First Things RSS Feed - David Mills https://www.firstthings.com/author/david-mills David Mills is former executive editor of First Things. en-us Copyright 2025 First Things. All Rights Reserved. ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) ft@firstthings.com (The Editors) Mon, 20 Jan 2025 16:54:39 -0500 https://d2201k5v4hmrsv.cloudfront.net/img/favicon-196.png First Things RSS Feed Image https://www.firstthings.com/rss/author/david-mills 60 While We’re At It - Pt. XIX https://www.firstthings.com/article/2014/03/while-were-at-it https://www.firstthings.com/article/2014/03/while-were-at-it Sat, 01 Mar 2014 00:00:00 -0500 dmills@firstthings.com (David Mills)
Today, “old-school fat is considered slothful. Old school was prime rib, new school is parmesan-roasted kale. . . . Just like people used to frown on smoking, now they frown on bad eating.”

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]]> While We’re At It - Pt. XVIII https://www.firstthings.com/article/2014/02/while-were-at-it https://www.firstthings.com/article/2014/02/while-were-at-it Sat, 01 Feb 2014 00:00:00 -0500 dmills@firstthings.com (David Mills) • As a couple, casually but well dressed, the man in his forties and the woman in her thirties, walked by, the woman said, “Well, at least my breasts are firmer.”

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]]> Sentimental Rounding & the Hall of Fame https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2014/01/sentimental-rounding-the-hall-of-fame https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2014/01/sentimental-rounding-the-hall-of-fame Thu, 09 Jan 2014 08:15:53 -0500 dmills@firstthings.com (David Mills) “In cases like Craig Biggio’s (74.8% of the vote) should the Hall of Fame round up to the required 75%?” asked an ESPN poll of its readers. And as you may have guessed, a big majority of 69% said yes. Which only proves that 69% of people who vote on baseball matters on the ESPN website are nitwits.

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]]> The Rite of Blessing Automobiles https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2014/01/70246 https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2014/01/70246 Wed, 08 Jan 2014 14:39:03 -0500 dmills@firstthings.com (David Mills) Fr. Joseph Wilson has let us publish his “Rite of Blessing Automobiles,” or rather the rite produced some years ago by Diocese of Ostergothenburg as a addition to the Book of Blessings , of which the assiduously document-collecting Father Wilson had a copy. Here, thanks to him, is the memo from the diocese’s liturgical commission:

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]]> New York Encounter https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2014/01/new-york-encounter-2 https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2014/01/new-york-encounter-2 Mon, 06 Jan 2014 21:44:57 -0500 dmills@firstthings.com (David Mills) For those in or near New York City, I commend this year’s New York Encounter , beginning on Friday evening, January 17th with a talk and a concert and ending on Sunday evening with a concert. I went to most of last year’s Encounter , as did a couple of our junior fellows, and was both taught and moved by the talks.

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]]> Oriented Dogs https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2014/01/oriented-dogs https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2014/01/oriented-dogs Mon, 06 Jan 2014 12:11:34 -0500 dmills@firstthings.com (David Mills) The world has its mysteries, and one of them is that dogs seem to know where magnetic north is, as shown by their orientation when they relieve themselves. The Cinch Review has the report . It includes at the end an interesting discussion of dogs’ intuitive knowledge of basic physics.

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]]> While We’re At It - Pt. XVII https://www.firstthings.com/article/2014/01/while-were-at-it https://www.firstthings.com/article/2014/01/while-were-at-it Wed, 01 Jan 2014 00:00:00 -0500 dmills@firstthings.com (David Mills) • In France, lawyers defending twenty-­seven Roma, or Gypsies, charged with selling child brides and teaching children to steal added to the usual mitigating circumstances argument—they’re poor, so they have to steal, and so would you—the claim that France couldn’t apply its laws because the Roma didn’t recognize them. They said (this is the New York Times ’ summary) “in some cases they [the Roma] were simply following age-old Roma traditions and generally operate outside the norms of society in ‘the style of the Middle Ages.’”

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]]> The Hobbit in Yiddish https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2013/12/the-hobbit-in-yiddish https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2013/12/the-hobbit-in-yiddish Mon, 30 Dec 2013 11:23:16 -0500 dmills@firstthings.com (David Mills) Today’s eccentric item: How The Hobbit Learned Yiddish from Jewniverse. Computer programmer Barry Goldstein translated the book for fun, the work being “much less stressful than wrestling with a recalcitrant computer.”

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]]> T. F. Torrance and Orthodoxy https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2013/12/t-f-torrance-and-orthodoxy https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2013/12/t-f-torrance-and-orthodoxy Mon, 30 Dec 2013 08:00:28 -0500 dmills@firstthings.com (David Mills) The latest issue of Participatio  takes up the relation of the work of the Scottish theologian T. F. Torrance and Orthodoxy . The very rich (and thick) volume includes a biographical essay, a personal memoir by one of Torrance’s students, now an Orthodox priest; nine substantial papers on subjects like St. Athanasius, the Divine Monarchia , and the rationality of the cosmos ; a review of the letters between Torrance and Georges Florovsky; and two articles by Torrance himself, “The Relevance of Orthodoxy” and “The Orthodox Church in Great Britain.”

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]]> Copts, Pentecostals, Muslims, and Humanists https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2013/12/copts-pentecostals-muslims-and-humanists https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2013/12/copts-pentecostals-muslims-and-humanists Fri, 27 Dec 2013 15:03:01 -0500 dmills@firstthings.com (David Mills) Eight stories of religion in public life, three of them sad:

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