A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

Blogs and bloggers

  • Two blogs are better than one

    First Things seems to have added a new “group blog” to its site. If you ask how this differs from “On the Square” I’d say – good question! From what I can tell, the new blog is, well, bloggier (i.e. the entries are shorter and more informal) while the old blog seems geared more toward Read more

  • Fryblog

    My wife and I have recently been watching the DVDs of A Bit of Fry and Laurie, the hilarious British sketch comedy show with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie (now playing a misanthropic doctor on House, M.D.). They also, of course, did the Jeeves and Wooster series based on P.G. Wodehouse’s books. Today the Young Read more

  • Isn’t “blogging elite” a contradiction in terms?

    To me, the most interesting part of this WSJ piece on DC’s new ‘blogging elite’ is this: “D.C. ranks as the fourth ‘bloggiest’ city in the U.S., behind Boston, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.” Seriously? Pennsylvania represent! My home state gets mad blog props. Also, note that the four “bloggiest” cities are all cities I’ve lived in. Read more

  • Spong’s Jesus

    Ben Myers at Faith and Theology reviews the new book Jesus for the Non-Religious by the notorious John Shelby Spong. Dr. Myers’ review is consistent with the impression I’ve long had of Spong’s work: in an attempt to be modern and relevant he evacuates Christianity of everything that makes it remotely interesting and weird and Read more

  • The Conservative Mind 2.0

    The American Scene, formerly run by Ross Douthat and Reihan Salm, has a spiffy new design with a whole new raft of contributors. Looks like a great one-stop shop for smart, heterodox conservative blogging. (Salam continues to run TAS, while Douthat has moved on to a solo blog at The Atlantic.) Read more

  • Who is my neighbor?

    *Christopher has posted the text of a talk he recently gave on Christianity and the environment. It’s terrific stuff, with a very Lutheran and Benedictine flavor. I think that rooting our ethics (including our environmental ethics) in our response to what God has first done for us is exactly right and it’s one of the Read more

  • anagnosis

    Check out the new blog of regular ATR commenter Josh/Joshie/Joshie (Poo). He’s blogging texts of the Christian mystical tradition, beginning with The Mystical Theology by Pseudo-Dionysious. Read more

  • Small Is Beautiful

    This looks promsing: in the spirit of Crunchy Cons and Reactionary Radicals, a blog to promote Joseph Pearce’s new book Small Is Still Beautiful, which argues for the continuing relevance of the economic ideas of E.F. Schumacher. From the book description: Joseph Pearce revisits Schumacher’s arguments and examines the multifarious ways in which Schumacher’s ideas Read more

  • Pithy goodness

    Have you ever found a good blog because you were impressed with something its proprietor said in a comment thread elsewhere and clicked through? Well, this morning I found Pith and Substance, whose owner goes by the name “PithLord” (one of the better handles in the blogosphere it has to be said). He appears to Read more

  • Revolutionary pamphleteers as proto-bloggers

    I started reading Bernard Bailyn’s fascinating book The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution and was struck by his description of pamphleteering as the primary means by which revolutionary ideas were spread: It was in this form — as pamphlets — that much of the most important and characteristic writing of the American Revolution appeared. Read more