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The Liturgically Ineffable

From First Thoughts

Does the word “ineffable” belong in the liturgy? Donald Trautman, the Catholic bishop of Erie, PA, doesn’t think so, the Erie Times-News reports . Ordinary Catholics won’t know the meaning of the word, he said, so it shouldn’t be in the liturgy. The Times-News reporter . . . . Continue Reading »

The Perfect Fifth

From First Thoughts

Today, with the help from my friends at the Shrine of the Holy Whapping , I discovered the French TV show Kamelott . It’s a comedy show set in Arthurian times with colloquial modern language, and its episodes are all under five minutes in length. My favorite so far has been “The Perfect . . . . Continue Reading »

More on Canadian Free Speech

From First Thoughts

Two more articles appeared on Canada and Free speech. The first comes from the Ottowa Citizen ( reproduced on Real Clear Politics ). The author, David Warren, reviews some of the recent cases before the human rights commissions, then highlights the surprising acceptance among journalists at the . . . . Continue Reading »

The Joys of Privatization

From First Thoughts

Jonah Goldberg writes in the Los Angeles Times — reproduced on Real Clear Politics —about how Dianne Feinstein improved the Senate lunch room by putting it under private management. Here’s an excerpt: According to auditors, the chain of restaurants run by the Senate food service, . . . . Continue Reading »

More on Metropolitan

From First Thoughts

Not all readers send in chipmunk jokes. Today another told me that the Spring 2000 issue of the Intercollegiate Review had a series of articles devoted to Whit Stillman’s movies. I think these were later collected into a book by Mark Henrie, the editor of IR, called Doomed Bourgeois in Love: . . . . Continue Reading »

God, Preppies, and Metropolitan

From First Thoughts

A while ago a friend recommended Whit Stillman’s movie Metropolitan to me, and I figured that, as a young person who had intellectual conversations with groups of friends in New York, I would find it especially resonant with my life in the city. The young people I’ve met in New York are . . . . Continue Reading »

Human Rights vs. Free Speech

From First Thoughts

We’ve mentioned the Mark Steyn case in the past, but today Rich Lowry posted an update on Real Clear Politics on its progress. For those who haven’t heard, our neighbors to the north have a system of Human Rights Commissions in which you can lodge a complaint against people who say . . . . Continue Reading »

More on the Ecumenical Front

From First Thoughts

Coming back to the office after the conference on ecclesial reconciliation at St. Vladimir’s, I came across two news stories on the topic. The National Catholic Register reports that Mar Bawai Soro, a bishop of the Assyrian Church of the East suspended for his views on the primacy of the . . . . Continue Reading »

The Audacity of Death

From First Thoughts

The title of the article says it all. Daniel Allott— in an article from the American Spectator , now reproduced on the Wall Street Journal’s opinion page—highlights Barack Obama’s position on abortion by interviewing someone Obama would have rather seen dead: According to . . . . Continue Reading »