Among the many conversations I have had with Great Books students over the years, none is more lively than when we discuss various theories of truth. It seems to always come up when we are reading and talking about Thomas Aquinas’s Summa. In order to make immediate connection with them, I tell the story about [...]
A couple of nerds, one of them a wannabe jock, have been making minor headlines in such classy publications as Slate, running the old “let’s ban college football” canard up the flagpole. Malcolm Gladwell and Buzz Bissinger, supposedly well-known writers (but, thankfully, ones I had never before heard of) “won” a debate against former NFL [...]
“Shoeless” Joe Jackson “I am going to meet the greatest umpire of all–and He knows I’m innocent.” –“Shoeless” Joe Jackson “Those whom the splendor of their rank, or the extent of their capacity, have placed upon the summit of human life have not often given any just occasion to envy in those who [...]
“Ike’s not a communist, he’s a golfer.” —Russell Kirk I haven’t been able to verify the source of this quotation (maybe there is a Kirk scholar who reads this site and who can), but a cottage industry has grown in recent months using it to bash President Obama in one way or another. Ike, it [...]
All athletic contests are types of warfare, and those who are put off by that simply do not understand human nature or the nature of God’s created order. What sports are the most violent? I guess one could make a case for bull fighting, because it always ends in death. It’s a contest that has [...]