Jonathan V. Last

Growing up a Catholic boy in suburban South Jersey, I knew my share of priests. They were good and holy men doing good and holy work. Yet none of them were imposing figures. And it seemed, nestled as I was among the shopping malls and the subdivisions, that the priesthood was, in the Christian . . . . Continue Reading »

Gloria Cipollini Endres, a friend and correspondent, has written a charming reminiscence of being part of the first class at Saint Maria Goretti High School in Philadelphia. The piece, appearing in the Philadelphia Daily News , is a wonderful glimpse of life in better times: The first principal, . . . . Continue Reading »

A reader wrote in yesterday chastising me for claiming that many on the left seem to “hate” Sarah Palin. I’ve given enough examples to believe that I’m on safe ground here, but just in case the reader wasn’t convinced, here’s a piece by a University of Michigan . . . . Continue Reading »

Some friends have written in to ask whether or not it’s hyperbolic to suggest that the left “hates” Sarah Palin, as I suggested yesterday . As an additional data point, I offer this essay from Salon . The author begins by repeating the smear that Trig Palin is not the . . . . Continue Reading »

There are reasonable criticisms that can be made of Sarah Palin, both as governor and a vice presidential selection. Yet little of what we have seen in the last six days has been either reasonable or critical (in the traditional sense of the word). Instead, much of the left and many in the media . . . . Continue Reading »

America’s best hope for a medal in boxing, Demetrius Andrade, the reigning welterweight world champ was upset in a quaterfinal bout on Sunday . After the fight Andrade exhibited astonishingly poor sportsmanship by leaving the ring before the referee announced the official decision. So it was . . . . Continue Reading »

I don’t mean to be contrarian, but I suspect that the remake of Brideshead Revisited which Nathaniel mentions may not be as promising as he thinks. I wrote a little bit about the outrageously silly trailer : The new adaptation seems remarkable mostly because Emma Thompson’s Lady . . . . Continue Reading »

Over the weekend, the Washington Post carried a piece about Washington’s National Cathedral. It seems that a few years ago the cathedral was given a $7 million bequest. The dean used the funds to expand all sorts of services, but now the money has run out, and new funding never materialized . . . . Continue Reading »

Having previously noted the techno-/theo- logical dream of transcending death through science, I’m almost pleased to note that some futurists are now throwing cold water on the idea of The Singularity. (That’s the moment when AI surpasses human intelligence, Skynet becomes self-aware, . . . . Continue Reading »

Being the product of a relatively sequestered New Jersey Catholicism, I wasn’t aware that men like Father Michael Pfleger existed. Silly me. Power Line points us to video of Fr. Pfleger preaching—not at a Catholic church, it seems—about the duty white Americans have to make . . . . Continue Reading »