Another positive (indeed, nigh-gushing) review (warning: here be spoilers) of Episode III. (via The American Scene)

There’s a new edition up of The New Pantagruel. I haven’t delved in yet, but there appear to be some goodies, including: “Harsh Medicine” by Wesley J. Smith “Understanding Traditionalist Conservatism” by Mark C. Henrie Also, speaking of vaguely countercultural online Christian journals, Harbinger directs us to the latest edition of The Other Journal, featuring…

As a follow up on yesterday’s post here are a couple of relevant articles from the Journal of Libertarian Studies: “Ambivalence, Ambiguity, and Contradiction: Garrisonian Abolitionists and Nonviolence” by Richard O. Curry and Lawrence B. Goodheart “The Radical Libertarian Tradition in Antislavery Thought” by Carl Watner John Brown seems to have had some ideas in…

Here’s a really interesting post by Caleb McDaniel on the rehabilitation of John Brown‘s reputation, slavery, and violence vs. non-violence. McDaniel notes that a new book seeking to refurbish Brown’s stature has met with several laudatory reviews from folks like Barbara Ehrenreich and Christopher Hitchens that favorably compare Brown’s “more radical” willingness to deploy violence…

A propos of Memorial Day, Pen at The Gutless Pacifist links to this interview from last year with pacifist theologian Stanley Hauerwas. The ever contrarian Hauerwas, as we might expect, rejects the received view of World War II: This Memorial Day, the new monument to World War II veterans formally opens on the Mall in…

A downright positive (although somewhat spoilerish!) review of Revenge of the Sith from Variety (via Big Hominid). I never had any doubt I would see it – my love of Star Wars was imprinted on me at a very young age, making it virtually impossible for me to be objective about the series (for what…

There’s an ongoing debate between proponents of free trade and those who favor “fair trade” (or, alternatively, “trade justice” – not sure of the extent to which the latter two terms mean the same thing). Fr. Jake had a post on the topic the other day, linking to this sermon by Rowan Williams as well…

An interesting discussion going on about sexual ethics. Hugo started things off with a bunch of posts about how he approaches sexual ethics with his youth group (several on Hugo’s front page – scroll down). Good follow up posts from Lynn at Noli Irritare Leones (here and here) and Camassia. Also, a good post on…

Hey, it’s the Feast of the Ascension! I like this: Consider this. Suppose Jesus was resurrected and returned to earth. But like any person who has come back from a near death experience, after a brief period of euphoria, things would have returned to normal. The days would have passed like those of any other…

Isn’t it kind of funny that people tend to use the expressions “desert island” and “deserted island” interchangeably? Usually when talking about things like “What five books” etc. would you want to take to a desert/deserted island. Surely what we usually mean is deserted island, right? As in being stranded alone somewhere. Though I guess…