The Eagle & Child

I haven’t been following this Mosque on Ground Zero business very closely (is it actually on ground zero or near ground zero? It seems to depend on who you ask), but theologian John Stackhouse has some good things to say about it, if you’re at all interested. From his first post on the subject: If [...]

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I read a remarkable essay by William T. Cavanaugh for my Ethics class: “Discerning: Politics and Reconciliation“.  As it happens, that entire essay is available for preview at Google Books (it’s found in The Blackwell Companion to Christian Ethics).  That’s not the best format for reading the essay, but it’s the only online version I [...]

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Took my passport application to the local Passport Canada service centre.  They said it would take 4 weeks plus mailing time to get my passport if I submitted it through them.  That’s cutting it too close.  They told me the application process would go significantly faster if I took my application directly to the processing [...]

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My ongoing responsibilities: Family/Home Legal assistanting Church work Seminary course I’m not a multi-tasker, so these have been interesting times.  The seminary work has been the biggest stress.  I just can’t seem to find the time or discipline to read when I’m awake enough to be fully aware of the text I’m reading.  I have [...]

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There is an interesting discussion going on at Scot McKnight’s blog about whether or not Fair Trade is a good thing.  Naturally, there are good (non-self-interested) arguments for both sides in the comment (Scot is now blogging at beliefnet.com and I haven’t quite figured out how to get both the full text of the post [...]

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Look like a slightly stronger Conservative minority government on the way.  I’m OK with that. But I’m looking once again at the popular vote statistics and the numbers are out of whack.  I know I do this every election, but bear with me. Currently a party wins seats in the house of commons based on [...]

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It’s funny ’cause it’s true.  I’ve been thinking about this $700,000,000,000 since it was announced.  Where did this come from?  Why do the people who caused the crisis in the first place get such a bailout?  And where was this $700,000,000,000 when Bono & Co. were working on Third World debt relief? Why should the [...]

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From the Center for Public Justice (via): The view seems to be that in public life we are essentially identical and must be treated the same. No business may refuse to serve us.  And since government must serve all equally, private groups supported by government also must serve everyone equally. But this public conformity concept [...]

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John Stackhouse says it better than I did: Mr. Duceppe seems to be unhappy about people running for office who “share an ideology, a narrow ideology.” But surely most people who enter politics do have one or another ideology, and of a quite particular sort, that motivates them so strongly that they undergo the rigors [...]

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Which means I’ll soon have my hackles up about ridiculous statements about faith and religion from politicians and the media. I noted this story on CBC Radio One’s noon news: “Quebec Tory candidate is Opus Dei member” (Opus Dei is a conservative Catholic organization, caricatured in Dan Brown’s fictional Da Vinci Code).  Why is this [...]

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