More praise for The Most Asked Questions about Faith, Reason, Jesus, and the Bible (@IgnatiusPress; Nov 14th), which I authored with Fr. Robert Spitzer, SJ. “A brilliant refutation of the agnosticism of modern culture. It establishes that God can be known and is known in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. I cannot recommend this text more highly!” — @LarryChappGS22 “Apologist Olson and priest/scientist Spitzer have produced a book that dismantles the doubters, subverts the sentimentalists, and educates the ignorant. Indispensable for all who are truly searching.” — @dlongenecker1 ignatius.com/the-most-asked-…

I first heard @mcbridesworld on @Joshua_Redman's 1993 debut album, and I've enjoyed his exceptional and wide-ranging bass-playing ever since. This 2013 trio date is A-grade all the way, as McBride, the young @christiansands1 (piano), and the prolific @UlyssesOwensJr (drums) are masters of the tradition, incorporating elements of gospel, R&B, and classical into straight-ahead jazz that is thoroughly enjoyable and often joyful. The recording is near perfect. Highly recommended. 9.5/10.

Great questions. The answers are obvious.

A pro-abortion billionaire is being given a prominent award by the @archchicago because he's "well-respected" in Chicago and the Jewish community. In defending the choice, @CardinalBCupich plays the antisemitic card, saying, "Refusing to honor or engage with Jews solely because they hold conflicting religious or political positions can risk mimicking historic patterns of antisemitism through exclusion and bigotry, which, frighteningly, is on the rise." Solely? The sole issue is Mr. Sacks' financial support (reportedly $600,000) of abortion initiatives. Surely there are prominent pro-life Jewish leaders in the Chicago area? Also, what if, theoretically, it were discovered that Mr. Sacks had given money to a pro-MAGA group? Would the antisemitic card still be used?

Just one point, as this sort of Fundie trash talk is a waste of time: My father co-founded a Fundamentalist Bible Chapel when I was five, around the same time that I asked Jesus into my heart to be my Lord and Savior. I attended church 3 or 4 times a week; I attended Bible camp in the summer; I attended all sorts of church-related events, including weekly Bible studies, student prayer meetings, etc., etc. I went to Bible college for two years and earned an Associate's degree, then attended several different Evangelical churches into my mid-20s. Guess how many times I ever said or heard the prayer that Jesus gave the Apostles, telling them: "Pray then like this..."? A 100? 50? 20? 10? Try: Zero. Never. Zilch. Not. One. Time. So, when these sort of people talk about "loving Jesus" and "obeying the Bible" and "doing what Jesus says," I say they are full of ... nonsense. And what's the reason they don't pray the Our Father as Jesus said they should? Because it's too Catholic; it's too rote and repetitive. It's all selective; it's very subjective; it's deeply anti-Catholic. Here I am, around the age of 10, with my parents and my sister (who is now Eastern Orthodox):

I often call her Komrade Kotek, but Tyrannical Tina works just as well. This is damning stuff. It's also not surprising at all. I've heard similar stories from others who have direct experience with her.

I agree, for once, with Ivereigh. There is no excuse for being duped by petulant, narcissistic, arrogant, vindictive, vulgar, facile, cynical, politically obsessed, power-hungry leaders.

I miss these days already. Sure, they were only two days ago, but the rains have now commenced in earnest. This October has been one of the most beautiful I've experienced in my 35 years in Oregon. My first October (in Portland, 1991), it rained for three weeks straight. I almost gave up. But here I am (but not in Portland, thank goodness).

“If you like your health care plan, you can keep it...” President Barack Obama, many times over, 2009-2013 Yeah, character matters. Except when it doesn't. Which is most of the time for most politicians. Including this lying grifter.

Fundie: "See? Catholics exalt Mary over the word of God!" Catholic: "No. We simply recognize that Mary obeyed the word of God and is the mother of the Incarnate Word, Jesus Christ." Fundie: "Ha! See?! You're putting Mary above the word of God!" Catholic: "Uh, no. We're recognizing that Mary, through the power of the Holy Spirit, was pregnant with the Incarnate Word, Jesus Christ, and so she is the mother of God who tells us all, 'Do whatever he tells you.'" Fundie: "So, you worship Mary?! She was just a biological vessel for Jesus?" Catholic: "Um, like your mother was just a biological vessel for you?"

