA] > — The Onion (@TheOnion) December 12,

Friday

BYCU The best drinking story of the month so far: Ale mail [http://www.cleveland.com/drinks/index.ssf/2014/12/beer_trade_underground_and_ill.html#incart_river] . "Some beer aficionados have turned to mailing beers with each other. So a person in, say, Arizona who has access

Fallon

Facebook revealed that Ebola was the most popular Facebook topic in the U.S. this year, with the World Cup coming in sixth. So welcome to America, where even Ebola is more popular than soccer.

Meyers

A flight headed from San Francisco to Phoenix had to make an emergency landing in L.A. today after a passenger gave birth midflight. The parents called the birth a miracle while the airline called it a second carry-on. The woman gave birth in the middle of a flight. I&

Wednesday

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 file full

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Talking about the "social justice warriors" (a term on the secular circuit that refers to those people who snoop out racism, homophobia, sexism, and other "evils" wherever they may lurk): "You do the same evil, in the same pattern, as so many before you, because

Conan

A village in Alaska has been without mail for days because its only postal worker quit. So if you want to reach anyone in that village, you will have no choice but to email, call, text, Facebook, tweet, Skype, or Instagram.

Tuesday

Random Quotes "The mind has functions that the brain hardly knows." John Lukacs ******* "While it is easier to wrestle with a weak body than with a strong one, it is more difficult to wrestle with a weak mind than with a strong one." John Lukacs ******* "

Great List

Well, a pretty good list. A few of the items didn't make much sense to me, a self-proclaimed Tolkien expert: > 10 Strange 'Lord Of The Rings' Facts That The Films Leave Out - Listverse http://t.co/hveZuFUZlY > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) December 9,

Monday

Miscellany I've been to plenty of flea markets. I never appreciated that I was walking in a den of libertarianism. This 2012 book sounds pretty interesting: Flea Market Jesus [http://wipfandstock.com/flea-market-jesus.html]. "Part ethnography, part autobiography, Flea Market Jesus is a story about alienation, biblical

Interesting

H.I.F. New Pope interview [http://americamagazine.org/content/dispatches/new-interview-pope-francis-says-resistance-comes-open-good-sign] . It's sure to hit the Catholic media waves hard and probably the MSM as well. Excerpt: > Some so-called "conservative" sectors charged that Francis had sacked Cardinal Raymond Burke, former head of the Vatican&

Sunday

A Random Passage Worth pondering: "Henry Maine noted [that] the history of Western civilization and Western liberty has been the shift from status to contract–from being locked into positions based on who you were at birth, to being able to live, work, do what you wish, deal with

Saturday

A Random Passage "The worst government is often the most moral. One composed of cynics is often very tolerant and humane. But when fanatics are on top there is no limit to oppression.” H.L. Mencken. But of course. The cynic doesn't believe he has any business

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Slight hangover after office party, but for some reason, this is keeping up my spirits:

Friday

Kingsley Amis shares a little banal insight into the artistic life: "[L]et me just observe in passing that the reason why so many professional artists drink a lot is not necessarily very much to do with the artistic temperament, etc. It is simply that they can afford to,

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I've gotten some email about yesterday's post. Let me clarify: Based on information from the MSM (which is scanty and undoubtedly incorrect and misleading), I have no sympathies for the position of the Ferguson protesters (to the extent they're protesting the Michael Brown shooting)

Thursday

I tried Mike Duncan's new podcast, "Revolutions [http://www.revolutionspodcast.com/]," but I had a hard time "getting into" them. I think he was simply jamming too many facts and names into them, but he's doing a great job with the current

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The dude was, what, selling loose cigarettes? For that, he was confronted by a team of cops, put in a chokehold, and killed even after pleading "I can't breathe"? I had little tolerance for the Michael Brown protesters, but my sympathies are with the black man

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Another long Thanksgiving weekend goes in the record books. This one might go down as one of my heaviest-drinking campaigns. On Wednesday, I drank about a dozen vodka-tonics, though I never felt very drunk and I woke up with a short-lived hangover. A testament to the pureness of

Sunday

A Random Passage "Society desperately needs enclaves like monasteries and universities wherein men and women have . . . leisure. But we should never forget that the primary place of leisure and of the knowledge of the higher order of things begins and ends almost always in our homes." James Schall,

Kontent from the Kindle

Kontent from the Kindle I knew Hollywood had a heavy Jewish influence, but I didn't realize it was pretty much entirely Jewish, albeit of the type who assimilated. A few passages from Thaddeus Russell's Renegade History: Emanuel Goldenberg became Edward G. Robinson, Betty Perske became Lauren

Stoic Week 2014

Going on now. Link [https://philosophynow.org/issues/105/News_November_December_2014]

Happy Thanksgiving

“Thanksgiving Day originated in New England when the Puritans realized they had succeeded in exterminating their neighbors, the Indians, instead of getting exterminated by their neighbors, the Indians.” Mark Twain “Gratitude is a fruit of great cultivation; you do not find it among gross people.” Samuel Johnson “Beggar that I

Special BYCU Edition: Eight Years Running

Black Wednesday again. Far out. I've been celebrating Black Wednesday since 1985, when I first came back home from college for Thanksgiving Break. It is one of my favorite days of the year. But how long have I been writing about Black Wednesdays? For that, I had to

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> Coming: Special BYCU, 8th Anniversary Edition. Lengthiest Black Wednesday edition ever. GKC, Nock, and more pic.twitter.com/gBsBxErBZm [http://t.co/gBsBxErBZm] > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) November 23, 2014 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/536516955059269632]

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Please don't forget to patronize TDE this holiday season by accessing Amazon from this site. Thanks!

Tuesday

A few great quotes that I ran across on Twitter last week: > "You cannot be half a saint; you must be a whole saint or no saint at all." - St. Therese of Lisieux > — Taylor Marshall (@TaylorRMarshall) November 21, 2014 [https://twitter.com/TaylorRMarshall/status/535902508661866497]

Monday

On Bullying "A dead thing can go with the stream, but only a living thing can go against it." That easily ranks in my top ten of GKC quotes. It's from Part Two of The Everlasting Man (yet another GKC book that I want to read

Interesting

H.I.F. Ten books for fallen-away Catholics [http://www.patheos.com/blogs/pursuedbytruth/2014/11/top-ten-books-for-fallen-away-catholics.html] . I was expecting Surprised by Truth and the like. Instead, I got Dostoyevsky and Graham Greene. I'm not sure I agree with the author's view that these books

Saturday

The more I'm around people, the more I'm convinced that a rambling style is the sign of an immature, under-developed, and/or un-disciplined mind. The rule applies to written or oral communication. > I have made this letter long because i have not the time to

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> The CDC defines a "heavy drinker" as a man who drinks 2 drinks a day or a woman who drinks 1. That's the level of intellect taking on Ebola. > — Modern_Drunkard (@Modern_Drunkard) October 7, 2014 [https://twitter.com/Modern_Drunkard/status/519278774810996736]

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> Binge drinking...didn't exist in the '50s! #advertising [https://twitter.com/hashtag/advertising?src=hash] #beer [https://twitter.com/hashtag/beer?src=hash] #GoodOldDays [https://twitter.com/hashtag/GoodOldDays?src=hash] pic.twitter.com/hdqFInaSBR [http://t.co/hdqFInaSBR] > — Drunken History (@DrunkenHistory) November 20, 2014

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> Where do teetotalers come from? Modern Drunkard Magazine http://t.co/lR3GaY0yn8 > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) November 16, 2014 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/534008493397647362]

Friday

Brews You Can Use Okay, this is frustrating: Only A Fraction Of The Population Has The Genotype That Makes Moderate Alcohol Consumption Heart Healthy [http://www.inquisitr.com/1612099/only-a-fraction-of-the-population-has-the-genotype-that-makes-moderate-alcohol-consumption-heart-healthy/] . According to the story, a new study has shown that moderate alcohol consumption improves the health of only 15% of

Ferguson

Today is also the holiday known as National Day of Monaco. Monaco is independent, but they're defended by France. In other words, they're on their own.

Letterman

If you're looking to get the Mansons a gift, they're registered at Bloodbath & Beyond.

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Reddit asks: "What sentence could ruin a date immediately? [http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/2mvhz5/what_sentence_could_ruin_a_date_immediately/] " The responses are pretty funny (PG-13). This one slayed me the most: "She'll have the salad."

Me, Myself, and I

Ten common English mistakes [http://listverse.com/2008/09/11/another-10-common-english-errors/?utm_source=more&utm_medium=link&utm_campaign=direct] . It's a pretty basic list, but I see this mistake all the time, even among edjewkated peepel: > Me/Myself > The most common problem here

Meyers

Charles Manson is getting married – which is weird because I thought he was already serving a life sentence. A man in California was arrested after he stabbed his potential employer during a job interview. Well, at least now he knows where he sees himself in five years. Justin Bieber will

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> Early Christmas: The Wisdom of Fr. Benedict Groeschel. Free e-book: https://t.co/f696UUSU4Q > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) November 15, 2014 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/533671535970500609]

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

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Ha ha ha > Bachelors know more about women than married men. If they didn't they'd be married, too. > — HL Mencken (@HLMenckenBot) November 19, 2014 [https://twitter.com/HLMenckenBot/status/534878791051390977]

Video Killed the Swaggart Start

Truth Will Out A vapid but important piece showed up on the front page of Reddit on Sunday: Why the Internet is slowly strangling religion [http://www.salon.com/2014/11/14/why_the_internet_is_slowly_strangling_religion_partner/] . It originally appeared on AlterNet, then Salon picked it up.

Interesting

H.I.F. Cardinal George interview [http://www.cruxnow.com/church/2014/11/17/chicagos-exiting-cardinal-the-church-is-about-truefalse-not-leftright/] . Lengthy. Excerpt: Q. Until the Synod of Bishops in October, most mainstream folks in what we might loosely call the 'conservative' camp seemed inclined to give Francis the benefit of the doubt. Afterwards

New EWTN Mini-Series

Starts in a few hours. I hope to catch it: > Take a stroll through London's rich Catholic History! From Nov. 17- 22, EWTN presents “Walking Through Time:... http://t.co/2hFJsiQiIL > — EWTN (@EWTN) November 17, 2014 [https://twitter.com/EWTN/status/534133825102946304]

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> 10 Awesome Ancient Philosophers History Forgot - http://t.co/3nq78VBHvr via @listverse [https://twitter.com/listverse] > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) November 13, 2014 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/533004076095512577]

Monday

Autobiographical Corner Ann Arbor on a Saturday night. Brutal. Without going into all the whining details, suffice it to say that, when I agreed to go to Ann Arbor for my daughter's a ceppella group's performance, it was because there was no home football game. Well,

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> On Heretical Popes: http://t.co/bvWmaar1g5 Very judicious by Fr,. Schall. > — John Zmirak (@JZmirak) November 15, 2014 [https://twitter.com/JZmirak/status/533715233081008128]

Sunday

The Homophile Anchoress I'd been noticing some disturbing Tweets and posts from Elizabeth Scalia lately, so much so that I finally emailed a few friends about it, asking whether she had "flipped" to the pro-gay camp. It turns out she has, albeit in an unusual way

Interesting

H.I.F. The best piece I've seen on the Gruber phenomenon. If you don't understand how the big government types work, it's a must-read [http://m.nationalreview.com/article/392672/thank-you-jonathan-gruber-rich-lowry] . "He has done us all a favor by affording us an

Ferguson

A "Duck Dynasty" musical is in the works. It's predicted to be very popular with fans of "Duck Dynasty" who also love musical theater. In other words, nobody. Actors who audition should be proficient in singing, dancing, and hiding their sexual orientation. I wonder

Conan

Developers are working on a new app that gives you a 10-second warning before an earthquake. The app is called "Too Late."

