I posted this piece before WordPress times and thought it could use reposting now, with a few modifications. On 4 July 1911, the citizens of Houma, Louisiana, in Terrebonne Parish, gathered together to celebrate the 135th birthday of the United States. The concept of a Fourth of July celebration in South Louisiana is interesting in …
Running Scared: My Response to a Baptist Pastor on the Millennials
It's not often that Vox gives a voice (which is what they're supposed to do) to a Baptist, but one John Thornton, Jr., a youth pastor in North Carolina, has written an intriguing article about why millennials are so anxious and burnt out these days. As a college professor who teaches in a state which …
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Beto O’Rourke, the Party Animals Favourite
It looks like the Democratic nomination race for 2020 (not in 2020, it's already started) will be a crowded one. Like the Republican race in 2016, a large field makes for an unpredictable result. Last week we looked at Elizabeth Warren, that resentful Scots-Irish (and just about the last one in her party.) This week …
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Elizabeth Warren and the Resentful Scots-Irish
Visits from grandparents are the joy of many families. For us, it was usually the other way around. After we we bounced from Chicago to Chattanooga to Palm Beach, we lived on the other side of the Palm Beach Country Club from my father's mother. With my mother's parents, we usually went to Arkansas to …
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What the Hashtag #straightouttairondale Means, and Why Traditional Catholics Need to Use It
I recently got an email from one of my visitors which went as follows: came across the hashtag #straightouttairondale in some of your posts and wonder what it refers to ... My response: It refers to trad (traditional) Catholics, who frequently (unless they're TLM (Traditional Latin Mass) diehards) take their inspiration from EWTN, whose headquarters …
Why I’m Leaving Facebook
It's another New Year, an opportunity (hopefully) to do better than before. I'm taking the opportunity for new beginnings to do something I've thought about for a long time: leave Facebook. After nearly a decade on the medium (with the enormous amount of time to show for it) I've had enough. I'll be leaving shortly. …
The Shocking (to Some) Truth About Prosperity and Morality
Tom Jacobs at the Pacific Standard finds himself surprised at the way voters conflated prosperity and morality, which eased their way to vote for Donald Trump: The findings suggest the Trump campaign's emphasis on the candidate's success in business—which has subsequently been shown to be based largely on smoke and mirrors—increased the perception that he …
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Book Review: Eric Patterson’s Just American Wars: Ethical Dilemmas in U.S. Military History
One of the surprises I've gotten is that, even in conservative American churches, there are those in positions of influence who are pacifists. How can this be, especially since their core ethnic group is the bellicose Scots-Irish? But life is an education. Although it's tempting to regard Eric Patterson's Just American Wars: Ethical Dilemmas in …
Wake From Your Sleep: The “Modern” Christmas Carol With a Traditional Sound
A favourite pastime of the #straightouttairondale crowd is to trash just about every piece of Catholic music written after 1965 (except, of course, what they put out.)Â Boosting the "Jesus Music" era is a goal of this blog, but this gem has an appeal that gets past not only their idea but Roman Catholicism …
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We Don’t Need “Secular Celebrants” for Civil Marriage
Sometimes I despair this country will ever get this right: "It can't be done by secular celebrants in a vast majority of states," said Nick Little, vice president and legal counsel for The Center for Inquiry, a secular organization that advocates for keeping religion out of public policy. The Center wants that to change. It …
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Positive Infinity 