Bracket Time

Since I usually fail so miserably in picking my bracket for the NCAA basketball tournament, I’ve decided to try a new approach this year. For March Madness 2004, my bracket is as haphazard as ever. With more upsets than a Benny Hinn crusade, my bracket is sure be at the bottom of ESPN.com’s Tournament Challenge. … Read more

Bits and Pieces

Much to my chagrin, I’m always finding out that I’m more influenced by our culture than I thought. Here’s a case in point—last night while reading Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground, I kept getting distracted by length of all the paragraphs—some spanning more than a page. We’re conditioned by a number of influences to partake of … Read more

Cosmetics

I’ve made some changes to the site layout this weekend. After much internal debate, TruePravda has decided to go 3-column (cue the Jefferson’s theme “Mooovin on up…”). I’ve checked the layout in Firefox and IE 6.0 and it looks OK, but with CSS layouts, you never know. If things on the site look really convoluted … Read more

East-West

Though there’s widespread allegations of heavy handedness in the election process, ex-KGB man Vladimir Putin won the Russian elections with 69% of the vote (much less that Saddam Hussein’s last margin of victory…). Was the election rigged? It’s quite possible. Did it matter to much if it was? Maybe not: “We voted for Putin because … Read more

Weekend Stops

Since my basketball team doesn’t fancy road games this year, I’ve done a little blog reading this weekend. Here are some posts of interest: Matt Hall has a report from some friends in Spain who were all but too close to the attacks this week. The Discoshaman has a though-provoking post on the morality of … Read more

Distance and Postmodernity

Mars Hill Audio has made available an excellent essay [PDF] by theologian R.R. Reno entitled “Postmodern Irony and Petronian Humanism.” In the essay, Reno identifies two of the more prominent elements of postmodern culture as fear of authority and flight from truth. These elements serve to distance people from any serious engagement with truth: Nonetheless, … Read more

Powerless Pledges?

The latest attack on abstinence education comes in the form of a new study that says people who made “virginity pledges” until marriage are just as likely to have STD’s as those who did not make them. The New York Times report on the story makes it sound almost dangerous to make such a pledge: … Read more

Nazis at the Oscars, Redux

Last week I posted regarding the Academy Award tribute given to Leni Riefenstahl, who made Hitler’s documentary/propoganda piece Triumph of the Will. Not all were happy with my post. Reader Jonah commented: Leni Reifenstahl was neither an anti-Semite nor a supporter of Hitler (any more than you were required to be a supporter of Hitler … Read more

A Hidden Shame?

Pia de Solenni’s article in NRO today had a startling statistic of which I was heretofore unware: “Approximately 40 percent of American women under 45 have had at least one abortion.” Does anyone know if this is really true? I’ve heard numbers of this kind for the former Soviet Union, but I didn’t realize it … Read more

Teenage Adults

On the heels of Terrence O. Moore’s superb article, “Wimps and Barbarians,” is Joseph Epstein’s piece in the latest Weekly Standard entitled “The Perpetual Adolescent,” which examines the disappearance of adulthood in America. The article is quite eye-opening: The old hunger for life, the eagerness to get into the fray, has been replaced by an … Read more