Friday

BYCU I decided I hadn't been spending nearly enough time at Modern Drunkard Magazine, so I decided to surf around it last weekend during the Detroit Lions game. I wasn't disappointed. It turns out they're in the second "Clash of the Tightest [http:

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Someone needs to explain to this pompous ass the difference between stupidity and getting tricked by a liar. Even an Einstein would get tricked if a person he trusts were willing to lie to his face. The American people didn't want Obamacare, but after a parade of lies,

Good Late Night

The heroic New York doctor who caught Ebola has been declared Ebola free. President Obama called the doctor to thank him for his selflessness and compassion. Then to be safe, Obama threw his phone in a trash can and lit it on fire. Fallon In Beaumont, California, two people have

Also Related to Tuesday's Post About Degenerates

And few thinkers have caused our civilization to decline as much as Alfred Kinsey, ye of the fraudulent sex studies that used the moral mores of convicts to publish a tome to legitimize perversion: 10% of prisoners admit to homosexual sex encounters; therefore, 10% of the population is gay. We&

Meyers

A man in Florida has been sentenced to six months in prison for stockpiling weapons at a compound just 11 miles from Disney World. Eleven miles from Disney World? So . . . in the parking lot?

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

Wow

This story [http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2014/11/10/aca-architect-the-stupidity-of-the-american-voter-led-us-to-hide-obamacares-tax-hikes-and-subsidies-from-the-public/] simply astounds: the arrogance that breeds such contempt for everybody else, the dishonesty, and the knowledge that this kind of thinking is the sine qua non of every pro-government thinker today (or else the guy wouldn't

Paul Johnson's Intellectuals: A Micro-Review

If you're interested in biography, perversion, and modern ideas, I highly recommend Paul Johnson's Intellectuals. I read it on my honeymoon (heh, heh), so it's been awhile, but I remember greatly enjoying the min-bios on Rousseau, Shelley, and Sartre. I later read E. Michael

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The following Tweet reminded me: TDE earns 80% of its annual revenue from sales this time of year. If you could remember to access Amazon through TDE this holiday season, it would be great appreciated. > Cyber Monday will continue to be the biggest online shopping day of the year

Monday Miscellany

Miscellaneous Rambling I'm on vacation this week. Actually, it's a bizarro [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bizarro_World] vacation: Whereas work piles normally grow during a vacation, on this bizarro vacation, I plan on work piles shrinking. I packed a bunch of big files and took

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> St. John Paul II was a Marvel comic book character in the '80s http://t.co/28tdpxjyuz (HT @TitoEdwards [https://twitter.com/TitoEdwards]) > — Jason Barker (@AncientStream) October 28, 2014 [https://twitter.com/AncientStream/status/527073033383452672]

Interesting

H.I.F. "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." H.L. Mencken. Juxtapose that with this blog post: If You Really

Frustrating

H.I.F. But a bit comical, too: "In an effort to help transgendered people feel more comfortable using public restrooms, Cleveland City Council is considering an ordinance that would require businesses to make their restrooms, showers and locker rooms available to both sexes. And barring one gender from

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> Andy Warhol ”“ a Celibate Catholic? - Aleteia http://t.co/g9BdzCLeNb > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) November 8, 2014 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/531073749135921154]

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> 10/27/2014: Dylan Thomas' Birthday (1914). “An alcoholic is someone you don't like who drinks as much as you do.” White Horse Scotch. > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) October 27, 2014 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/526532325006667779]

BYCU

BYCU An old friend sends me this piece: The Cold Logic of Drunk People [http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/10/the-cold-logic-of-drunk-people/381908/?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Vox%20Newsletter%20All&utm_campaign=vox%20sentences%2010%2F27%2F2014] . I should've ran

Meyers

A North Carolina man says he used his “Never Ending Pasta Pass” from Olive Garden to eat at the restaurant 95 times in the past six weeks. Well, he didn't say that, but his tombstone does.

Thursday

Ruminations on the Fall of Rome [I really like Belloc, but his style, though no doubt superb, is out-dated. Here I re-phrase a few pages from Chapter II of Europe and the Faith.] In order to understand how the Catholic Church viewed itself, we first need to eliminate the word

Fallon

During a speech on Sunday, President Obama said to the crowd, “We've got to vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote. Vote.” This went on for an hour until someone finally fixed his teleprompter.

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

Fallon

Health officials in countries affected by Ebola are encouraging people to stop shaking hands, and instead give an “Ebola handshake,” which is when you bump elbows with someone. That would be a great idea if they hadn't spent the past five years telling us to sneeze into our

Election Day

Nock "recognized no substantive difference between the various governments clashing during World War II. 'Rooseveltism, Hitlerism, Stalinism, are all only local variants of the common doctrine that man has no natural rights but only such as are created for him by the state . . . [this is] State absolutism, formulated

Interesting

H.I.F. "I want to issue a special summons to men, especially fathers, husbands, and priests. The summons is simple: be a man. We need men in these dark days, men who will heroically speak and act, men who will announce the truth and insist upon it wherever

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling My eldest brother moved to Mississippi back in the 1990s. I took my first trip down there in 1999. I had always been a fan of the old South, so I was greatly looking forward to roaming around the oldest of the Old. Although we stayed in the

Sunday

All Souls Day [http://www.catholic.org/saints/allsouls/]. One of my favorite non-obligatory feast days. I tell my wife that November 1st will be the day people remember me. My logic: Chesterton said "The holy man always conceals his holiness; that is the one invariable rule [http://www.

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> 7 Things Every Protestant Should Know About Catholicism - Thirsting for Truth http://t.co/QecoAvIaWx > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) November 1, 2014 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/528637577914372096]

Saturday

Another great passage from Epstein's Snobbery. He first quotes from Kurt Andersen's novel, Turn of the Century: > George has been amazed to discover that there were two Griffins in Max's class this year. . . . But Griffin is precisely the kind of name that'

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> I Knew a Priest Who Could See the Dead http://t.co/FGO4dMYfds #dead [https://twitter.com/hashtag/dead?src=hash] #halloween [https://twitter.com/hashtag/halloween?src=hash] pic.twitter.com/8c3K74D7ho [http://t.co/8c3K74D7ho] > — ChurchPOP (@Church_POP) October 31, 2014 [https://twitter.com/Church_POP/

Friday

BYCU Man, BYCU blogging is almost too easy this week: Halloween is now a big drinking night, as evidenced by this infographic [http://scramsystems.com/blog/2014/10/scary-truth-halloween-drinking/#.VEzmQPnF-So] . There are many sites dedicated to boozy Halloween costumes, Halloween parties, and Halloween drinks. But it's not for

Some Halloween Jokes

Why didn't the skeleton go to the party? He had no body to go with! Why was the scarecrow given an award? Because he was outstanding in his field! How much did it cost the pirate to get his ears pierced? A buccaneer! Why did the Invisible Man

Thursday

Halloween is tomorrow. Are you thinking about not handing out candy? If so, please consider this piece that I wrote in 2011. If you want to see the difference between adults and children, look no further than Halloween. For little kids, Halloween is the biggest holiday of the year after

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> Dominating the family jack-o-lantern competition w Long Island Cheese pumpkin pic.twitter.com/K2cclPBKQa [http://t.co/K2cclPBKQa] > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) October 28, 2014 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/527237532279668737]

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

Tuesday

Joseph Epstein once wrote a great essay about being "out of it." It's basically about his tendency not to know what's going on in pop culture and how, even though he didn't intentionally set out to become ignorant of such things, he&

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling So, has everyone noticed that I finally launched the TDE Twitter [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon] account full bore? I set it up a year ago but rarely used it. I decided to start using it once I learned how to embed Tweets and my son Jack showed me

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> Must-read: NYT, Sunday edition, Ross Douthat: The Pope and the Precipice http://t.co/PzdBcCYIiP > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) October 26, 2014 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/526381021944496128]

Sunday

> Three ideas from Epictetus, one of my favorite thinkers: http://t.co/NxSO8H3aAx pic.twitter.com/We919ni79c [http://t.co/We919ni79c] > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) October 24, 2014 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/525769313332895745]

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> > Meet the new serfs. http://t.co/9dULnWsGKS pic.twitter.com/Bl8n7FNBiS [http://t.co/Bl8n7FNBiS] > — National Review (@NRO) October 24, 2014 [https://twitter.com/NRO/status/525744277578850304]

Saturday

H.I.F. Interesting I'm coming off the week from hell at the office, so other than checking out Twitter at odd moments of the day, I've done virtually no reading. Yesterday, while brain-dead surfing and unwinding at the end of the week, I ran across

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> The London Beer Flood and other strange ways to die - via @Telegraph [https://twitter.com/Telegraph] http://t.co/CxlSdrhS4U > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) October 23, 2014 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/525260137544441857]

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> Stock up on these $15 and under sparkling wines before the holidays hit: http://t.co/gTQRPaAk9S > — Food & Wine magazine (@foodandwine) October 24, 2014 [https://twitter.com/foodandwine/status/525738719098052608]

BYCUish Pics/Tweets

> Another exhibit at Art Prize 2014. See next Tweet for full exhibit pic.twitter.com/Drr4mgm2tY [http://t.co/Drr4mgm2tY] > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) October 19, 2014 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/523928782122786816] > pic.twitter.com/FzOBVQv916 [http://t.co/FzOBVQv916] > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) October

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> EWTN has brought back the Sunday Night Live/Prime series with Fr. Groeschel! http://t.co/lboC6qbAzg > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) October 23, 2014 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/525382142684307459]

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> Rabbit men in the Grand River. Art Prize 2014. pic.twitter.com/r1TkRADmLW [http://t.co/r1TkRADmLW] > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) October 19, 2014 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/523928029492707328]

Grand Rapids, Michigan

> Steve Martin art at Art Prize 2014 pic.twitter.com/9VDZO1o5r2 [http://t.co/9VDZO1o5r2] > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) October 19, 2014 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/523929564448563202]

Humorous

H.I.F. Artist makes Lord of the Rings style maps of cities [https://www.etsy.com/listing/190998293/fantasy-map-of-cleveland-85x11?ref=related-6]

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

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> Fr Benedict Groeschel Once Read My Soul - http://t.co/Bf2csZD5S0 via @taylorrmarshall [https://twitter.com/TaylorRMarshall] > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) October 19, 2014 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/status/523964911949324288]

Indian Summer in the Neighborhood

Tuesday

H.I.F. Interesting: "Infographic": Half The World's Christians Live In These 11 Nations [http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-13/half-worlds-christians-live-these-11-nations] . USA, Mexico, Brazil, Nigeria, Congo, Ethiopia, Italy, Germany, Russia, Philippines, and China. Yes, China, which really surprised me. But then I read the other infographics

These are Killing Me

> Randy Orton hates parkour #RKOvines [https://twitter.com/hashtag/RKOvines?src=hash] https://t.co/U0WfGuIAEx > — Randy Orton RKO (@RandyOrtonVlNE) October 16, 2014 [https://twitter.com/RandyOrtonVlNE/status/522891054744604672] > #RKO [https://twitter.com/hashtag/RKO?src=hash] OUTTA NOWHERE https://t.co/lZMZ4ne3fW > — Randy Orton RKO

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> The urge to save humanity is almost always only a false-face for the urge to rule it. > — HL Mencken (@HLMenckenBot) July 25, 2014 [https://twitter.com/HLMenckenBot/status/492533487761502208]

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Glorious Indian Summer! Temps got down to 28 here Sunday morning. Lows for the next ten days are in the upper thirties and forties; highs in the fifties and low sixties. I hope to walk and walk until my feet fall off. If this coming winter is like

Related to Last Saturday's . . .

. . . embedded tweet about the Monks of Norcia's beer. First found here [http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/what-we-need-are-men-like-st-benedict/] .

Good Late Night

A gang member turned rabbi has been arrested in New York for impersonating a police officer. A gang member, a rabbi, and a police officer. He's basically a one-man version of the Village People. Meyers President Obama is trying very hard to put people at ease about Ebola.

Saturday

Good squash season this year. If I can keep a few unripe ones from getting damaged in tonight's freeze, I could end up with 50 or more. Here are pics of many of the squash, plus a few gourds:

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> Maggie Gallagher expresses deep concern over the synod in Rome: http://t.co/jWnd86pPwa > — AmericanConservative (@amconmag) October 17, 2014 [https://twitter.com/amconmag/status/523217024013443072]

Friday

BYCU A fun piece at Fox last week: 5 of the world's most dangerous cocktails [http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2014/10/07/5-world-most-dangerous-cocktails/]. 1. The Hurl Hurl 2. The Zombie 3. The Vaportini 4. The Tequila Blue Blazer 5. Corpse Reviver #2 There is no reference to

Meyers

A new poll shows that only a slim majority of Americans think the country is prepared for an Ebola outbreak. But I think we deal with outbreaks pretty well. It only took us a couple of months to completely eradicate Gangnam Style.

