My updated map of U.S. states I’ve been to after some recent trips: create your own personalized map of the USA I’d say there’s a pretty good chance I’ll visit Vermont before too long. I don’t know about Rhode Island, though. Are there good reasons to go to Rhode Island?

Noam Chomsky is, to put it mildly, a polarizing figure. For a particular species of left-wing campus activist he’s a kind of guru, someone who has penetrated the veil of illusion and seen reality as it really is. For certain conservatives and “serious” liberals he’s an ayatollah of anti-Americanism, a kind of ritual hate figure.…

Here’s a link (via Eve Tushnet) to a blog called Bloggers Against Torture, sponsored in part by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. They’ve declared June “Torture Awareness Month” as “an effort to respond to the growing evidence that the United States government is engaging systematically in the use of torture and inhuman treatment as…

The stupid anti-gay-marriage amendment went down to defeat yesterday in the Senate. As someone who has lived in Massachusetts for almost five whole days, I can confidently report that the social fabric is not falling apart, despite the existence of state-recognized gay marriage. But seriously, folks, this is something that I think would be best…

Well, the move from Philly to Boston went about as smoothly as you can expect these things to go, though we appear to arrived in the middle of monsoon season. Next time we move I’d definitely like to avoid doing it ourselves. Technically, we’re living in Somerville, which is outside of the city near Cambridge.…

There’s an interesting discussion going on over the blog Connexions about atonement theory. I think Richard is right to point out that penal substitution should be considered one theory among several and not as an essential Christian belief as some evangelicals insist. The universal church has never deemed one account of Christ’s work to be…

I don’t know if it has to do with being away from electronic media for over a week and out of touch with the varied gyrations and conniptions of the ‘blogosphere,’ but I just can’t muster the wherewithal to comment on the latest bad news out of Iraq, the GOP’s cynical resurrection of the anti-gay-marriage…

Another big highlight of the visit to Florence were trips to the Uffizi and Academia Galleries, which house some of the most important works of late Medieval and Renaissance art. The Uffizi is full of works by Giotto, Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi, Botticelli, Mantegna, Correggio, Leonardo da Vinci, Raphael, Michelangelo and Caravaggio. It was truly…

After four days in Rome we took the train up to Florence. Here’s the train station in Rome: On the streets of Florence (apparently with a car about to run me down!): First stop in Florence was the Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, the cathedral or Duomo as it’s called. The Duomo was constructed…

On Sunday we went to the Catacombs of St. Callixtus which are south of the center of Rome, down the old Via Appia and out in the countryside a bit. This particular network of catacombs, one among several in the area, is around 12 miles long and contains the tombs of over 500,000 Christians, about…