In September, British author and journalist Douglas Murray spoke at The New Criterion’s sixth annual Circle Lecture. His subject was the phrase “banality of evil,” first used by political scientist and historian Hannah Arendt. Murray, who is known for saying exactly what he’s thinking and saying it with razor-sharp clarity, said the phrase has a problem: it is both a piece of lazy thinking and “built on a foundation that is fundamentally rotten.” It’s not the banality of evil we should consider, he says, but its profundity.
At Front Porch Republic, Jesse Russell reviews James Matthew Wilson’s new poetry collection, St. Thomas and the Forbidden Birds. He has high praise indeed, saying Wilson “crafts a moving vision of everyday life in twenty-first century America.”
It turns out that the most accurate political poll was the Real Clear Politics National Average, which was not a poll but an aggregator of polls. It's consistently done better than any individual poll, and it was trending toward the Republicans the week before the election. The New York Times had a Halloween surprise, attacking the poll aggregator as biased because it didn't "weight" the results. Wikipedia followed suit and actually removed the aggregator's listing. And guess what turned out to be the most accurate of the polls and aggregators? Yep, Real Clear Politics. Since the election, Wikipedia, that bastion of freedom of information, has quietly restored the deleted site. The Free Press has the story.
As long as I’ve been attending church, I’ve heard a lot about spiritual gifts – how to discern them, how to know which kind of gift you have, which ones applied in early church times and which ones still apply today. Tim Challies has an entirely different take on the subject, and describes the spiritual gift inventory he believes in.
More Good Reads
Life and Culture
Children deserve Shakespeare, not teachers who promote ignorance – Henry Oliver at The Common Reader.
Empty Words: Against Artificial Language – Matthew Miller at Mere Orthodoxy.
Israel
Contextualized and Decontextualized: Israel’s Fight for Truth – Michael Oren at Clarity.
Faith
Christ versus Christianity: A Paradox There from the Beginning – Andrew Klavan at The New Jerusalem.
The Harvest is Plentiful, and the Workers Won’ Stay – A Life Overseas.
British Stuff
The Church of England has to rebuild trust – Marcus Walker at The Critic Magazine.
Crowland Abbey – Annie Whitehead at Casting Light upon the Shadow.
Poetry
A Review of O in the Air: Poems by Maryann Corbett – Steve Knepper at New Verse Review.
Have you forgotten yet? – poem by Siegfried Sassoon at Rabbit Room Poetry.
“Poetry,” poem by Marianne Moore – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.
American Stuff
Tales from the road: A visit to boyhood home of KIA soldier – John Banks at Civil War Blog.
How Helene Gave Way to ‘Hurricane Snafu’ in the Carolinas – James Varney, Real Clear Investigations.
News Media
How Podcasts Swayed the 2024 Election – Aiden McLaughlin at The Spectator.
History
Joan of Arc’s Grief – David Bannon at Front Porch Republic.
Scarlet Thread – Keith and Kristyn Getty and Zach Williams
Painting: Twilight: Interior (Reading by Lamplight), oil on canvas (1909) by George Clausen.
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