Frustrating

H.I.F. How many layers of "wrongness" can you count in these few passages from this story out of Oklahoma [http://eagnews.org/students-photo-of-skimpy-michelle-o-school-lunch-sparks-outrage/] ? I spot six: Lunch meat, a couple of crackers, a slice of cheese and two pieces of cauliflower qualified as lunch in Chickasha

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Scar someone for life this Halloween. Just $2,240. Link [http://i.imgur.com/ym9Cdzm.gif].

On Soccer

A Random Passage Bill Kauffman, writing in his charming Dispatches from the Muckdog Gazette (2002), writes about the uncharming new sport: "[B]aseball has lost its hold on the younger generation, who are being led into the tedious hell that is soccer. Once the leathery symbol of British imperialism,

Rush Quote

Regular TDE readers know I'm not a big Rush Limbaugh fan. I don't dislike him, but I disagree with him frequently (especially in 2012, on the issue of Ron Paul). But he asks a legitimate question here, comparing Katrine to Ebola: "Ask yourself which is

Meyers

Brad Pitt said in an interview this week that he doesn't feel safe in his own home without a gun. Said Pitt, "I don't even know half these kids." On this day in 1912, President Teddy Roosevelt was shot, declined to go to the

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> The world's 50 best bars: http://t.co/pQwdbY4gQk pic.twitter.com/75qMqMVqxi [http://t.co/75qMqMVqxi] > — Forbes (@Forbes) October 11, 2014 [https://twitter.com/Forbes/status/520850577606324225]

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

Ferguson

Gwyneth Paltrow told the president he was so handsome that she couldn't speak properly. I wish Obama would get a little bit more handsome so she would shut up forever.

On the Gardening Front

From Reddit: A climbing plant falls away from its host.

Tuesday

Zombie Me Dien Ho asks, What's So Bad About Being A Zombie? [https://philosophynow.org/issues/96/Whats_So_Bad_About_Being_A_Zombie] This passage, especially the last line, cracked me up: > [T]he life of a zombie has characteristics many of us strive mightily to

This is Getting Serious

> Ebola is threatening much of the world's chocolate supply. http://t.co/4RsOZPKjPu pic.twitter.com/cSdW4wVpNt [http://t.co/cSdW4wVpNt] > — POLITICO (@politico) October 14, 2014 [https://twitter.com/politico/status/521830810174111745]

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Another interesting list at Listverse. 10 Great Songs that Topped US Charts but Weren't Performed in English [http://listverse.com/2014/10/12/10-great-songs-that-topped-us-charts-but-werent-performed-in-english/] . Number One: "Dominique" by The Singing Nun. I can't say I'd ever heard it, and I

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> Tomorrow on the Son Rise Morning Show: Father Groeschel remembered http://t.co/JErEIsAmE5 > — Our Sunday Visitor (@OSV) October 12, 2014 [https://twitter.com/OSV/status/521446524283551744]

Sunday

H.I.F. The TDE reader who sent me the article that I posted yesterday also mentioned this in his email to me: "The hurt of the children can never be acknowledged--they are just supposed to move on. Meanwhile, extended families go to absurd lengths to ensure that all

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> Benedictine monks of Norcia seek to serve God and man in all they do, even through the brewing of beer: http://t.co/KGlgA3VeM9 > — AmericanConservative (@amconmag) October 11, 2014 [https://twitter.com/amconmag/status/520967099565346818]

Saturday

H.I.F. Suffer the Children [http://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2014/10/suffer-the-children]. "The discussion preceding the synod of bishops on the family has ignored the most vulnerable party in divorces and remarriages: children. In so doing, it mirrors the discussion of sex and marriage in western culture

Meyers

Bookmakers have listed Pope Francis as the odds-on favorite to win the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize. So if you're placing a bet on the results of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize . . . you have a gambling problem.

Letterman

They're now putting in speed bumps [in NYC] too. For years in New York City it was just pedestrians.

Friday

BYCU A loyal TDE reader sent this story last week. I should've ran it right away, but the week got away from me: Belgian City Plans to Build an Underground Beer Pipeline [http://www.popularmechanics.com/how-to/blog/this-belgian-city-plans-to-build-an-underground-beer-pipeline-17262863?click=pm_latest] . The city is Bruges [http://www.

Willie

A guy purchased Willie Nelson's hair for $37,000. Willie removed his braids and the guy bought them for $37,000. This is the kind of decision you make after spending the day on Willie's tour bus. Letterman Willie's braids were apparently cut back

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

Twitter Blast from My Childhood Past

> Photoset: gameraboy: Domke's Prehistorical Zoo Gardens, Ossineke, Michigan by SwellMap on Flickr. http://t.co/BY4u00A7GF > — Tim Munn (H) (@amish_man) February 1, 2014 [https://twitter.com/amish_man/status/429717193639862272]

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> GK Chesterton: St Francis of Assisi "was what American millionaires and gangsters call a live wire.": http://t.co/eV4wT4d2p2 > — Ignatius Insight (@ignatiusinsight) October 5, 2014 [https://twitter.com/ignatiusinsight/status/518608749393481728]

Meyers

The New York Post says that Oscar Wilde is responsible for Kim Kardashian's rise to fame because he was the first person “famous for being famous.” When asked her thoughts about it, Kim said, “Is Oscar the one that lives in a trash can?”

Humorous, Interesting, or Frustrating

H.I.F. Humorous: After a two year loan to the United States, Michelangelo's David is being returned to Italy [http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2678684/posts] .

Tuesday

A Random Passage "This has always been a dancing country, and never more so than in the Depression, when people trucked their blues away in marathons, or in seedy dance halls." That's Wilfrid Sheed, in his book The House that George Built. I bought the book

Groeschel

If you didn't hear, Fr. Groeschel passed away Friday evening. My apologies for being 36 hours behind the curve on this one. RIP, Fr. Groeschel. I gotta believe you heard the words "good and faithful servant."

Ebola PSA

> Study: virus spread from the front door of an office to half the employees within 4 hours. http://t.co/VxMO0fdPSc pic.twitter.com/RuFMADnlL2 [http://t.co/RuFMADnlL2] > — Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) October 5, 2014 [https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/518695475231621120]

Humorous

H.I.F. Because nothing says "safety precautions" like rolled-up sleeves on a HazMat suit... [http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-10-03/why-americas-not-ready-ebola-outbreak-1-photo]

Saturday

H.I.F. Although I listen to EWTN radio frequently and (when time permits) bounce around The Register and various Catholic blogs, this story fell through my radar's cracks: [T]he conversion of Muslims in former Communist Albania and in the Middle East--many convert to Christ through visions

Ferguson

In Oakland, California a dog is officially running for mayor. He's a German shepherd mix named Einstein. He even has a poster. The dog promises to lick his opponent.

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> 5 of the BEST vodkas for a martini: http://t.co/kxmt7S8YjI @AnchorSpirits [https://twitter.com/AnchorSpirits] @Hangar1Vodka [https://twitter.com/Hangar1Vodka] @KarlssonsVodka [https://twitter.com/KarlssonsVodka] @ReykaVodka [https://twitter.com/ReykaVodka] pic.twitter.com/VpsWXS86ci [http://t.co/VpsWXS86ci] > — TOWN&COUNTRY (@TandCmag) October 1, 2014 [https:

Friday

BYCU I hung out at Central Michigan University quite a bit when I went to school at Alma College in the 1980s. These days, I only get back there when I go to Soaring Eagle, Michigan's first indian casino and one of the few in the lower peninsula

BYCU H.I.F.

H.I.F. Seen in a Reddit discussion: "I'm a part-time bartender in Scotland. Denying people alcohol here is as much of an insult to them as punching their child in the face."

Conan

The gay rights group GLAAD has released its annual report on TV. The History Channel got a very poor grade from GLAAD, which is why today the History Channel announced its new show, "Gay Hitler."

Interesting

H.I.F. Thank goodness. That stupid, self-righteous, gender-eliminating, politically-correct stunt might be dying out: "The dreaded Pinktober Pinkout Pinktacular is almost here, and NFL Shop already is emailing the ladies telling us to buy pink, pink, pink. But there's a good chance football fans will see

Meyers

The Bravo network is under fire after it let go 16 editors from the show "Shahs of Sunset" after they tried to unionize. Said the editors, who've had to watch every episode of "Shahs of Sunset," “No, no, we said we wanted to be

Misc.

My most-recent published piece, at Philosophy Now. Ataraxia in the Age of Too Much Information [https://philosophynow.org/issues/104/Ataraxia_in_the_Age_of_Too_Much_Information] . Unfortunately, you need a subscription to read it. To long-time TDE readers, it might look familiar.

Welcome to October

The Month of the Saints: Lisieux, Francis, Avila, Bruno, Ignatius of Antioch, Luke, Anthony Claret, Simon and Jude. And now JPII and J23. Reminder: Don't neglect your best friend tomorrow [http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/calendar/day.cfm?date=2013-10-02] .

Good Late Night

Yesterday, Kenyan runner Dennis Kimetto ran the world's fastest marathon by finishing the Berlin Marathon in 2 hours, 2 minutes, and 57 seconds. He also set another record by being the first guy from Kenya to be named Dennis. Fallon North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un has not

Tuesday

A Random Passage Here's Joseph Epstein, writing in his book Snobbery, about higher education in Mencken's time. I think it's safe to say that ivy things have only deteriorated since the 1920s: > H.L. Mencken, who also didn't bother to go

Only Down Under

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I'm slowly wrapping up the garden. This wonderful weather is giving me the opportunity to put things away gradually, just spending an hour a two a week readying beds for next year and cleaning out my 50+ pots. It's also giving me an opportunity

Pride and Prejudice circa 2014

H.I.F. One of the more interesting observations I've read this month: "Why is marriage such an unpalatable prospect to today's adults? Though “a host of complex factors” are involved, according to the Washington Post, Pew was able to pinpoint some of the biggest

Saturday

A Random Passage My skepticism has made me a nicer person: not inclined to judge anything, I'm not inclined to get bothered by anything. It's been a remarkable shift in mental landscape for me, and I hope to foster it, but I have my lapses. Too

H.I.F. BYCU

H.I.F. "Upon their arrival back to Earth, the 750 space tourists . . . will be treated to Grey Goose cocktails designed specifically for the event. One example: the Grey Goose Galactic Martini, which blends vodka with raspberry eau-de-vie and black pepper. Why raspberry? Because according to astronomers, that'

Friday

BYCU A TDE reader found himself in Frankenmuth, Michigan, last weekend for its annual Oktoberfest. He sent me this article about a new up=-scale joint: Prost Wine Bar and Charcuterie [http://www.mlive.com/business/mid-michigan/index.ssf/2014/06/prost_wine_bar_and_charcuterie.html] . The place sounds

Ferguson

Several lingerie companies have started setting up bra-fitting events in offices, called "bra parties." Meanwhile, in offices in China and India, people are working.

Philosophy Now

I have a piece coming out shortly in Philosophy Now, a pop philosophical magazine published in London. Starting on Labor Day, they gave me free access to online content. I've been greatly enjoying it, so much so that I'll be tempted to subscribe once my coupon

Kimmel

Kris and Bruce Jenner are getting divorced. The Jenner family is asking that no one respect their privacy at this difficult time.

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

Good Late Night

Some sad news from the world of reality TV. Mama June and Sugar Bear from “Here Comes Honey Boo Boo” are splitting up. Their lawyers are citing unintelligible differences. Fallon The White House has re-evaluated its security and today they announced they'll start locking the front door. They&

Another Good Reddit TIL

H.I.F. TIL that in 1996, a deranged man stormed into a New Zealand radio station, took the manager hostage and issued one demand ”“ that the station play "Rainbow Connection" by Kermit the Frog.

