Second Links — 8.5.10

Art historians think the recent study of the amount of food in pictures of the Last Supper doesn’t prove what it claims to prove, and that maybe the artists just liked to paint.

A Catholic biker couple explains their work in the Catholic Cross Bearers motorcycle apostolate .

Christopher Hitchens describes having cancer and how “In whatever kind of a ‘race’ life may be, I have very abruptly become a finalist.”

Two English scholars discuss the nature of things after the postsecular , after “the notion that there is a split between public politics and private religion . . . broke down.”

Jed Perl talks about Dwight MacDonald’s idea of  ”midcult”, which “pretends to respect the standards of High Culture while in fact it waters them down and vulgarizes them.”

In the Philippines, the Church and the education department battle over sex education . (The BBC reporter favors the education department.)

The National Catholic Register describes the Church in Cuba here (the history of the Church in Cuba since the revolution), here (the Church’s relation with Castro), and here (the state of things today).

In graphics: A  map of nuclear detonations (the number reaches 1,000 in 1970 and the U.S. 1,000 by itself in 1989).

In pictures:  America from 1939 to 1943 .

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