So, Don Imus is carpeted for inappropriate behavior. I object. He should have been suspended for going down on his knees and apologizing to Al Sharpton, the greatest race hustler of them all. Who the hell are these people trying to kid ? Not so long ago, another hustler who also calls himself a reverend, Jesse Jackson, was screeching “Hey, hey, … [Read More]

The handsome river gods of the Nile, the Ganges, the Danube and the River Plate emerge from a rocky grotto.  One of the giant figures supports the papal coat of arms, as water spurts out from all directions overhead.  An obelisk at the fountain’s center is upheld by ornament from the mystical and natural worlds.  The Fountain of the Four Rivers … [Read More]

At a New York City midtown gentlemen’s club a few years ago, I was asked to repeat a joke told to me by a friend who happens to be Israeli. The joke is as follows: An Israeli lands in Tel Aviv carrying two large suitcases. The customs inspector asks him to open one. Inside are fifty thousand dollars in one dollar … [Read More]

In late 1990, in the run-up to the Gulf War, I was a graduate student in political theory at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.  The coming war occupied much of our talk outside the classroom, and I can recall only one graduate student—a Sicilo-American Republican from Philadelphia who had gone through ROTC and was studying at the law … [Read More]

It wasn’t so long ago that Lent was a serious business. Catholics who marked the season before Vatican II will recall complex rules of fast and abstinence, which forbade meat on Wednesdays as well as Fridays, and on the eves of major holy days. Indeed, it was only in the 20th century, by special papal indult, that Catholics were reluctantly permitted … [Read More]

Is it me, or were the 15 British sailors and marines held by the Iranians just a little too gabby? Now that they’re home, the former hostages are repudiating their statements saying that they had intruded into Iranian waters, and they’re telling us that their profuse apologies – eagerly televised by the Iranians – were “coerced.” Yet they hardly seemed all … [Read More]

I’m glad they’re safely at home. But the seizure of the British Royal Marines and sailors by Iran was always a no brainer. To Iran, Tony Blair is a lame duck, and the British people believe in their government as much as the Americans believed that Bill Clinton did not have sex with that woman. Few Brits accepted their Government’s story … [Read More]

On this most festive day, we celebrate for a glorious mixture of Christian and pagan reasons: because the winter’s ending, because Christ is risen, and because that means each one of us gets a shot at joining Him. (Actually, in the end, we’ll have no choice. According to St. Thomas Aquinas, even the souls of the damned will regain their flesh … [Read More]

Jesus’s Reproaches from the Cross This classic prayer of the Church, which pictures Jesus addressing the crowd which called for His death, speaks to every sinner. It is the perfect meditation for this, the most solemn day of the year: O my people, what have I done to you? How have I offended you? Answer me! I led you out of … [Read More]

I recently had a run in with a famous pop star in a friend’s house. The “star” was lecturing us about aid to Africa. No one dared say a word. Except for me. My argument was that I refused to contribute to African kleptocrats purchasing more top of the line Mercedeses. In other words, all aid is stolen by the few, … [Read More]