Now that Mr. Obama has graced us with a lesson in aesthetics, perhaps Mr. Clinton can lecture us on marital fidelity.

A perfectly titled album for an @OregonDucksHQ football fan today. Of course, in 1983, it was anything but low for @eltonofficial; it produced several big hits and was his second best-selling album of the Eighties. "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues" is, I think, the best cut on the album, but "Saint" is a quiet stand-out track for me, despite not being a single or a hit. As with Elton's string of great albums in the early 1970s, this was recorded quickly, in just two weeks. Hard to imagine that in this day and age. 8/10.

As someone who knows children who were in that school at that horrific time—thank you, Kaylub, for your heroism. But, also, thank you for your nobility of spirit and humility of heart. God bless you.

“When you buy an automobile,” wrote Archbishop Fulton Sheen in Remade for Happiness (Ignatius Press, 2014; orig. 1946), “the manufacturer gives you a set of instructions.” Those instructions cover tire pressure, the type of engine oil, and proper fuel. “He has nothing against you by giving you these instructions as God had nothing against you in giving you commandments.” God wants us, Sheen wrote, to “get the maximum happiness out of life. Such is the purpose of His commandments.” Unfortunately, we can be tempted to view the commandments of God in skewed and faulty ways. It is common to view the commandments as restrictive and meant to keep us from enjoying life. They are viewed as authoritarian, even as thinly disguised forms of punishment. Another way, common during the time of Christ, is to see the commandments as external measuring sticks that control every aspect of life, with an emphasis on external acts, to the point of losing sight of the intimate, internal goal they point us toward. The first approach emphasizes a false freedom, and the second emphasizes a shallow conformity. The Law and the commandments—all 613 of them—were at the heart of Judaism, and the question put to Jesus, on the surface, was not unusual. Yet that question—“Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?”—was not asked out of desire to learn, but to test. In fact, the word “tested” is the same word used to describe what the devil sought to do when Jesus went into the desert: to tempt him (Matt 4:1). The question was abstract, even academic, but the response by Jesus was direct and personal: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.” In asking the question, the lawyer revealed himself to be duplicitous and devoid of love, while Jesus, true Teacher and Lord, demonstrated his firm love for that man, just as he has demonstrated his love for each of us. The first part of Jesus’ response is from the Shema, the central Jewish declaration of faith: “Hear [shema], O Israel! The Lord is our God, the Lord alone!” (Dt 6:4-9; cf. 11:13-21; Num 15:37-41). Observant Jews recited the Shema each morning and evening, and Jesus would have prayed it regularly. Therefore, those listening would not have disagreed with Jesus’ answer, for to be a Jew meant loving and fearing God, and therefore keeping his commandments (Dt 5:29). However, they surely didn’t expect the second part of his response: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself. The whole law and the prophets depend on these two commandments.” The two loves—of God and of neighbor—can be distinguished, but cannot be separated. They are the two foundations upon which true religion, real communion, and authentic morality are established. To love God with the whole heart, noted St. Cyril of Alexandria, “is the cause of every good”, and so the first commandment “prepares the way for the second and in turn is established by the second.” Loving God involves giving ourselves completely to him and allowing his will to be shown in and through us. “I give you a new commandment,” Jesus told the disciples in the Upper Room, “love one another. As I have loved you, so you also should love one another. This is how all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (Jn 13:34-35; see Catechism, par 1823). Such is real freedom in God, and true conformity to the image of the Son of God (Rom 8:29).

The Tyranny of Trans reigns in Portland. I worked in downtown Portland from 1992 to 1995, when it was weird, curious, and only occasionally ugly. Thirty years later, it's vile and nasty, and occasionally violent.

Oregonians are ruled by losers.

Well, that's damn strange, Komrade Kotek, because none of my three children ever attended a public school, and yet I've had to pay tens (or hundreds) of thousands of dollars for public schools. I cannot wait for you and your thieving kind to be gone.

My wife is married to the guy who wrote the Study Guides for @BishopBarron's "Catholicism" and "Priest, Prophet, King" video series, and he attests to the excellence of those and everything else the bishop has done.

The bicentennial celebration of 1976, and going with my parents when they voted in that year's elections. I also recall my father's disdain for Jimmy Carter—disdain, as it turned out, which was entirely deserved.