Titian, Annunciation, 1559-62 Since I missed this yesterday, I’ll just link to Brandon’s fine post on the topic.

You have to hand it to Mel Gibson, he does his own thing. Here’s a look at his new project Apocalypto an “action epic about the ancient Maya” featuring “[h]undreds of local extras–many of whom have never seen a movie, let alone acted in one” and filmed in – yes – a language most viewers…

Rosanne Cash talks about getting angry letters for her opposition to the Iraq war: Through songs such as “Like Fugitives” and “World Without Sound” — which asks, “Who do I believe/Once they put you in the ground?” — Cash lets loose on the difficulties of having to share her grief with the public. “There are…

There are a couple of good items in the April issue of First Things (not yet online) concerning intelligent design that I wanted to highlight. First, Fr. Edward T. Oakes has a letter responding to Christoph Cardinal Schönborn’s article from January. Fr. Oakes makes the very important point that one concedes way too much in…

Fr. Richard John Neuhaus points to this amusing goof in historian Alan Brinkley’s review of Kevin Phillips’ new book American Theocracy in the New York Times Book Review: “[Phillips] points in particular to the Southern Baptist Convention, once a scorned seceding minority of the American Baptist Church but now so large that it dominates not…

Good news: Three Christian peace activists kidnapped last year in Iraq were freed on Thursday in a morning raid by multi-national forces in western Baghdad. Fears for the three men – two Canadians and a Briton – grew two weeks ago after a fellow hostage was found dead in a Baghdad street. Military officials said…

Via Chris, Andrew Sullivan has a link to an alarming Pew poll indicating that American Christians (well Catholics and white Protestants anyway) are actually more likely to approve of torture than their secular (atheist or agnostic) fellow citizens. Way to go, team. Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t there a well-known story about Roman…

This is a good (but ultimately depressing) article on the Democrats’ reaction to Russ Feingold’s motion to censure the president for, you know, breaking the law. Based on this account it was something of a desperation move on Feingold’s part after realizing that Congress was unwilling to do anything substantive about the warrantless wire-tapping: Mr.…

Some readers may find this of interest. Here you can read the proceedings of a symposium on “pro-life progressivism” that was held last year at the law school of The University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, Minnesota. (via the Acton Institute blog)

The Inquirer had an article this morning about poet/”memoirist” Mary Karr whose new book of poetry reflects on her recent conversion to Catholicism at age 40. What puzzles me here though is the idea of a “memoirist.” I get the idea that you might want to read the memoirs of a famous person or someone…