Miscellaneous

H.I.F. Retail sales of alcohol are up 10% over the past year. Link [http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-12-22/how-americans-are-celebrating-recovery] . That's a pretty phenomenal number.

Did you go see The Wolf of Wall Street? I thought about going to it, but after reading this open letter [http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2013/12/wolf_of_wall_street_prousalis.php?page=2] from the daughter of one of the protagonist's partners in crime, I

H.I.F. I remember reading (5? 10?) years ago that 10% of Americans are ex-Catholics, so this is no surprise: "According to recent demographic surveys, it seems there are presently 30 million people in the U.S. who identify themselves as 'former Catholics.'" Link

H.I.F. "The halo effect discussed earlier contributes to coherence, because it inclines us to match our view of all the qualities of a person to our judgment of one attribute that is particularly significant. If we think a baseball pitcher is handsome and athletic, for example, we

Let me be as blunt yet precise about this as possible: If you are a Tolkien fan, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug sucks. I am not making an unqualified statement about the cinematic merit of the film. I am simply speaking as a long-time Tolkien fan. I bristled

BYCU The headline from this article [http://www.lewrockwell.com/2013/12/no_author/reject-teetolitarianism/] appears to be the misleading: "Regular but moderate consumption of alcohol makes you healthier and happier than total abstinence." I'm happy to see such a study, of course, but the

H.I.F. 7 Foods and Herbs to Fight the Common Cold: Vitamin C, Kiwi, Apple Cider Vinegar, Ginger, Echinacea, Oregano Oil, Zinc. Link [http://naturalsociety.com/7-foods-herbs-fight-common-cold/]. It's hard to say, but I think I've had success with zinc and

Miscellaneous Rambling Professor Charles Rice used to comment during jurisprudence class that a person didn't need long hair and sandals to be a radical. A person just needed to be a good Catholic. I've long sympathized with that observation. It was brought to mind when I

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

A Random Passage Kind of interesting: "The anarchist sensibility made its first appearance amongst the Taoists of ancient China." Peter Marshall, Demanding the Impossible: A History of Anarchism. I've spent a fair amount of time studying the other major religions, especially those of the Far East: