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Saturday it was off to the Vatican! First we went to the Vatican museum and saw, among other things, the Sistine Chapel. No picture can do it justice, so it’s probably just as well you couldn’t take pictures in there. You are allowed to take photos elsewhere in the museum, though: Here’s a view of Read more

On Friday we took a guided tour of some of the highlights of ancient Rome, including the Colosseum, the Forum and other central areas of the ancient city. A view of part of the Colosseum where the outer wall is missing. Contrary to what I used to think, Christians were not killed in the Colosseum, Read more

Let’s split this into a few posts. First, pics from Rome. Keep in mind that this was our first trip to Italy, so this is Italy 101. Your scribe arriving in Rome last Thursday morning on roughly one hour of sleep. This day consisted of a lot of bleary-eyed wandering around the area near our Read more

We had a wonderful time, visiting Rome for four days and Florence for three. Lots of walking around gaping at magnificent Roman architecture, marvelling at Renaissance and Medieval masterpieces, peering into Baroque churches, enjoying the beautiful Italian weather, and consuming a lot of pasta and red wine (if red wine is really good for your Read more

Blogging will be more-or-less nonexistent over the next week or so as the missus and I are headed off to Italy! I’m very excited, never having made it to continental Europe before now. Almost as exciting is the fact that I’ll miss the inevitable blog-mania surrounding the release of the Da Vinci Code movie. I Read more

That’s one description of Bill Kauffman’s just-released Look Homeward America: In Search of Reactionary Radicals and Front-Porch Anarchists. Based on what I’ve seen, it continues the project Kauffman started in his earlier America First! of tracing a counter-tradition of American politics that dissents from the bipartisan consensus on the mega-state, corporate capitalism, and global interventionism. Read more

I used to really love the Red Hot Chili Peppers. At one time I would’ve put them among my top three favorite bands. Unfortunately, ever since the disastrous One Hot Minute – disastrous despite the promising addition of former Jane’s Addiction guitarist Dave Navarro – they’ve pretty much been going downhill into middle-of-the-road, radio-friendly “alterna” Read more

I’m glad Chris Daughtry got voted off American Idol last night. He’s a decent singer, but he turns everything he sings into some kind of bland late-90s “alternative” rock. (And I still haven’t forgiven him for his unutterably bad rendition of Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line.” *shudder*) Personally, I’ve been rooting for Elliott for Read more

I’ve never really given much thought to the medieval debate between Franciscans and Dominicans about whether the Incarnation would’ve taken place if humankind hadn’t sinned. I guess it always struck me as a classically “scholastic” debate (in the pejorative sense). But now I’m not so sure. It seems that which position one takes could have Read more

From USA Today: The National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth, people with direct knowledge of the arrangement told USA TODAY. The NSA program reaches into homes and businesses across the nation by amassing information about the Read more