The Gospel reading at Mass yesterday got me to thinking about ancient agriculture: “A sower went out to sow. And as he sowed, some seed fell on the path, and birds came and ate it up. Some fell on rocky ground, where it had little soil. It sprang up at once because the soil was […]
Back on yesterday’s Virtual Front Page I made a passing reference to God the Creator. That inspired Phillip to respond: The line in Genesis about God creating man in “His image and likeness” has troubled me since the day I first read it, as that idea seems to me to be a self-serving construct of […]
Well, the jury is still out on whether I properly pruned (or destroyed), the two fig trees in my yard. But while I’ll be very sorry if I killed them, particularly the one my uncle gave me not long before his passing, some small comfort is on its way — thanks to our friend Scout. […]
I experienced a little epiphany just before going to bed last night. To explain… This being the Feast of the Epiphany, Bishop Robert Barron spends his sermon today talking about that word. Epiphany, from the Greek for “intense appearance.” The Magi experienced two such appearances — the star, and then the baby Himself. But he spends […]
The New York Times put 21 candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination “on the spot” by putting them in front of video cameras and asking them 18 questions. My man Joe Biden declined to participate. Make of that what you will. (I could write a separate post on why it doesn’t bother me, I suppose, […]
Marking the start of the season and the release of the new movie about Jackie Robinson, the WSJ offered a slideshow of stills from baseball movies this morning, which was fun to flip through. It didn’t really make judgments or rank them. It just grouped them into categories: One Last Shot (“The Rookie,” “Mr. 3000”); […]
This morning I had the honor of meeting Martin Morad, who plans "to develop the world’s first pacemaker made from living tissue," and to do it right here in South Carolina. He’s the latest extraordinary individual that the endowed chairs program has brought here. (That’s him with Larry Wilson and Harris Pastides above. I think […]
This morning I was in the men’s library (to use an old Knight Ridder Washington Bureau euphemism) perusing The New York Times. Turns out it was the NYT of Dec. 19, but under such circumstances beggars can’t be choosers. Anyway, I ran across a piece about Mike Huckabee’s famous "floating white cross" TV commercial. We’ll […]
I often rail about the lack of interest in history, which seems one of the defining characteristics of most modern humans. (The lack of interest, not the railing about it.) But is it modern humans in general, or particularly an American thing? I suspect it’s both. I started thinking about this this morning because I […]
E.J. Dionne begins today’s column thusly: Seth Moulton, an Iraq veteran and Democratic congressional candidate on Massachusetts’s North Shore, has done something with little precedent in political campaigning: He was caught underplaying his war record. You read that right: An investigation by the Boston Globe found that, unlike politicians who go to great lengths to […]
Here’s Nikki Haley’s transition team, as she announced it today: Ambassador David Wilkins, Chairman. Ambassador David H. Wilkins is a partner at Nelson Mullins Riley & Scarborough LLP and chairs the Public Policy and International Law practice group. Wilkins was nominated by President George W. Bush to become the U.S. Ambassador to Canada, serving from June […]
A month or so ago, Phil Bailey brought my attention to the fact that former Rep. Harriet Keyserling was trying to counter all the “first woman” buzz that Nikki Haley had by putting together a bipartisan “Women for Sheheen” committee. As y’all know, it’s hard for me to identify with people who actively want to […]