The Name Game

Gizmodo's Anti-RIAA Manifesto - Gizmodo

This looks like an interesting Boygott to get behind. The RIAA is really bad news, check it out.
Gizmodo's Anti-RIAA Manifesto - Gizmodo

Prayer and Fasting

Lent is one of those tricky times of year. It’s glorious if you get it right, but boring or depressing or disillusioning if you get it wrong. I wish I had some great words of insight to share about getting Lent right, but I’m don’t. Thankfully, several other people do:

Fr. Philip Powell, OP, at the University of Dallas gave a powerful and poetic homily for the First Sunday of Lent.

Fr. Alexander Shmemann gave some keen insights into fasting, which you can find in three sections on Brian’s Beirut blog.

The Onion on Protecting Children from Wonder

A very good piece: Child-Safety Experts Call For Restrictions On Childhood Imagination | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

"Everything is possible to one who has faith"

In yesterday’s gospel reading Jesus told the father of a boy possessed by a daemon that “Everything is possible to one who has faith” (Mark IX.23). Is this because faith is some sort of magic catalyst that gives us powers we did not previously have? Perhaps. That’s pretty much what I always imagined as a child when I heard about ordering mountains to throw themselves into the sea and stuff like that. But I realized yesterday that this passage can be understood in another way too. Everything is possible to one who has faith because he believes certain things to be possible in the first place, whereas the man without faith, even upon seeing mighty deeds and miracles, will explain these things away. To the man without faith, healings or exorcisms are not acts of God, because he has no such category in his mind. Instead he must call them mere coincidences or acts of nature. Like the dwarves within the stable in C. S. Lewis’ The Last Battle, the man without faith will not see God’s actions, even if placed right before him. And so why would he ever ask for a miracle? “If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be persuaded even if someone rises from the dead” (Luke XVI.31).

Promoting models of health

A classmate of mine from UD, now studying at the Pontificia Università della Santa Croce, coauthored this article. I thought some folks might find it interesting.


Promoting models of health
A conference at the AltaRoma appeals for ethical standards in the fashion industry

By Adela Lo Celso and Caitlin Forst

Rome - In the fashion capitals of the world the Spring shows are being rolled out, but it is the fashion industry itself that is being put through its paces as the problem of anorexic models commands attention. During New York fashion week the Council of Fashion Designers of America held a symposium on the issue. The British Fashion Council has pledged that there will be no size zero models on the catwalks in London this week. In Rome, fashion chiefs gathered just before the shows at Italy's second most important runway, the AltaRoma, to confer on the subject.... Continue

Introducing the "Book"

Marking Time

We were talking in my public diplomacy class last night about calendars, about how we mark time and the cultural/political significance of it. That got me thinking: how would I describe when I was born? How would I mark that date? Here’s an attempt:

I was born on the morning of Thursday, the eleventh day of August, the Feast of St. Clare and the Day of Thor, in the month of Caesar Augustus, in the midst of the Perseids meteor shower, in the two thousand seven hundred thirty sixth year of the City of Rome, the two hundred seventh year of the American Republic, the second year of the presidency of Ronald Reagan, the fourth year of the prime ministership of Margaret Thatcher, the fourth year of the pontificate of John Paul the Great, the year of our Lord one thousand nine hundred and eighty three.

Interesting, no? How would you describe a date or place? To what would you reference it?

Mathematical

A Monty Python Classic

Help Aaron give stuff up for Lent…

…or something like that. I’ve started a thread on the HNJ message board on the topic, so if you’ve got any good ideas, please share!