Over at InsideCatholic, I recount how a crying two-year-old explained for me the perils of asceticism.

It’s no fun having to play the pseudo-Randian in a room full of Catholic Workers, but somebody’s gotta do it.  Okay, it really is kind of fun….

This piece at Insidecatholic.com will bring back your memories of Driver’s Ed—and give you valuable tips on how to practice Safe DWI.

This one may only be funny to RCs like me—although I’m sure it’s playing really well in Mexico. As the Catholic News Agency reports:

“Mexico City, Mexico, Mar 27, 2009 / 04:59 pm (CNA).- During her recent visit to Mexico, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made an unexpected stop at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe and left a bouquet of white flowers ‘on behalf of the American people.’”

“The image of Our Lady of Guadalupe was miraculously imprinted by Mary on the tilma, or cloak, of St. Juan Diego in 1531. The image has numerous unexplainable phenomena, such as the appearance on Mary’s eyes of those present in the room when the tilma was opened and the image’s lack of decay.

“Mrs. Clinton was received on Thursday at 8:15 a.m. by the rector of the Basilica, Msgr. Diego Monroy.” [She was en route to receive the Margaret Sanger Award for Feticide from Planned Parenthood.—JZ]

“Msgr. Monroy took Mrs. Clinton to the famous image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, which had been previously lowered from its usual altar for the occasion.

“After observing it for a while, Mrs. Clinton asked ‘who painted it?’ to which Msgr. Monroy responded ‘God!’”

My discussion of abortion and abolitionism over at Insidecatholic.com has opened up a very interesting discussion in the com boxes, which illuminates the attraction of liberalism for Catholics. Check it out.

The first time I read Brideshead Revisited I was 16 years old, growing up in a rent-controlled apartment in Archie Bunker’s Astoria. Re-reading it now, at 44, as a college prof. in New Hampshire, is quite a different experience…. 

A Quebecois, to be specific: Paul Comtois, the one-time representative of Queen Elizabeth II in his province, died a martyr. In 1966. In Canada. The story comes courtesy of the ever-interesting Andrew Cusack. I’ll just add one observation: A society that can produce men like Paul Comtois will survive, replicate itself, and prevail. If we wish to save the West, we must see about producing better Westerners.

My latest at Insidecatholic.com explores the Freudian roots of the attack on the family, in the light of the recent assaults on Pope Benedict XVI, and of D.H. Lawrence, the French Revolution, feminism, and the Simpsons. Among other things….

The recent dust-up between David Frum and Rush Limbaugh leaves me cold. The very fact that we’re even paying attention to this tiff is evidence of the utter bankruptcy of Movement conservatism. It’s become a cliche to bemoan the slide conservatism has taken down the wrong side of the bell curve… to remind people that we once listened to debates between Rothbard and Buckley, Ropke and Hayek, Von Kuenhelt-Leddihn and Molnar. Now we lift our heads from Help Wanted pages to track the feud between a Machiavellian warmongering speechwriter from Canada, and an unprincipled Republican publicist shock-jock. Neither one is addressing the critical issues, since both have been on the wrong side of them; each was a shill for Bush’s policies and Bush’s war. Listening to them argue is like sitting in a Paris cafe in May 1944 watching a catfight among the Vichyites over the details of the Dreyfus case.

I’d like to see this argument settled. Preferably at dawn, in an IHOP parking lot near Pentagon City, with chainsaws. Better yet, let’s arrange a steel-cage Sumo match, fought to the death.

Of course Frum is more repulsive, more condescending and dishonest. But he never pretended to be anything else. No one watching Frum’s career at any point since college has any excuse for being surprised that he’s now trying to turn the Republicans into a bunch of mid-70s “wet” Tories. Limbaugh, on the other hand, for all his manifest character flaws, at least once acted as a populist. He supported Buchanan’s insurgency in 1992, and could easily have continued to succeed without selling out to the ideological neutralizers who ran the RNC. Indeed, it would have boosted his audience and given his show an ongoing “edge” if he’d been willing to go on criticizing party orthodoxy—and take on issues like immigration, outsourcing, and affirmative action. Instead, Rush let himself be bought by overnight stays in the White House, schmoozing expeditions with the likes of Karl Rove, and shallow partisan arguments.  Now he’s on the defensive, having presided over the ruin of a movement, and the utter victory of our enemies. Frum did the same thing, of course, but he at least had the smarts to jump ship, and find himself a cozy berth on Obama’s U-boat. All hail to the prince of the Vichy-Cons!

I offer some Lenten reflections on the scary state of the West, with glimmers of hope, over at InsideCatholic today. Check it out.