Film noir is the easiest to identify and (as these things go) easiest to define of all the genres in cinema, yet it developed quite unintentionally—it wasn’t until well into its maturity that anyone realized it was a genre at all. The term film noir originated in postwar France . . . . Continue Reading »
Politically, North Dakota is known as a deep red state, meaning it’s supposed to be conservative. At first glance, this seems to make sense. NoDaks (shorthand for North Dakotans) have supported GOP presidential candidates for the longest time , and recently our congressional delegation has . . . . Continue Reading »
The PBS program “Religion and Ethics Newsweekly” recently featured a segment on novelist and Catholic deacon Ron Hansen: Watch Catholic Writer Ron Hansen on PBS. See more from Religion & Ethics NewsWeekly. Hansen says writing is “a witness to what God is doing in the world. . . . . Continue Reading »
This article points to the ways in which current legal challenges to the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act rest upon assertions of traditional state authority to define marriage. Here, for example, is how New York, Vermont, and Connecticut put it in their amicus brief in Windsor v. U.S. , a case in . . . . Continue Reading »
I incurred the wrath of Game of Thrones fans when I complained about the pretty graphic (soft core) incest depicted between adult brother and sister in the early episodes, complete with grunts and sighs. And I warned that using incest to titillate in a fantasy was just the beginning. From my . . . . Continue Reading »
I was amazed at arriving in New York a little over a month ago to find that, for such a big city, there are very few Catholic churches with Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament on more than just the first Friday of the month, and not one with perpetual Adoration (at least not that I have found thus . . . . Continue Reading »
At the blog “Grateful to the Dead,” a “church historian’s playground,” a Protestant professor (Chris Armstrong, specialist in church history at Bethel University) posts an exchange with a young, earnest Evangelical student over the Catholic sacrament of . . . . Continue Reading »
William Doino Jr. on Cardinal Martini and the timeless church : When Cardinal Carlo Martini, the former Archbishop of Milan, died on August 31, many must have wondered what kind of leader the Church had just lost. “Progressive Catholic Icon . . . Dies After Saying Church ‘200 years’ . . . . Continue Reading »
Iranian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, the Christian whose conversion from Islam caused him to receive a death sentence for apostasy, was released from prison this weekend. According to CNN , a trial court in Iran acquitted him of apostasy and instead charged him with evangelizing Muslims, then . . . . Continue Reading »
Australia’s Philip Nitschke’s “life’s work” is to make it easier for anyone who wants death to off themselves, and for any reason. He travels the world giving “how to” seminars and has even trained people to buy suicide drugs in Mexico and sneak . . . . Continue Reading »
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