A slow day, but here are three things.
The lone piper on D-Day has died. His obituary in the Daily Telegraph begins “Millin began his apparently suicidal serenade immediately upon jumping from the ramp of the landing craft into the icy water. As the Cameron tartan of his kilt floated to the surface he struck up with Hieland Laddie. He continued even as the man behind him was hit, dropped into the sea and sank.”
Another from the Daily Telegraph : The Ultimate Boys Toys . “Men, it seems, have an enduring love affair with toys that lasts well in to adulthood,” the article notes, and then describes several really cool toys.
Finally, a more serious entry: De-Crucifying Turkey’s Christians . “Now is a great moment for the church of Constantinople,” said the ecumenical patriarch, after celebrating at a monastery closed for 88 years. After telling the history of Christianity in Turkey, the writer argues that “History, after all, shows that the Ecumenical Patriarchate had the darkest of its times during the Kemalist Republic. On the other hand, both the pre-Kemalist Ottoman centuries, and the emerging post-Kemalist future, look much brighter.”
Dear Reader,
Can I be direct with you?
War abroad. Socialists on the rise. AI upending human life. Endless uproar online. The modern attention economy doesn’t want readers — it wants users enslaved to the tyranny of the present.
First Things is the antidote: literary excellence, timeless truths, and a fixed point of reference in a culture that has lost its bearings.
But we can’t do it without readers like you.
Our goal: Raise $150,000 by November 1 to sustain First Things in the year ahead.
Your gift anchors readers in the permanent things.
Make your Fall Campaign gift now using the button below.
If you have any questions or would like more information, please contact Giovanni Del Piero, Director of the Editor’s Circle, at gdelpiero@firstthings.com or 212-627-1985.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
The Church in the Age of Therapy
In 1966, Philip Rieff wrote in The Triumph of the Therapeutic that “Religious man was born to…
Canada’s Deadliest Blind Spot
On September 20, the Daily Mail ran a story with the provocative headline, “Our 83-year-old Christian grandmother…
The Faithful Joy of Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen
Dolly Parton and Fulton Sheen seem to have had little in common. She favored rhinestones; he wore…
