The Doctor Is In

From Hewitt: Bishop Thomas Tobin opens a can of whoop-ass on Congressman Patrick Kennedy, on his “I’m pro-choice and a good Catholic, too” shtick: “The fact that I disagree with the hierarchy on some issues does not make me any less of a Catholic.” Well, in fact, Congressman, in a way it does. … There’s [...]

From the Wall Street Journal, on the passage this weekend of health care legislation in the House:   The bill is instead a breathtaking display of illiberal ambition, intended to make the middle class more dependent on government through the umbilical cord of “universal health care.” It creates a vast new entitlement, financed by European [...]

    A bit more morning music: B.B. King is, of course, a blues legend. This is some of his best work, when he was quite a bit younger. Enjoy.

    A little ZZ Top with your morning coffee.

The recent arrest of Roman Polanski for statutory rape with a 13-year-old girl has peeled back the veil covering our cultural decay. Numerous artists, directors, and other Hollywood celebrities and powerbrokers have come out and condemned the arrest, while rationalizing his behavior and condemning what they see as unjust punishment. The public response to this [...]

The following essay was originally posted in June 2005. The story is a true one, although the names have been changed.   They say that hell is hot. Sometimes, however, it is very, very cold. Jim loved Alaska — it had been his home since birth. God’s country: wild, unpredictable, spectacular in beauty–there was no [...]

Third in an ongoing series on grace in Christianity: On Purpose Justification, Sanctification, & Grace   We struggled through some intimidating “God-words” — justification and sanctification – in my previous post, and in the process I lost both of my regular readers, leaving but a few wandering insomniacs whose Ambien prescription had just run short. [...]

This essay, the second of a two-part series, was originally posted in October 2005.   In my previous post on guilt and shame, I discussed their nature and differences, their impact on personal and social life, and their instrumentality in much of our individual unhappiness and communal dysfunction. If indeed shame is the common thread [...]