Earlier this week, I finished reading the recent Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation from Pope Francis entitled Amoris Laetitia (“The Joy of Love”). Subsequently, on various news outlets and social media, I have seen a number of so-called “summaries” of Amoria Laetitia that can at best be described as grossly inadequate and ungenerous readings of it and, at worst, as…
Read MoreThe photo to your left is of a sock-monkey, hung by a noose from one of the windows on the campus of Rhodes College this week. It should go without saying, I hope, that not only is the sock-monkey itself a manifestly racist symbol (echoing the colonialist project of comparing blacks to apes in order to justify their…
Read MoreI’ll just assume that many non-Catholics, like myself, have absolutely no idea what authority Pope Francis’ Amoris Laetitia exerts (or exhorts) as a “Post-Synodal Apostolic Exhortation.” So, first, a primer on Papal texts. An apostolic exhortation is but one of many different types of communications from the Pope to the community of clerics and laypersons that constitute…
Read MoreThere are so many things about Netflix’s original comedy series Grace and Frankie (now in its second season) to recommend it, not least of which is its pitch-perfect gallows humor. Orbiting around the decidedly 21st century lives of four septuagenarians– the eponymous Grace (Jane Fonda) and Frankie (Lily Tomlin) and their now ex-husbands, Saul (Sam Waterston)…
Read MoreOnly a couple of weeks ago, I noted on this blog (in “Philosophy’s Gatekeepers”) that it had been 190 days since the last major breaking-news story about sexual harassment or assault in professional Philosophy. That was a noteworthy fact, And then, last Friday, the Thomas Pogge story broke. I’ll just direct readers to the news coverage…
Read MoreLike many people, I’ve found myself referring to “Trump supporters” in the last several weeks as a conceptually coherent, identifiable category of voters/citizens and, correspondingly, referring to the things “they” do as the actions of that collective. And every single time, I feel the words slipping, grinding, and catching, as if the very transmission system…
Read MoreAs a general rule, I’m not a fan of the contemporary obsession with gerunding (#seewhatIdidthere), i.e., turning words that were perfectly fine being nouns, perfectly fine accepting the assistance of helping verbs to make sense of some phenomenon, into stand-alone verbs themselves. My allergy to this practice is, for the most part, a consequence of countless, maddening…
Read MoreI got behind a bit on this #BloggingEveryDayFebruary project, so I’m playing catch up right now. If I’m being completely honest, I knew this would happen at some point during the month. Blogging every day is hard. It doesn’t take a lot of time to write a post each day, but it takes a lot…
Read MoreI do not enjoy horror films. Not even a little bit. They genuinely terrify me. I hate them, I won’t voluntarily go to them, and no amount of cajoling or ridicule will change my mind about that. Now, I should note here at the start that I don’t believe that ghosts or spirits or devils…
Read More
Recent Comments