Interesting

H.I.F. Probably Tantric Buddhists. They take that "emptiness" thing to extremes: "Two Cambodian Buddhist monks have been arrested in the popular tourist city of Siem Reap for smoking crystal methamphetamine along with two women in their pagoda. The room of Pich David, 36, who has

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling My Michigan Wolverines might be reaching the nadir of its storied 135-year football history. I'm expecting the bottom to fall out this year. I'm predicting they'll go 5-7. After all, "in two games against Power 5 opponents this season (first Notre

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> Islamists slaughter Christians and the first thought of a Catholic bishop is to protect Muslims from Islamophobia? http://t.co/fxUG1u4T3r > — Crisis Magazine (@CrisisMag) September 17, 2014 [https://twitter.com/CrisisMag/status/512221947829444608]

Sunday

> "Patience is the companion of wisdom.” ~ #StAugustine [https://twitter.com/hashtag/StAugustine?src=hash] > — St. Augustine (@AugustineUP) June 25, 2014 [https://twitter.com/AugustineUP/status/481826717535727620]

Saturday

A Random Passage "The government I live under has been my enemy all my active life. When it has not been engaged in silencing me it has been engaged in robbing me. So far as I can recall I have never had any contact with it that was not

Meyers

Royal Caribbean's cruises will soon be adding robotic bartenders that can shake drinks, cut limes, and precisely measure alcohol. While Carnival Cruises announced they will soon be adding plumbing.

Friday

Possibly one of the most bizarre drinking snippets I've seen in awhile: "Pair that up with a gin martini flavored with borage flowers after Solemn Vespers on Sunday afternoon and you're set!" Link [http://wdtprs.com/blog/2014/08/aroma-therapy-catholic-style/]. Borage has a cucumber-y

Conan

Last week Nike suspended Ray Rice's contract and today they suspended Adrian Peterson's contract. So now Nike is down to Oscar Pistorius and Kim Jong Un.

Fallon

Hillary Clinton's supporters are calling on her to be more herself, after some of her recent appearances seemed to be too scripted. Hillary said, "I don't know where you guys get this stuff. Shrug and shake head."

Thursday

Ruminations on the Fall of Rome Belloc wrote, “The Catholic Church was the only subsidiary organism that had risen within the general body of the Roman Empire.” Belloc's idea that the Catholic Church was an organism that grew out of the organism of the Empire is important. Combine

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

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What, is it Tolkien's birthday? Another Tolkien blurb at a popular website popped up today: 10 Good Dads Who Changed The World [http://listverse.com/2014/09/16/10-good-dads-who-changed-the-world/]. Excerpt: "2. J.R.R. Tolkien: "Lots of dads tell their children bedtime stories, but Oxford professor

Humorous

H.I.F. Twenty jokes for nerds [http://www.patheos.com/blogs/billykangas/2014/03/20-jokes-for-nerds.html#ixzz3DCY5NYXA] . A few of my favorites: A Buddhist monk approaches a hotdog stand and says “make me one with everything”. A Roman walks into a bar and asks for a martinus. “You mean

Interesting

H.I.F. "TIL Christopher Lee received Tolkien's blessing to play the role of Gandalf, if a movie was ever released, but he played Saruman instead. He was also the only person involved with the Lord of the Rings films to have actually met Tolkien himself."

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Can I ask an un-Catholic question? Are people in America really starving? My priest assures me they are, so I obediently donate regularly to the parish food pantry. The liberals assure us they are, since it's very hard to live on the amount of money provided

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Sunday

> "True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less." - C.S. Lewis pic.twitter.com/v9Ic73JjtV [http://t.co/v9Ic73JjtV] > — Catholic Thinker (@ThinkerCatholic) September 8, 2014 [https://twitter.com/ThinkerCatholic/status/508768301921869824]

Nice Way to Spend Saturday Evening

> Relaxing with a good book and an excellent glass of wine from the Machiavelli fattoria... pic.twitter.com/BXV1z26DiM [http://t.co/BXV1z26DiM] > — Nigel Warburton (@philosophybites) September 11, 2014 [https://twitter.com/philosophybites/status/510204408362438656]

Meyers

People who purchased Olive Garden's seven-week unlimited pasta pass are being told that they must show their ID in the restaurant to prevent fraudulent use of the cards. Unfortunately, by Week 5 none of them will look anything like their IDs. It's been discovered that a

Virtue Associated with the Third Joyous Mystery, Kinda

> This professor turned a 36 square-foot dumpster into a livable home http://t.co/dI8uUF7fSA pic.twitter.com/Mn6NnuNvWd [http://t.co/Mn6NnuNvWd] > — The Atlantic (@TheAtlantic) September 11, 2014 [https://twitter.com/TheAtlantic/status/510207640979668994]

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> For Scotch makers, single malt's best in a single country: http://t.co/9AiOKpfHFT pic.twitter.com/FcO4OaZmAF [http://t.co/FcO4OaZmAF] > — Bloomberg News (@BloombergNews) September 11, 2014 [https://twitter.com/BloombergNews/status/510096803761774592]

Interesting

H.I.F. October is already a great feast month (Francis, Lisieux, others). It just got better: "The Feast Days of Saints John XXIII and John Paul II will be on October 11th and October 22nd respectively, the Vatican has announced." Link [http://www.zenit.org/en/articles/

Coolest Beer Bottle I've Seen in Awhile

> What better way to finish off a long day spent writing about the Julio-Claudians? pic.twitter.com/6kl9UlEzVk [http://t.co/6kl9UlEzVk] > — Tom Holland (@holland_tom) August 24, 2014 [https://twitter.com/holland_tom/status/503593507710582784]

BYCU

BYCU This article came out at Listverse on Wednesday: 10 Ways Alcohol Created Modern Society [http://listverse.com/2014/09/10/10-ways-alcohol-created-modern-society/]. Don't worry: it doesn't insinuate that alcohol is to blame for this monstrosity known as "modernity." It's just a list

BYCU Eve

> Now on tap at upscale bars: Craft cocktails. http://t.co/Aml9m9oaLc pic.twitter.com/mO1hMj9CG3 [http://t.co/mO1hMj9CG3] > — Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) September 11, 2014 [https://twitter.com/WSJ/status/510204659894849538]

On Wittgenstein

Ludwig Wittgenstein has interested me for quite awhile. He's interested me enough to download his Tractatus to my Kindle for 99 cents, which, of course, makes me an intellectual heavyweight, though I've read scarcely any of it and haven't understood what I have read.

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

Interesting

H.I.F. A pretty wild piece of tornado footage [http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=984_1410195197]. Takes about 30 seconds. I've never seen anything like it.

Tuesday

A friend made the mistake of asking me what I'm currently reading. I thought TDE readers might find my list halfway interesting. "What am I reading? Oh, it's hard to say. I finish one book for every four I start, but here goes. My apologies

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Ow. It's only September 8th and I'm already burned out on football. It didn't help matters that I had to drive twice to the same varsity football game this weekend due to weather. Also not helping: my son's varsity team

Sunday

H.I.F. Today's must-read piece: A Tale of Two Churches [http://www.catholicnewworld.com/cnwonline/2014/0907/cardinal.aspx], by Cardinal George. Excerpt: "The 'ruling class,' those who shape public opinion in politics, in education, in communications, in entertainment, is using the civil law

(Untitled)

This is a pic from Florida last night (from Reddit). It could've been Lake Michigan. I was at my son's football game, about 20 miles from the Lake Michigan shore. I'm not sure I've ever seen a thunderstorm so harsh, and I

Saturday

From the Bottom Line Personal [http://www.bottomlinepublications.com/]: "Cocktails containing diet soda can make you 18% more drunk than ones using regular soda." There are no calories in diet soda, so there's nothing for the stomach to process, with the result that the alcohol hits

Letterman

What the hackers do is they collect the naked photos and then they trade them like baseball cards and there's a lot of money. For example, you can get $10 million for a naked Honus Wagner.

Frustrating

H.I.F. Actually, disgusting: Report: NFL officials asked teams to consider signing Michael Sam to practice squad [http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/dallas-cowboys/headlines/20140904-report-nfl-officials-asked-teams-to-consider-signing-michael-sam-to-practice-squad.ece] . Let me be blunt: The dishonesty of the pro-gay movement is beyond contempt. It'll stop at nothing to promote its agenda.

BYCU Joke

Doctor: "I'm not 100% certain of the cause. It could be related to alcohol." Patient: "It's cool. I'll come back later when you're sober."

Frustrating

H.I.F. The must-read piece of the week [http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-religion/3200608/posts]. Priest slams LGBT St. Patrick's Day Parade decision; his blog then comes down. (And what's with Bishop Dolan? Is he a chameleon? Conservative under BXVI, and now ramping hard left?

Friday

BYCU Interesting piece about Michigan's booming craft beer industry and the prime industry off-shoot [http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20140826/BIZ/308260027/Michigan-s-craft-beer-boom-has-suppliers-hopping] : hop-growing. Excerpt: The biggest area of expansion is in hop farming. Since 2007, the state has gone from zero acres of commercial hop farms to

Fallon

Los Angeles is considering a new plan to boost the city's minimum wage to $13.25 an hour. It's getting huge support across the entire country – of Mexico.

Interesting

H.I.F. "In poverty-stricken Zimbabwe, the import of used underwear was so common that the country had to officially ban it in December 2011." "[O]n December 21, 2013, 58-year-old Denver St. Clair was killed when a drunken argument with his stepson ended in a wedgie

Miscellaneous Quotes

"A man wrote to say that he accepted nothing but Solipsism, and added that he had often wondered it was not a more common philosophy. Now Solipsism simply means that a man believes in his own existence, but not in anybody or anything else. And it never struck this

Good Late Night

Reports say that several of the world's leading kale farms are running out of seeds after the recent increase in demand for the vegetable. I guess they can't grow it as fast as we can throw it in the garbage. Meyers Next week they're

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

Tuesday

Autobiographical Corner and Amish Stuff Whew. I survived another summer. I'm pretty sure I enter every summer with this mindset: Things are going pretty well, I feel relaxed, I'm looking forward to these next couple of months. And then: Wham! Summer turns into the barrage from

Happy Labor Day

A Random Passage Just this for today: "Maryland was Catholic because the King had the happy thought of that way getting rid of some of his Catholic subjects." Garet Garrett, The American Story .

Interesting

H.I.F. Only about 1,000 or more years behind the Catholic Church? Cleveland's government has passed a resolution urging its residents to abstain from eating meat once a week. Link [http://www.cleveland.com/cityhall/index.ssf/2014/08/cleveland_city_hall_urges_resi.html#incart_

Holiday Weekend BYCU

> ICYMI: Which country drinks the most alcohol? China ranks far below the U.S. http://t.co/btZNcQS2ns pic.twitter.com/1JW9q8SbyV [http://t.co/1JW9q8SbyV] > — Henry Williams (@digitalhen) August 25, 2014 [https://twitter.com/digitalhen/statuses/503853835421380608]

BYCU Tweets

> Vodka chaser? You mean another shot of vodka? > — Overly Manly Man (@OverlyManlyMann) August 10, 2014 [https://twitter.com/OverlyManlyMann/statuses/498310360647335936] > Light beer? You mean baby formula? > — Overly Manly Man (@OverlyManlyMann) August 16, 2014 [https://twitter.com/OverlyManlyMann/statuses/500673486697029632] > At 18, you can legally

BYCU

If you're feeling wealthy and thirsty this Labor Day weekend, check out a few of these: Top 10 Most Expensive Libations [http://listverse.com/2007/11/03/top-10-most-expensive-libations/]. Excerpt (from the Number 10 slot): "[A]t $100 a bottle, Sam Adams's “Utopias” is too rich

Thursday

"The minds of men always dwell more on bad luck. They accept ordinary prosperity as a matter of course. Misfortunes arrest their attention and remain in their memory." William Graham Sumner, Folkways A Study of the Sociological Importance of Usages, Manners, Customs, Mores, and Morals (1906). That 100-year-old

Humorous Wednesday Tweet

> Spanish retailer apologizes for shirt that looks like Holocaust prisoner outfit http://t.co/gsKYqPVoyn @g_forcewinds [https://twitter.com/g_forcewinds] pic.twitter.com/TBYkG6sYIZ [http://t.co/TBYkG6sYIZ] > — J. Freedom du Lac (@jfdulac) August 27, 2014 [https://twitter.com/jfdulac/statuses/504600743715016704]

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

Why There Are Few White Guys in the NBA

Tuesday

Another great Santayana quote from Epstein: “humanitarians have an intense hatred of mankind as it is.” Epstein then continues Santayana's thought: “which is of course why they are always so hard at work trying to change it.” It's a poignant point that every progressive and reformer

Bring Back!

