Ah, ha…gotcha! You thought this post was going to be about politics, I’ll bet, but it is really about something a bit more…mathematical. Back in school, you were probably taught a few easy tricks to test for divisibility of one number by another number. For instance, if the last digit is… Continue reading What Divides Us
Starting on the octave before Christmas Day, December 17, the Catholic Church, in Her, Liturgy of the Hours (The Divine Office), shifts to a series of what are known as, “O Antiphons,” because each stanza starts with “O.” The popular English Christmas hymn, “Oh, Come, Oh Come, Emmanuel,” is based on the… Continue reading O Adonai. Thoughts for December 18
The New Testament reading at Mass, today (Friday, Nov. 27, 2020, the last full liturgical day of 2020) was a reading from the book of Revelation, chapter 20, and it got me to thinking… Back in the late 1960’s and through the 1970’s there was a sort of cottage… Continue reading The Mark of the Beast and The Great Eraser
Sometimes, Bible-only apologetics just goes wrong. Now, I won’t swear that the following incident actually happened and the guy sitting next to me on the plane won’t swear that it actually happened, either. In fact, I am pretty sure that there is a basement office somewhere in the Federal Aviation Administration building in… Continue reading You want proof? Okay, I’ll give you (a) proof
Part of my research interests is in statistical mechanics-the study of how the physical properties of matter are governed by the statistical properties of single or ensemble collections of atoms and molecules. I suppose, then, it is no coincidence that when I began work on how humor is processed in… Continue reading The N-Grams of History
I note with some alarm the rapid rise in COVID-19 infections across the country. Certainly, infections were expected to re-assert themselves as countries re-opened their economies after the recent world-wide lockdown, but the rate of growth of new cases in the U. S. is almost unequalled in any other part of the world.… Continue reading A Pox on Both Their Houses
The Parable of the Mote and the Beam. Domenico Fetti “That person, over there, they aren’t like me. They shouldn’t enjoy the same advantages as I do. In fact, the courts will probably agree with me, so, why not oppress them?” You, probably, thought I was talking about systemic racism, the… Continue reading Jots, Tittles, and Beams
I once had a conversation with a former professional clown. He told me that the reason he quit was because every time he went on stage, a voice in the back of his head kept saying, “I gotta be funny; I gotta be funny.” It wasn’t so much that he hated being a… Continue reading I think, therefore, I blog?
I. Introduction At the blog of Fr. John Zuhlsdorf (Fr. Z’s Blog), several posts have been made regarding certain bishops restricting the reception of Holy Communion to only Communion in the hand during the COVID-19 pandemic. One exasperated commenter wrote (I will leave out his name, since I do not know if he wants… Continue reading Which is safer: Communion on the Tongue or in the Hand: a theoretical investigation
The Visitation by Mariotto Albertinelli Today, May 13, on the Catholic calendar, is the optional memorial of Our Lady of Fatima. I don’t want to discuss the many theories about such things as whether or not the Third Secret entrusted by of Our Lady of Fatima has been completely revealed.][1] Rather, since it… Continue reading The Annunciation of St. Elizabeth?
