Mary Pumpkins
For Jew and Christian, the First Great Commandment is greater than the Second Great Commandment.
Mortimer is Mortimer Adler.
Szasz, Karl Kraus and the Soul-Doctors, or: Anti-Freud
I tell you this: there is not a thoughtless word that comes from men’s lips but they will have to account for it on the day of judgment. For out of your own mouth you will be acquitted; out of your own mouth you will be condemned. Matthew 12:36–37, quoted in Thomas Szasz, Anti-Freud
Who Cared Who's Gay?
Lionel Trilling wrote in response to something I had published about Forster a long time ago. It was an astonishing letter. He said that he realized E. M. Forster was homosexual only years after he had completed his book on Forster’s work. It wasn’t an issue in the society at the time he was writing. The atmosphere didn’t lead anyone to think along those lines, and Trilling himself was unaware. —{Cynthia Ozick](https://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/2693/the-art-of-fiction-no-95-cynthia-ozick)
Anecdote, October 2023. Two friends of our returned from Europe feeling ill. They both self-tested positive for COVID. They went to their doctor, who told them: Don’t test.
Are bidets a problem or a solution?
I was told yesterday that there is a shortage of COBOL programmers.
No race was ever freed except by its own efforts, – no man saved except through himself. —John Jay Chapman
Since race is a superstition, read “identified group”.
Autumn Love
Mixed media
I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counsellors as at the beginning. Isaiah 1:26
God can go back.
Day two at war and no inktober post for todaywritingatlarge.com
“He will put those wretched men to a wretched death and lease his vineyard to other tenants who will give him the produce at the proper times.” —from today’s Gospel Reading
Against Universalism.
Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things…. Then the God of peace will be with you. —from today’s Second Reading
His obedience was angelic, not human. —Father Antonios Mishimshany, superior of Saint Sharbel
Incompetence will have consequences.
In English, “Holy Ghost” is better than “Holy Spirit,” since in English a ghost is more a person than a spirit is.