Archives for January 2010

“Jesus went home, and once more such a crowd collected that they could not even have a meal. When his relatives heard of this, they set out to take charge of him, convinced he was out of his mind.”

Very blunt, very humble, very graphic confession regarding one man’s porn addiction here, on the sports blog Deadspin.

“Anonymous, a porn addict, is a longtime Deadspin reader and commenter who will soon enter the same sex-rehabilitation facility where Tiger Woods is reportedly receiving treatment. Here, Anonymous explains his own addiction and why Tiger’s treatment is no PR ploy…”

It’s not easy reading; the guy is in a dark, dark place. But he wants to get out.

I used one of these at the Smokey Point Costco earlier this week, and it’s awesome! I’ve never been a big fan of air dryers before, but they’ve really nailed the technology down on this one. I say we get these installed in the Korrektiv bathrooms. The Men’s, anyway.

Fr. Longenecker traces some interesting degrees of separation and talks about how Updike is too dirty in a despairing way that Percy is not.

This could be examined more critically, but I think there’s some truth to the comparison. The crux of the difference, perhaps, is the incarnation and differing responses to it … and something about the Protestant/Catholic divide. I have a fantastic notion that Updike would have become the greatest novelist ever, instead of merely the enormous prolific talent that he undeniably was, had he just followed Percy down the Catholic path of sacrament and blood.

Over at Asylum, there’s a porn infographic full of numbers presented without substantiation, so take this for what it’s worth. But I had no idea – China as the world’s largest source of porn revenue, followed by South Korea and Japan? The three of them accounting for nearly 75% worldwide? The U.S. a distant fourth? Wonders never cease. Is it just because we’re all getting it for free on the Internet these days in the States?

Big game for the Chargers today. But for the Cheetah’s plane, it was business as usual, flying over the stadium when the boys are in town. Click to enlarge if you must.

…from New Blackfriars Review:

“In this these stories belong to the quest for an earthy Catholicism, an appropriation in art and literature of the great central truth that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

Do go read the whole thing. And then maybe buy the book!

“”I am a former school teacher, I have a masters degree and two BAs, and I think the internet is making people stupid.”

Who knew “the Porcupine” was so prodigious?

Joseph O’Brien has written a very fine piece in OSV about the little guy with the big chip on his shoulder. I couldn’t be more pleased.

To celebrate, I’m going a-begging again. Let’s try this Kickstarter thing one more time, shall we? Cheers!

“But of course, one must take ‘sent to try us’ the right way. God has not been trying an experiment on my faith or love in order to find out their quality. He knew it already. It was I who didn’t. In this trial He makes us occupy the dock, the witness box, and the bench all at once. He always knew that my temple was a house of cards. His only way of making me realize the fact was to knock it down.”

– C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed

Okay, so we’ve all seen Avatar, right? *raises hand, weeps into the silence* So we all know just how much those little tendril things that the Na’vi use to log into soul trees and other creatures and such look like fiber-optic cables, right? And we’ve all read the deleted sex scene script, right? And we all know how much of the movie’s appeal is due to the astonishing use of technology to create something that resembles a heightened-reality version of nature, right?

So can you really blame me for thinking of Grandmaster Cameron when I read this piece on porn’s adoption of both 3-D and streaming content to your personal mobile device?

Well, yes, yes you can. But I still think I’m on to something.

Thanks to the Manhattan Lawyer for the tip!