> Request to EWTN: Bring back the Benedict Groeschel audio library! pic.twitter.com/6OyiX4YqnC [http://t.co/6OyiX4YqnC] > — The Daily Eudemon (@TheDailyEudemon) August 24, 2014 [https://twitter.com/TheDailyEudemon/statuses/503672770073731073]

(Untitled)

But then, what else would I talk about? > "Do as much as possible, and talk of yourself as little as possible." - Sallust > — Catholic Thinker (@ThinkerCatholic) August 20, 2014 [https://twitter.com/ThinkerCatholic/statuses/502222844580089856]

Monday Miscellany

I took the family to Cedar Point on Friday. We had a great time. It got off to a rough start: Key roller coasters were out of service for the first part of the day. It was highly frustrating. But I think the humidity and threat of thunderstorms kept the

Interesting

> If you ask someone where he comes from & he answers "Europe",odds are he is Romanian or Bulgarian.A German wd answer "Germany".Same Fr/I/Sp > — Nassim N. Taleb Ù† (@nntaleb) August 24, 2014 [https://twitter.com/nntaleb/statuses/503641069314392065]

Another Pic of the Horror

> Winemakers are surveying the damage following the #Napaquake [https://twitter.com/hashtag/Napaquake?src=hash]. http://t.co/zJRWlPTM5P pic.twitter.com/4ZAagS3dIc [http://t.co/4ZAagS3dIc] > — SFGate.com (@SFGate) August 24, 2014 [https://twitter.com/SFGate/statuses/503566620472905729]

Very Sad

> Silver Oak Winery in Napa, Ca. #earthquakeinwinecountry [https://twitter.com/hashtag/earthquakeinwinecountry?src=hash] pic.twitter.com/VHjCT0pyNm [http://t.co/VHjCT0pyNm] > — Channing Thomson (@CHANNINGPOSTERS) August 24, 2014 [https://twitter.com/CHANNINGPOSTERS/statuses/503563380309766144]

Who Doesn't Love This Pic?

> An old post on Chesterton & Belloc to hearten during dark times. The value of "Old Friends". http://t.co/hPaCFE36MD pic.twitter.com/NVXfN0AmQe [http://t.co/NVXfN0AmQe] > — Catholic Thinker (@ThinkerCatholic) August 21, 2014 [https://twitter.com/ThinkerCatholic/statuses/502282924340023297]

Sunday

Chestertonian Kevin O'Brien, writing at the Cleveland Plain Dealer, attacks higher education [http://www.cleveland.com/obrien/index.ssf/2014/08/questions_asked_and_unasked_ab.html#incart_opinion] . Excerpt: > Too many students are majoring in English, anthropology, sociology and, yes, political science. The job markets specific

Humorous

H.I.F. One of the best list articles I've ever read: 10 Devastating Author-To-Author Insults [http://listverse.com/2014/08/21/10-devastating-author-to-author-insults/]. Samples: Twain on Austen: “Every time I read Pride and Prejudice, I want to dig her up and beat her over the skull with her

Critique the Picture

This is a picture of my youngest daughters' arts and craft corner. Can anyone spot the anomaly?

BYCU Tweet

> How much a beer costs around the world: http://t.co/uiP8lr0GTv pic.twitter.com/q3HgznaXJH [http://t.co/q3HgznaXJH] > — Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) August 16, 2014 [https://twitter.com/WSJ/statuses/500670984622731264]

Friday

BYCU I wanted to run this piece last week, but I didn't get a chance: "Best-selling larger beers taste the same, new research finds [http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2014/08/13/best-selling-beers-taste-same-new-research-finds/] ." Excerpt: > Johan Almenberg and Anna Dreber, researchers from the Stockholm School of

BYCU-Eve Tweet (from an Unlikely Source)

> Seeking Proof For Why We Feel Terrible After Too Many Drinks http://t.co/2jhIXMK61h > — Patrick Madrid (@patrickmadrid) August 19, 2014 [https://twitter.com/patrickmadrid/statuses/501809277255032832]

Thursday

Some Epstein, with a little commentary of my own: "The most impressive students I had over my 30 years of university teaching were those I encountered when I first began, in the early 1970s, who almost all turned out to have been put through Catholic schools, during a time

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

Tuesday Tweet

Cracked me up for some reason: > I am, the reason Waldo is hiding. > — Overly Manly Man (@OverlyManlyMann) August 14, 2014 [https://twitter.com/OverlyManlyMann/statuses/500012780750393345]

The Self-Sufficient Servile State

I read Thomas Woods' short Beyond Distributism earlier this year. It's a pretty good book, and well worth reading if one is unclear on the differences between libertarian economics and distributism. He flays Belloc pretty harshly. Though I'm a Belloc fan, I never fully understood

Monday

I'm the unforgiving sort, I guess, at least when it comes to events. If I go to something three times, and all three times are as enjoyable as a genital-kicking contest, I don't go a fourth time. This rule applies to retreats, especially Catholic ones. Over

Another Good One

> “For children are innocent and love justice, while most of us are wicked and naturally prefer mercy.” - G.K. Chesterton #fallibility [https://twitter.com/hashtag/fallibility?src=hash] > — Catholic Thinker (@ThinkerCatholic) August 12, 2014 [https://twitter.com/ThinkerCatholic/statuses/499012044990218240]

Sunday Tweet

> "It will never be known what acts of cowardice have been committed for fear of not looking sufficiently progressive." - Charles Peguy > — Catholic Thinker (@ThinkerCatholic) August 16, 2014 [https://twitter.com/ThinkerCatholic/statuses/500446438481231872]

Saturday

A Random Passage Oh, to be a king in medieval Ireland! > Críth Gablach, the major eighth-century tract on [Irish] social status, states: 'There is, too, a weekly order in the duty of a king: Sunday for drinking ale . . . ; Monday for judgement, for the adjustment of túatha; Tuesday

BYCU Tweet

> Meet the Beer Bottle Dictator - The Daily Beast http://t.co/fwKYOWmaVv > — Simon Frost (@spli) August 14, 2014 [https://twitter.com/spli/statuses/500036242667737089]

My New Favorite Vodka

Tastes pure and clean. And priced right. Sorry for the gay head-tilt on my part:

Friday

Another reason to embrace booze, at least moderately: “Gloominess does great harm to us and to those around us. It is a harmful plant that we must uproot as soon as it appears.” Francis Fernandez Alcohol is a crutch for those times when you must be with others but feel

Today's Tweets

> He may not have an M.B.A., but Pope Francis can teach a thing or two about running a business. http://t.co/1xhDkAiG73 pic.twitter.com/stkZAXrilF [http://t.co/stkZAXrilF] > — Wall Street Journal (@WSJ) August 14, 2014 [https://twitter.com/WSJ/statuses/500014207308693506] > OPINION:

Very, Very, Very Uncool

Especially for us middle-aged NFPers:

Thursday

From the Notebooks "The simple truth is that our businessmen do not want a government that will let business alone. They want a government they can use." Albert Jay Nock I've been devouring libertarian books for about five years now (and for thirty years before that,

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

Today's Tweets

> What beats Amazon, Oyster and Scribd for all-you-can-read ebooks? Your local public library: http://t.co/edS8vszvI6 pic.twitter.com/pgU0flMG6f [http://t.co/pgU0flMG6f] > — Geoffrey Fowler (@geoffreyfowler) August 12, 2014 [https://twitter.com/geoffreyfowler/statuses/499251435343974400] > The average family with kids in grades K-12 will spend

Interesting

H.I.F. What religions co-exist peacefully in the modern world? Pretty much all of them . . . except one. Link [http://i.imgur.com/5tK3duy.png].

Ludwig and The Magic Bullet

"If we take eternity to mean not infinite temporal duration but timelessness, then eternal life belongs to those who live in the present." That's Ludwig Wittgenstein, talking like he could be ghostwriting for Jean-Pierre de Caussade. All that "present moment" business is terribly potent

From Reddit's Today I Learned

TIL "health insurance" was actually cooked up as a ploy by hospitals to fill empty beds. The real impetus to making insurance commonplace is when they made premiums tax-free if paid by employers. Before insurance the average person spent $5 per year on medical care. Link [http://www.

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling The Tiny House Movement [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_house_movement]. I'd heard of tiny houses, but I didn't realize they'd become a movement. Tom Woods interviewed one of the pioneers earlier this month [http://tomwoods.com/blog/whats-the-tiny-house-movement-all-about/]. A small

Hell

Listverse posted this interesting article a few hours ago: 10 Soul-Destroying Visions Experienced By Real People [http://listverse.com/2014/08/10/10-soul-destroying-visions-experienced-by-real-people/] . I'm linking to it because I found it interesting, but I'm not vouching for its accuracy. I enjoy Listverse, but I've

Sunday

A Random Passage “Modesty is praised in humans because it is not a matter of nature, but of will.” Lactantius

Frustrating

H.I.F. Readers have never seen many TDE posts about foreign policy, probably because my stance on foreign policy is pretty isolationist and doesn't rise much above the level of, "Let's leave people alone and mind our own business." There isn't

Saturday

Pretty wild:

Friday

BYCU Vodka is now my drink of choice. I try to drink red wine, but when the day comes to an end and I'm ready to unwind, health concerns take a back seat. Of course, not everyone likes vodka, even people who drink hard liquor. I found this

Conan

Yesterday photos were leaked of the Dallas Cowboys owner, 71-year-old Jerry Jones, with two much younger women. The photos were leaked by Jerry Jones.

Woods and Hudge and Belloc

> An important contribution of Pope John Paul II's 1991 encyclical Centesimus Annus was that it recognized what should have been clear for a long time–namely, that the modern state is something altogether new and not to be treated analytically as merely an extension of the political

Interesting

H.I.F. Two interesting things forwarded to me by my son, Alex (the one returning from Salamanca today): 1. In Russia there is no legal definition for ethnicity, so citizens can declare whatever they want, including Jedi and Hobbit. 2. A (very dedicated) fan's explanation on why

Tuesday

My son has spent the last six weeks in Salamanca, Spain. We were talking with him on Facetime last Friday, and he was telling us about the Kinder Egg: a chocolate candy egg with a toy hid inside. He loves them and planned on bringing some back to his siblings,

Interesting

H.I.F. Interesting and scary: "Roughly 77 million Americans, or 35 percent of adults with a credit file, have a report of debt in collections. These adults owe an average of $5,178 (median $1,349). Debt in collections involves a nonmortgage bill–such as a credit card

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I attended my 30th class reunion last Saturday night. It wasn't well attended, but we had a solid showing and I got to catch up with a handful of friends that I hadn't seen in years. The drinking club (the venue for the event)

Sunday

A Random Passage I've been tipping my reading toe into the works of the Anti-Federalists, those nervous souls who saw much mischief behind the proposed U.S. Constitution. I've been favorably impressed by some of it, like this passage from the Maryland Farmer: > I have

Ferguson

We're getting more news about the Orlando Bloom-Justin Bieber fight. Apparently the fight was witnessed by Paris Hilton, P. Diddy, and Lindsay Lohan. I'm confused. Did this fight take place in Spain or in 2003? A woman in Oklahoma called police to complain about the quality

Saturday

A Random Passage "Old people, alone, as a class, have the time to be young." Henry Adams, Mont Saint Michel and Chartres. (Not an exact quote, but very close)

Interesting

H.I.F. "What he found is a “pyx” – a small, gold, frame-like object used to carry the Catholic church's Holy Eucharist. The pyx was part of 1715 wreckage that sank there 299 years ago today." Link [http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/07/31/underwater-video-captures-treasure-hunters-find-of-a-lifetime-his-gurgled-freak-out-is-priceless/

Friday

BYCU Back in my beer-drinking days, I loved keg beer. Whenever I helped set up for a party, I was in charge of putting the tap on and getting the foam out . . . a job I attacked with white-mustached zest. When I went to the bar, I always asked, "What

Interesting

H.I.F. Is this Athens, Georgia or Athens, Greece? Cops Attack Gay Couple In Athens For Holding Hands [http://www.newnownext.com/cops-attack-gay-couple-in-athens-for-holding-hands-today-in-gay/07/2014/] . Home of the Sacred Band of Thebes, Patroclus and Achilles, and a host of other homosexuals and pederasts? Of course, a lot changes in

An Unusual History

I've been slowly making my way through Peter Marshall [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Marshall_(author)]'s Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism . At the rate I'm going, and given the length of the book (841 pages), I figure I'll finish

Barzun

I bought this book when it came out: From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life 1500 to the Present by Jacques Barzun. I've never read it, primarily because it hasn't fit in with any of the projects I've worked on over

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

Meyers

A restaurant in New York has created the Rice Burger, which replaces normal burger buns with rice patties. The restaurant also replaces customers with empty chairs.

