Miscellaneous

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]

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'

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)

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.

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.

> 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]

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,

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

> 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]

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