The Northern Line

March 7, 2013

Yesterday, my aunt and uncle (young 80-somethings) were traveling on London’s Northern Line. A guitar wielding busker boarded the train. …

Tearing The Whig Off

August 9, 2012

UPDATE, August 11: It appears historian John Fea impresses Americans United with his scholarship: …Jon (sic) Fea, author of Was …

Rebuttal: Actually Setting The Record Straight

August 2, 2012

Americans United for Separation of Church and State has posted its view championing the “free exercise” constitutional acceptability of the …

Expat or Immigrant?

July 11, 2012

Sub-header of what looks like it will be an intriguing piece by one Ritwik Deo, in the Guardian: The British …

Starting To Think The New York Times Dislikes Catholics

June 2, 2012

Last weekend, the New York Times Editorial Board treated us to its justification for the Obama administration’s “HHS Mandate”. The …

Stop “DREAM”-ing And Embrace Reality

May 7, 2012

CNN headline to a piece by Ruben Navarrette Jr.: Will parties keep hope live for immigrant children? Yours truly feels …

Asma al-Assad: Definitely No Longer In Vogue

April 29, 2012

Vogue is being hammered from one end of the web to the other for deleting its (ridiculous, even at the …

Olana Overlooking The Hudson

March 23, 2012

Olana: the home and grounds of 19th century landscapes artist Frederic Church. Yours truly grabbed these photos of the house …

Why It Is A “Free Exercise” Issue

February 12, 2012

USA Today’s “Faith and Reason” blog: When it comes to mandatory contraception coverage under the Affordable Care Act, the nation’s …

It Must Be Christmas-time Again

December 24, 2011

Tim Shah and Tom Farr, in the NYT: …”religion-specific values” have driven the most consequential American political debates for over …

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This writer sure as heck doesn't know everything, so disagreement is expected. For up to 90 days after a post, comments may be offered. (After that, well, that's that. Blogs are also about timeliness, remember. If one has to draw a line somewhere, 3 months sounds reasonable.)

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"But we love the Old Travelers. We love to hear them prate and drivel and lie. We can tell them the moment we see them. They always throw out a few feelers; they never cast themselves adrift till they have sounded every individual and know that he has not traveled. Then they open their throttle valves, and how they do brag, and sneer, and swell, and soar, and blaspheme the sacred name of Truth! Their central idea, their grand aim, is to subjugate you, keep you down, make you feel insignificant and humble in the blaze of their cosmopolitan glory! They will not let you know anything. They sneer at your most inoffensive suggestions; they laugh unfeelingly at your treasured dreams of foreign lands; they brand the statements of your traveled aunts and uncles as the stupidest absurdities; they deride your most trusted authors and demolish the fair images they have set up for your willing worship with the pitiless ferocity of the fanatic iconoclast! But still I love the Old Travelers. I love them for their witless platitudes, for their supernatural ability to bore, for their delightful asinine vanity, for their luxuriant fertility of imagination, for their startling, their brilliant, their overwhelming mendacity!"

Mark Twain, in "The Innocents Abroad."

1 In this actual world, a churchless community, a community where men have abandoned and scoffed at or ignored their religious needs, is a community on the rapid down grade.

2 Church work and church attendance mean the cultivation of the habit of feeling responsibility for others.

3 There are enough holidays for most of us. Sundays differ from other holidays in the fact that there are fifty-two of them every year. Therefore, on Sundays go to church.

4 Yes, I know all the excuses. I know that one can worship the Creator in a grove of trees, or by a running brook, or in a man's own house as well as in church. But I also know, as a matter of cold fact, that the average man does not thus worship.

5 He may not hear a good sermon at church. He will hear a sermon by a good man who, whith his wife, is engaged all of the week in making hard lives a little easier.

6 He will listen to and take part in reading some beautiful passages from the Bible. And if he is not familiar with the Bible he has suffered a loss.

7 He will take part in the singing of some good hymns.

8 He will meet and nod or speak to good, quiet neighbors. He will come away feeling a little more charitable toward all the world, even toward those excessively foolish young men who regard churchgoing as a soft performance.

9 I advocate a man's joining in church work for the sake of showing his faith by his works.

	Expatriate Archive C… on Expat or Immigrant?
	Robert on Starting To Think The New York…
	rob on Starting To Think The New York…
	dougindeap on “Americans United”…
	justturnright on Starting To Think The New York…

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Atlantic Crossings

~ Between the Hudson Highlands and the South of England...

Category Archives: Culture

The Northern Line

Tearing The Whig Off

Rebuttal: Actually Setting The Record Straight

Expat or Immigrant?

Starting To Think The New York Times Dislikes Catholics

Stop “DREAM”-ing And Embrace Reality

Asma al-Assad: Definitely No Longer In Vogue

Olana Overlooking The Hudson

Why It Is A “Free Exercise” Issue

It Must Be Christmas-time Again

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