Letterman

According to the Centers for Disease Control, the largest single transmission of deadly germs is a handshake. You're lucky, because the most popular form of greeting here in New York is the middle finger.

Montaigne and Our Silliness

William James' stream of consciousness, that fundamental fact of our existence that cannot be stopped (we "think" like we breathe, not like we walk or fish or watch TV . . . thinking cannot be stopped) "explains without moralizing what that wonderful self-observer Montaigne found as the chief mark

Cracked Me Up

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling The skies around Alpena were incessantly filled with the buzz of fighter jets, presumably coming from the Alpena Combat Readiness Training Center. I've been vacationing in the same spot for 48 years and I never recall hearing so much activity, even in the summers leading up

Sunday

I returned from my final vacation of the year. This was our annual excursion [https://thedailyeudemon.com/5631/] to Alpena, Michigan. Northern Michigan is one of the prettiest places on the planet during the summer and, though Alpena doesn't have all the natural beauty of the Lake Michigan

Interesting

H.I.F. Here's President Obama on taxation: > President Barack Obama has blasted American multinationals that move to Ireland to cut their tax bill. > In his toughest comments yet on the subject, he accused big US corporations of trying to play “the system” by “magically becoming

Friday

BYCU (Kinda) Even though I converted in 1991, which, I think, was the height of Mother Angelica's popularity, I never listened to her. Partly, it's because I rarely watched any TV back then, but partly out of arrogance. Mother Angelica, I vaguely felt, was for the

Wednesday

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 file full

Fallon

Edward Snowden is back with yet another spying scandal. In a new interview, Snowden revealed that NSA employees regularly pass around nude pictures of people they spy on. It got even weirder when German Chancellor Angela Merkel said, "So, vat do you think?"

Tuesday

Kontent from the Kindle I was pleased to see an Oscar Wilde crack the Top 25 of most-highlighted passages on Kindle [https://kindle.amazon.com/most_popular]. Here's the passage: "I choose my friends for their good looks, my acquaintances for their good characters, and my enemies

Monday

From the Notebooks “Our lives as philosophers cannot be radically divorced from what we do when we are not doing philosophy.” Gerard Casey. Indeed, I have heard the same thing said about theologians: theologians must be saints. Nassim Taleb makes a similar point in Antifragile when he writes, “Never listen

Sunday

A Random Passage "In the hall outside the Rothschild offices in nineteenth-century Paris, it was claimed that a man took off his hat when the Baron de Rothschild's chamber pot went past. Prestige can have that kind of effect on people." Joseph Epstein, Snobbery.

Saturday

Body and Soul "Bodies are mutually attracted by nearness, knowledge, and pleasure but souls by distance, mystery, and suffering." Such thinking could trend into Cartesian dualism, which undermines the sacramental nature of existence, but it's always important to reassert that the soul and body are not

Meyers

Even though both Israel and Hamas fired on one another during the five-hour humanitarian period yesterday, the U.N. secretary general said both sides "mostly respected" the cease-fire. That's like leaving the house without pants and saying you're "mostly dressed."

Friday

Here's an article about the surging hard cider market [http://www.cleveland.com/drinks/index.ssf/2014/07/cider_finding_its_refreshing_n.html#incart_river_default] . Excerpt: > "Cider is made just like wine, but you drink it by the pint," said Richard Read of

Received in an Email

After Nigeria was eliminated from the world cup, the Nigerian captain personally offered to refund all the expenses of fans that traveled to Brazil. He said he just needs their bank details and pin numbers to complete the transaction.

Thursday

Bullets I'm using today's main post to clear out some links I've been meaning to blog about. Most come from Listverse: Pope Joan is Number 3: "10 People Who Achieved Great Things (Despite Never Existing) [http://listverse.com/2014/06/18/10-people-who-achieved-great-things-despite-never-existing/] ."

Meyers

Brazil's coach resigned following the country's historic 7-1 loss in the World Cup last week. He says he wants to spend more time focusing on not being murdered.

Wednesday

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 file full

Interesting

H.I.F. Not just interesting, but stunning. I can't believe these stats [http://news.msn.com/us/government-report-finds-23-percent-of-americans-gay-or-bisexual] saw the light of the mainstream media's day: > This year's National Health Interview Survey was the first to ask about sexual orientation in addition

Tuesday

Many years ago, I read that T.S. Eliot wouldn't read Flannery O'Connor's fiction because he found the violence too unsettling. The idea of avoiding a mode of entertaining for such a reason had never occurred to me (in my arrogance, I probably figured

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling The colorful folks at 4Chan are at it again: Operation Progressive Racial Identity [http://i.imgur.com/Hu5NB6U.png]. "Praise Michael Jackson for being an early trans-racial." This stuff is pure gold, though the poor grammar and spelling is a downer (at least for grammar nerds

Sunday

A Random Passage Amen to this: "A man cannot possess anything that is better than a good wife, or anything that is worse than a bad one." Simonides. I find myself spending more and more time, praying that my children find good mates . . . or the good sense to

Interesting

H.I.F. I'd never heard of this organization, but it looks like they're spreading thrills and misery at the same time: "'Hidden Cash' came to my quiet neighborhood in Whittier, CA. They hid money in a small park where wildlife thrives. An

Frustrating

H.I.F. It's scary to know people, even Senators who obviously aren't expected to know better, think like this. Here's Chuck Schumer about the Hobby Lobby decision [http://cnsnews.com/news/article/eric-scheiner/schumer-religious-americans-pick-one-your-faith-or-your-business] : > “When we wrote RFRA back in 1993 we

Letterman

According to a new study, the largest producer of oil is now the United States. So you know what that means – any day now we'll be invading ourselves.

Fallon

People who wanted to go on the new Harry Potter ride at Universal had to wait in line for more than seven hours this week. That's right, seven hours of waiting just for a couple minutes of action. Or as that's also called, “watching soccer.”

Drudge

Cracked me up this morning with this headline:

Friday

BYCU Alright, TDE readers know I have a big problem with "higher" education. It's grossly, grossly over-priced; it fraudulently coaxes young men and women to go into alarming amounts of debt; it's in league with Hudge and Gudge and their evil designs to bleed

Wednesday

I've pretty much accepted Belloc's premise that the Roman Empire was an act of Providence: By providing a coherent, unified, stable, and cultured environment, news of the Lord's birth, death, and resurrection could spread and His Church could get established. Of course, if there

Meyers

A Ugandan police officer claims he was forced to shoot an aggressive tortoise that attacked him while he was drinking tea at home. In his defense, he had to act quickly, or move over a few feet and weigh his options for another hour.

Wodehouse Wednesday

Some killer passages from the Kindle edition of The Collected Works of P.G. Wodehouse: "It is a good rule in life never to apologize. The right sort of people do not want apologies, and the wrong sort take a mean advantage of them." "He had the

Interesting

H.I.F. Potential gig for college students: "A Queens man has discovered enough hidden treasure – bits of diamonds, rubies, platinum and gold – on the gritty sidewalks of Midtown's Diamond District to make a living. . . . “The freelance diamond setter explained that he was sifting through 'very

Fallon

House Speaker John Boehner is threatening to sue President Obama for using executive actions to create laws, instead of going through Congress first. Then Obama shrugged and made a new law that you can't sue the president.

Tuesday

> "It's because artists do not practise, patrons do not patronize, crowds do not assemble to worship reverently the great work of Doing Nothing, that the world has lost its philosophy and even failed to invent a new religion." G.K. Chesterton Here's a

TIL

Great TIL over at Reddit right now: "TIL that a Roman merchant who sold fake jewels was sentenced to face a lion in the arena. When the gate finally opened, a chicken walked out. Emperor Gallienus proclaimed 'He practiced deceit and then had it practiced on him.'

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I hope everyone had a great Fourth. Mine was great: no commitments at all. I had to work a chunk of it, but that's alright. It involved drafting contracts and trusts, which is something, as far as work goes, I greatly enjoy. It combines my formal

Sunday

A Random Passage "We are never so much disposed to quarrel with others as when we are dissatisfied with ourselves.” William Hazlitt. I gotta read more by and about this guy.

Saturday

I went to this this fine establishment Thursday night. It's Tibbits Opera House [http://tibbits.org/] in Coldwater, Michigan. The little theater is possibly the quaintest thing I've ever seen. The performance I saw, "The Look of Love" (a celebration of the music of

Friday

This article [http://www.toledoblade.com/Retail/2014/06/08/Owens-Illinois-says-its-black-glass-bottles-are-becoming-its-new-green.html] articulates something I've been noticing, albeit at a less-than-conscious level: Alcohol manufacturers are increasingly using black bottles. Why? Two reasons: 1. Aesthetics. The black bottle projects a premium image. 2. Black bottles provide just as much

Wednesday

"[A]ccording to YouGov.com poll published hours before the U.S. plays Belgium on Tuesday, liberals and moderates are tuning in far more than conservatives. "YouGov reports that 35 percent of liberals, 34 percent of moderates and just 27 percent of self-described conservatives are watching the World

An Email to a Friend . . .

. . . who asked for a book recommendation in the field of political philosophy: > I couldn't remember the book that really “hit me” and made me think, “Shi'ite, those libertarians are probably right after all.” All my life, I had disliked libertarians, primarily because Ayn Rand was

The Myth of Nations

This is a historical truth that is slowly taking form in my mind: today's nations are a myth. The State, in the interest of developing central power, created the idea of the unified-in-purpose, one-language, nation that needed to be protected and advanced by a unified central government. In

Reddit

From Reddit's Today I Learned page: "TIL that Johnny Cash, while working as an Air Force radio operator in Germany intercepting Soviet broadcasts, was the first American to report the death of Joseph Stalin."

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I've returned from vacation. All-in-all, it wasn't a good one. Great people, but no activities that really interested me and shabby accommodations. And worst of all: I got there and realized I'd brought myself with me, which is a sure recipe for

Sunday

Theodore Dalrymple was apparently two hours from my house last month but I didn't know it. I doubt I would've made it to the lecture anyway, but I would've liked to have had the opportunity. No matter: His speech is printed here [http://imprimis.

Saturday

Nassim Tale: “Never listen to a leftist who does not give away his fortune." Enter leftist Gene Nichol [http://www.thecollegefix.com/post/18167/]: > A controversial, outspoken law professor who frequently bashes Republicans and specializes in poverty issues as a self-proclaimed champion of the poor earns $205,400

(Untitled)

I was never a Michael Jackson fan, but I mastered the moonwalk under the tutelage of another stock boy while working at K-Mart as a teenager. I didn't realize the move had been invented thirty years earlier. Here's Bill Bailey:

Friday

BYCU For those TDE readers who are in the dating world, this is for you: 40 Catholic Pick Up Lines [http://www.lauramcalister.com/2014/02/10/catholic-pick-lines/]. Some of them are pretty lame, but my nineteen-year-old daughter had identified these as her favorites: I'm no Joseph”¦ perhaps

Kimmel

A piece of rock 'n' roll history was sold yesterday. Some of Bob Dylan's handwritten lyrics from 1965 went up for auction and got $2 million. Paying $2 million for Bob Dylan lyrics is a good way to know that Bob Dylan would have hated you

Thursday

Kontent from the Kindle "Georges Simenon," Nassim Taleb observes in Antifragile, "only wrote sixty days a year, with three hundred days spent 'doing nothing.' He published more than two hundred novels." In the same chapter, Taleb wrote: > [T]he great French poets Paul

Michigan Cloud

A real cloud formation, celebrating my home state: Link [http://www.mlive.com/news/grand-rapids/index.ssf/2014/06/woman_takes_photo_of_cloud_sha.html] .

Wednesday

I thought I long ago ran this great quote from Bill Kauffman's Ain't My America, but apparently not. He is quoting John Randolph: > “No government, extending from the Atlantic to the Pacific, can be fit to govern me or those whom I represent.” He was

More Kindle Popular Highlights

Kontent from the Kindle "We degrade God when we attribute our own ideas to Him, out of annoyance that we cannot fathom His ways." Dostoyevsky, The Idiot. 139 highlighters (as of 6/15/2014) "Of all forms of insolence there is none more flagrant than that of

How to Train Your Dragon 2

Just saw it. The family was going, so I felt compelled to attend. Besides, I liked the first movie so figured this one would be at least halfway decent. My review: Terrible. Flat, canned dialogue. Worn-out humor shticks. Predictable plot. Slow and stretched out scenes. I might never see an

Monday

Random Quotes Max Beerbohm's older brother, Herbert, was a funny guy. Once, when a man walked past him groaning under a grandfather clock he was carting on his back, Herbert said, "My good fellow, why not carry a watch?" (Joseph Epstein, Partial Payments ). ******* "[A] friend

Sunday

A Random Passage Cardinal Henry Newman, writing about his religious conversion, autobiographically describes the state of mind that led me to agnosticism in virtually all things secular (especially politics and anything I read in the press) except those I see with my own eyes and touch with my own hands:

Saturday

I've read a fair amount by and about Ronald Knox (including the many passages about him in Joseph Pearce's splendid Literary Converts), but I never knew he was a prankster. From Listverse's recent "10 Outrageous Broadcasts That Caused Mayhem [http://listverse.com/2014/

Friday

BYCU And maybe it works in reverse: plug in those brewing benefits now and avoid those medical problems later: "A team of researchers is working out a new way to turn the brewery waste into orthopedic devices, leveraging substances naturally found in spent grain for bone grafts and implants

Fallon

A couple in New York found a python inside a couch while they were cleaning out their new apartment. But on the bright side, at least now they can stop looking for their cat.

Thursday

Kontent from the Kindle Amazon Page During random moments when I don't really feel like doing anything, I've started grabbing my Chromebook and going through Amazon Kindle highlights. The Kindle highlights page shows you what other readers have highlighted on their Kindle editions of various books.

Politically-Incorrect Peanuts

Wednesday

While looking up Koestler's chapters on Pythagoras, I ran across this great passage: > The sixth pre-Christian--the miraculous century of Buddha, Confucius, and Lao-tze, of the Ionian philosophers and Pythagoras--was a turning point for the human species. A March breeze seemed to blow across this planet from China

Meyers

A new study shows that men who carry their cellphone in their pocket have a sperm count nearly 10 percent lower than those who don't. While men who keep their cellphone on a belt clip don't need to worry about it.

Koestler

Many years ago, when I wore a younger man's underwear, I bought Arthur Koestler's green three-volume series. I call it the "green" series because, even with the physical books and the Koestler page on Amazon in front of me, I can't find

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Perhaps the most interesting "Today I Learned" at Reddit that I've ever seen: "TIL, in 1981, a man who had been bullying residents of a small Missouri town was murdered in broad daylight when 46 townspeople rose up against him, in an act

Sunday

A Random Passage Our society needs more outdoor power tools: "The common sense of mankind has associated the search after truth with seclusion and quiet. . . . Pythagoras, the light of Magna Græcia, lived for a time in a cave. Thales, the light of Ionia, lived unmarried and in private,

Interesting

H.I.F. 10 Lucrative Ideas Sold For Almost Nothing [http://listverse.com/2014/06/13/10-lucrative-ideas-sold-for-almost-nothing/]. Excerpt: "[John] Barry was paid a one-time fee of £250 (approximately $700 USD) for his work [on the James Bond 007 theme song] while Monty Norman, who received the writing credit,

Friday

Some jokes tenuously-related to drinking: Two lawyers walk into a bar in the country side, they have decided to stop there for lunch, so without ordering anything they sit down and take out Tupperware boxes from their bags and begin to eat some sandwiches from them. The bartender sees this

Thursday with Taleb

Some more great passages from the work of Nassim Taleb, along with some TDE commentary: "To understand the liberating effect of asceticism, consider that losing all your fortune is much less painful than losing only half of it." "Work destroys your soul by stealthily invading your brain

Conan

In North Carolina, an obese man was caught hiding 40 bags of heroin in the folds of his stomach. Something tells me he is not on heroin.

Interesting

H.I.F. From Reddit: "TIL in 1965, seeds that were dated to 2,000 years old were discovered in an ancient jar in Israel. The seeds were kept in storage for 40 years and after they were planted, a tree that had been extinct for over 1800 years

Tuesday

Speaking of Detroit (see yesterday's main post), I listened to a podcast on Saturday about building strong towns and urban renewal (go here for podcast [http://www.econtalk.org/archives/2014/05/charles_marohn.html]). The interviewee is an urban consultant who emphasizes the need for non-macro redevelopment.

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I spent Friday in Grand Rapids, attending the annual Business Law Institute. It wasn't highly profitable. I learned a few things, but for the most part, the topics were either too basic or too off-beat. They did, however, bring in two attorneys who have been working

Sunday

A Random Passage Why was I wasting time, watching a TV show about the long-running TV show Cops? No good reason, except I'm an American and, to quote George Santayana, “Americans love junk.” He added: “It's not the junk that bothers me, it's the

Saturday

If I weren't on a self-imposed book-buying hiatus, I'd be buying this one in a heart beat: Chesterton's America: A Distributist History of the United States. Mary Kochan reviews it at Catholic Lane [http://catholiclane.com/book-review-chestertons-america/]. Excerpt: > What makes this book so

Conan

Last night the Los Angeles Kings won Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals in overtime. Fans in L.A. went crazy after they heard about it this morning at work.

BYCU

BYCU Gin and tonic season is upon us. Even manly men will occasionally succumb and drink one on a hot day. I googled it and found this interesting piece at About.com [http://cocktails.about.com/od/spirits/p/gist_gin.htm]. From the intro: > Gin was created by

Meyers

This summer marks the 75th anniversary of Little League Baseball. Or to put it in Little League terms, six innings.

Conan

The co-founder of Burt's Bees was forced out of the company for having an affair with an employee. He was caught during a sting operation.

Thursday

Some things never change. Writing about Bacon's Rebellion (1676) in his People's History, Howard Zinn discusses Nathaniel Bacon's “Declaration of the People,” saying it “shows a mixture of populist resentment against the rich and frontier hatred of the Indians. It indicted the [Governor] Berkeley

Fallon

Tim Tebow said that he's staying in shape in case he gets another opportunity to play in the NFL. Then his boss said, “That's great, but these Waffle Tacos ain't going to make themselves, so . . .”

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

Tuesday

In his most recent collection of essays, Joseph Epstein recounts growing up in the 1950s. It sounds like a pretty good era. This passage really struck home with me: > Play was not yet organized. The endless cycle of lessons and special tutoring for middle-class children had not begun in

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling I spend hours in my garden. I spend a fair amount of time walking. I occasionally am forced to drive an hour or more in my car. I burn through good audio programs like Rob Ford burns through crack. I'm constantly running out of good free

Sunday

Is the Catholic Church serious about promoting priestly vocations? Then it needs to get rid of female altar servers. Now don't get me wrong: The girls who have stepped up and served (especially in my parish) have been a real blessing. We have troubles getting enough altar servers

Frustrating

H.I.F. Speaking of gardens: I just want to keep my nose buried in mine: Male student named Connecticut school's prom queen [http://news.msn.com/us/male-student-named-connecticut-schools-prom-queen#tscptme] .

Friday

BYCU I never knew this: "With more breweries per capita than any U.S. city, Asheville, N.C., has become a sort of Napa Valley of beer." Of course, the bigger boys now want some of the action, too: "Outsiders have noticed that Asheville's locally

Thursday

Thinking about starting an online local newspaper? You may want to check out this essay by Bill Kauffman about The Batavian [http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-hyperlocal-beat/]. Excerpt: > Five years of 12-hour-a-day and seven-day-a-week workloads later, Owens has embedded The Batavian in the public mind. From his office on

Interesting

H.I.F. This has a strong ring of truth to is, at least to me: "The truth is, processed foods contain carefully orchestrated flavors and other sensory factors designed to be as addictive as possible. This is in stark contrast to whole foods, the taste and consistency of

Wednesday

A handful of great passages from Joseph Epstein's new book of essays . . . and I'm only about 15% of the way through it: "[I]n the matter of literary criticism, as Mencken once remarked, it is only justice that hurts." "[I]f the same

Tuesday

Kontent from the Kindle Perhaps the most interesting passage from my Memorial Day Weekend reading. The author is writing about the shocking dearth of archeological remains from approximately 630 to 930 AD and historians' struggles to account for it: > Another school of thought, most influential in Europe, denies

Monday

A Random Passage "Anyone who believes that advertisers control consumers need only be told a few names: Tucker, Henry J., Ford, Edsel, Mercury Park Lane, Studebaker, Wagonaire, Lincoln Blackwood, AMC Marlin, Buick Reatta, and Eagle Premier. These were among many automobiles that were marketed strenuously by their manufacturers but

Sunday

In anticipation of the coming football season, I thought I'd post this picture that really cracked me up a few days ago. (If you don't follow the NFL, my apologies . . . and good for you, btw).

Saturday

The rest of my backyard container garden went in Thursday evening. This is a partial picture of the finished deal.

Meyers

A group of scientists have started attaching sensors to sharks to help predict hurricane intensity. They're hoping the information they gather will save enough lives to offset the number of lives lost attaching sensors to sharks.

BYCU

BYCU I'd be curious where Memorial Day weekend ranks among drinking weekends. It must be in the top 10, probably top 5 after the brutal winter we've just came through. I've talked with a lot of people who have told me that it seems

Kimmel

For 40 years Burger King has been saying "Have it your way" in their ads. They're changing the slogan from "Have it your way" to "Be your way." I don't get it. Am I ordering a Whopper or coming out

Ferguson

It's also National Waiter and Waitress Day. So be extra nice to your server. Say "Thanks, sugar" and give them a little slap on the butt.

Thursday

A Handful of Wisdom The Only Five Things I Wish College Had Taught Me [http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/05/james-altucher/the-only-5-things/]. I don't agree with all of it, but the writer makes some awfully good points. A few of my favorites: "The best way to change

Meyers

A man in Florida has been arrested for inappropriately touching two women outside a Walmart while claiming to be a psychic. Though to his credit, when the police picked him up he said, “I knew this was going to happen.”

Late Night

Yesterday President Obama made an unscheduled stop at a Little League game while he was on his way to a fundraiser. Yeah, because there's nothing parents love more than their kid's Little League game getting even longer. Fallon

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

Tuesday

Taki published a new piece this weekend. He was writing about the westernization that the Nigerian kidnappers are rebelling against. Perhaps the best passage from the piece: > When I first heard the meaning of Boko Haram–the words for the Islamist movement that kidnapped some two hundred girls and

Monday

Miscellaneous Rambling Okay, hopefully the cold weather is gone for good. Memorial Weekend is nigh. I'd like to finish off the garden this week, so I can attend to some serious front porch reading. . . . On the docket: Chicks. Simone Weil, a Dorothy Day biography, maybe some Edith Stein.

AQ

If you enjoy tribute bands, I doubt you'll find one much better than this one: Marie is out of town this weekend, so I took six of the seven, plus one of their friends. Everyone greatly enjoyed it. Daughter Abbie (an amateur musician) was blown away by the

Meyers

A new Michael Jackson album was released this week and it contains a track titled "Do You Know Where Your Children Are?" Even worse, the next song is called, "Can You Give Me Directions?"

Friday

From Pascal's Pensees: "Too much and too little wine. Give him none, he cannot find truth; give him too much, the same." Pascal is one of those thinkers I'd like to settle down with for an entire summer: a close reading of the Pensees,

Meyers

A Chicago priest is offering a $5,000 reward to help stop gun violence. Meanwhile, people with guns just found out about a priest who has $5,000.

Thursday

In his essay, “The Intimate Abstraction of Paul Valery,” Joseph Epstein writes that Valery spent his life in pursuit of one thing: to understand the functioning of the mind. In his effort, he sought supreme detachment, so he can sit back and contemplate what it is, exactly, that occurs in

Fallon

During his trip to the White House yesterday, Uruguay's president said that more Americans should be bilingual. Then Joe Biden said, "Thanks, but I'm happily married."

Meyers

A new study claims that 1 in 10 Americans no longer carry cash. They're called English majors.

Gardening Pic

Well, another round of cold is about to hit southern Michigan. I'll be hauling my tomato plants in and out of the house for the next five days, which really sucks (15 self-watering containers, five of them holding over ten gallons of dirt each) but everything looked great

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

Humorous

H.I.F. The humorous Taki Theodoracopulos offers a biographical snippet of Sam Goldwyn [http://takimag.com/article/take_the_sour_with_the_bitter_taki#axzz31Qbj6XTL], including these malapropisms: > When his wife suggested a friend should seek psychiatric help he interrupted with, “Anybody who goes to a psychiatrist should

Tuesday

Autobiographical Corner Blogging might be a little slow this week. If you hadn't discerned it yet, the TDE publication schedule has evolved to this: I use the weekend to put together a series of posts, one each Monday through Friday. I then "pepper" the week with

Monday

In case you missed it: "The Harvard Extension Cultural Studies Club has teamed up with the Satanic Temple to re-enact a 'Black Mass' on May 12 at 8:30pm at the Queen's Head Pub, in Memorial Hall, with “commentary and historical context” provided by some

Sunday

Pretty good article: Pope Francis and the Culture of Encounter [http://catholicstand.com/pope-francis-culture-encounter/]. It spends a fair amount of time summarizing some points made by Gabriel Marcel. I spent a lot of time reading the existentialists, and it always interested me that Marcel was a Catholic one. His prose

Interesting

H.I.F. So tell me more about the voting for the SEC Defensive Player of the Year. Any chance Michael Sam's sexual orientation and pending announcement were leaked to potential voters, who cast their vote in favor of him in order to "make a political point&

Saturday

H.I.F. Notre Dame isn't as bad as Georgetown or Boston College, but it's hardly a bastion of orthodoxy, either. So this story didn't surprise me: Officials at the University of Notre Dame revoke permission for pro-marriage table, tell young Catholics to “cease

Humorous, kinda

H.I.F. It's not too often an opening line from a news story unintentionally summarizes, illustrates, and proves beyond reasonable doubt the deranged culture we've come to inhabit: "The low neckline of her halter gown exposes a hairy chest." After that line, the

Meyers

Richard Branson has announced plans to develop a new type of plane that could fly from New York to Tokyo in one hour. Apparently the engines are powered by human screams.

Thursday

From the remarkable Robert Higgs: "Tolstoy's Remarkable Manifesto on Christian Anarchy and Pacifism [http://blog.independent.org/2014/04/21/tolstoys-remarkable-manifesto-on-christian-anarchy-and-pacifism/] ." The piece itself is not that remarkable. It basically just criticizes Tolstoy, but it concludes with this teaser: > I plan to write at greater

Meyers

Medical officials across the nation are reporting that more baristas are complaining about wrist-related injuries they get from making drinks. So much for the tough-guy image of baristas.

Wednesday

The American Conservative ran this interesting piece a few weeks ago: "Pope Francis Needs Distributism [http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/pope-francis-needs-distributism/] ." In light of being accused of Marxism, which he deplores, but in light of his distrust of capitalism, he needs a third way. That third way is

Conan

The Supreme Court has ruled that city council meetings may open with a prayer. Especially if the city in question is Detroit.

Tuesday

Kontent from the Kindle Although I support the mini-ag movements (see yesterday's post) and consider myself a part of them, I can't help but be reminded of those hippies who chose to eschew the complexity of modern life and opted instead for the simplicity of the

Monday

The "mini-agricultural" movements that are popping up in this country interest me. Whether it's the Back to Eden gardening method, hobby farms, sustainable landscaping, or just nerds like me with a big container garden (60+ self-watering containers, plus a handful of traditional containers), it's

(Untitled)

Minas Tirith from matchsticks [http://i.imgur.com/ehGVWEk.jpg]. Pretty cool, but I wonder what it feels like to have that much disposable time?

Sunday

I like to think that, by embracing libertarianism, I broke away from the "liberal-conservative" dichotomy, and instead have embraced the principle of subsidiarity, local versus federal government, and Catholic mentality. But then I see something like this, and my loathing of liberals bubbles to the surface again: Controversial

Saturday

Miscellaneous Whew. Spring is back in full swing. Baseball game last night, baseball game this morning, soccer, gardening, kids now home from college, prom this evening. And, of course, cruddy weather than makes things a bit less pleasant and a bit more difficult (I've been shivering so badly

Meyers

The Royal Court of Saudi Arabia has launched a website that will accept complaints against the government and send them directly to the king. You can even submit a second complaint if you want – using your remaining hand.

Ferguson

We've got a huge drought here in California. It's so dry and windy here in L.A. that firefighters are already hosing down David Hasselhoff's chest hair.

Friday

BYCU Is it me, or does the science of drinking keep "upping" the healthy consumption levels? At first, we were told a glass of red wine after work could help the heart. Then we were told it would help the heart. Then we were told a couple of

Thursday

Another great list, with narrative, that I found at Lew Rockwell [http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/04/no_author/10-con-men-and-their-masterful-forgeries/] : 10 Con Men And Their Masterful Forgeries [http://listverse.com/2014/04/24/10-con-men-and-their-masterful-forgeries/]. Perhaps my favorite: > If there's anything that the 11th-century French monk Ademar de

Kimmel

Someone who doesn't want to associate with black people owning an NBA franchise is like a vegan buying a steakhouse.

Wednesday

It's a banner day in the Scheske household: My oldest son turns 21. I've long been a proponent of an age-18 drinking age, so it's a bit frustrating that we had to wait three years for this day but it's now here.

Tuesday

Although I haven't read all of it, I've frequently dipped into Alberto Manguel's splendid A History of Reading. Manguel was once referred to as the "Casanova of reading," which makes him a nerd par excellence . . . and a man I'd like

Monday

Catholic Late Night Ten great one-liners from St. John XXIII [http://www.catholicnews.com/data/stories/cns/1401197.htm]. My favorites: When a cardinal complained that a rise in Vatican salaries meant a particular usher earned as much as the cardinal, the pope remarked: "That usher has 10 children;

Humorous

H.I.F. "A May 15 banquet for the Los Angeles chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People just became a lot more intriguing. The group is planning to honor Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling with a lifetime achievement award. This is the 100th

Sunday

For a variety of reasons, I don't often use TDE to proselytize, but I had to share this Journey Home. This man's conversion story parallels mine on many fronts (the arrogance that led him to read about Catholicism, the "two floor" problem, his profession

Saturday

The garden is coming along. Here it is, as of last weekend. I'm in the process of putting in the rest of my self-watering containers this weekend. It's a pretty big chore and largely experimental, since I'm using the potting mix from last year

Late Night BYCU: Kimmel

A strange new product is coming to your liver this fall – Palcohol, which is powdered alcohol. It's like Crystal Light that will get you drunk. Palcohol is great for astronauts looking to get wasted in space. Palcohol flavors include Vodka, rum, mojito, cosmopolitan, and lemon drop. I think

Friday

BYCU Here's a decent article from Lew Rockwell earlier this week: Wine Etiquette Gone Horribly Wrong [http://www.lewrockwell.com/2014/04/no_author/wine-etiquette-gone-horribly-wrong/] . It's not as good as the title implies, and, indeed, I think only a borderline wine snob would really like it,

Meyers

A Kansas man on trial for first-degree murder wants to remove a tattoo across his neck reading “murder” because he's worried it might prejudice the jury. Though he might be able to create reasonable doubt by just adding a question mark. China's state media has announced

Interesting

H.I.F. Crowdfunding opportunity for pro-lifers: "Gosnell Movie: A historic crowdfunding campaign for a movie about America's biggest serial killer, abortionist Kermit Gosnell and the media cover-up." Link [https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/gosnell-movie#home].

Funny Quotes

Random Quotes "When Mr. Wilbur calls his play Halfway to Hell he underestimates the distance." Brooks Atkinson ******* Oscar Levant to an obnoxious acquaintance: "I'm going to memorize your name and throw my head away." ******* "No doubt Jack the Ripper excused himself on grounds

Meyers

The Christian Science Monitor is claiming “Hillary Clinton will be a tad less interested in running for president now that she's about to be a grandmother.” And if you put a grain of sand in your pocket there's a tad less sand on the beach.

(Untitled)

From the Bottom Line Personal [http://www.bottomlinepublications.com/]: "Making a fist helps you remember. Clench your right hand while preparing to remember something . . . and then your left hand when trying to recall it." Odd idea, that. I'm gonna have to try it.

GKC Wednesday

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 file full

Humorous

H.I.F. The article I linked a few minutes ago has this great passage: "Paul Theroux notes that 'During his famous experiment in his cabin at Walden, moralizing about his solitude, [Thoreau] did not mention that he brought his mother his dirty laundry and went on enjoying

Interesting

H.I.F. As more Americans grow tired of the warped culture and government programs that are tilted ruthlessly against the middle class, more Americans "opt out" and go into isolation. This article [http://www.theamericanconservative.com/thoreau-vs-st-benedict-how-we-opt-out-matters/] examines the phenomenon, and also points out, "How we

Fallon Late Night

“I want to say congrats to Chelsea Clinton. Last week she announced that she is expecting her first child,” Fallon said, setting up the joke. “That's great. That's great for her. If it is a girl, it will get some of Chelsea's old hands-me-downs.

Monday

“[B]lowup risks-to-others are easily concealed owing to the growing complexity of modern institutions.” Nassim Taleb, Antifragile. A page later, Taleb writes, “I want to live happily in a world I don't understand.” I combine those quotes with a consistent piece of investment advice that I have consistently

Easter

“When the disciples saw the risen Christ, they beheld “him as a reality in the world, though no longer of it, respecting the order of the world, but Lord of its laws. To behold such reality was different and more than to see a tree or watch a man step

Humorous

H.I.F. The 4chan online community has struck again. They spread word in their community that bestbookreads.com was holding an online vote on "What's the one book that transformed your life forever?" The 4channers descended on the site and vote Mein Kampf number one

Good Friday

In the 1930s, the Times (London) asked G.K. Chesterton and others to write on the topic of "What's Wrong with the World Today." Chesterton sent back a two-word response: Dear Sirs: I am. Sincerely, G.K. Chesterton "For all that ever was wrong, is

Holy Thursday

"[I]n the agony of Gethsemane the ultimate consequences of our sin had their hour. . . . God permitted his Son to taste the human agony of rejection and plunge towards the abyss. . . Gethsemane was the hour in which Jesus' human heart and mind experienced the ultimate odium of the

From the Emails

My response to a young family member who was getting questions about the Big Bang Theory and was puzzled that a priest came up with the Theory: > The Big Bang theory is nothing for a Catholic to get hung up on. You just need to keep a steady eye

Interesting

H.I.F. Perhaps the most interesting (and disturbing and scary) article of the month: 10 Lesser-Known American Mysteries [http://listverse.com/2014/04/14/10-lesser-known-american-mysteries/]. Excerpt: > Imagine a place, so rugged and desolate, so empty and uninhabited, that it would be “the perfect dumping ground” for a serial

Reddit

From Reddit's TIL feature ("sub-Reddit"): "TIL George Washington forbade his troops to burn effigies of the Pope out of respect for Catholics."

GKC Wednesday

Background: When I was the edit