A Random Assortment

From facebook: "Reinhold Niebuhr was asked which passage of scripture he would chose if he could only save that one passage from a cataclysmic destruction. This was his choice and his rationale. From Reinhold Niebuhr's personal papers, Library of Congress."

~ PAL, wise, as ever, on online classes:

But Plato never shows Socrates talking from a stage—much less from a screen—to a thousand or more.  In Plato’s dialogues, Socrates is in a particular practical situation or predicament, and he’s challenged or called to account by both his friends and adversaries.  The conversation could only develop among a very small group of people who know each other and share very real concerns in common.
...
But why watch Sandel at all?  If “homework” is watching Sandel, then when are students supposed to read great or “real” books on justice?  Why not read Sandel or (to tell the truth), better, Plato or Aristotle or Locke or Kant or Tocqueville, and then use “class time” to discuss the reading?

~  I would love to teach in this program.

~ I'm nervous about the Postal Service running out of money. I'm nervous about them selling off their lovely buildings. I'm nervous about the Post Office starting a clothing line. There's really so much to be nervous about when it comes to the Post Office these days.

~ Only in Texas:

At the State Capitol here, a legal concealed gun is the equivalent of an E-ZPass.

...

... of the 181 members of the State House and Senate, dozens have concealed-carry permits and routinely have their weapons with them in the building, current and former lawmakers said. Jerry Patterson, the state land commissioner and a former senator who wrote the concealed handgun law, put the number at around 35 legislators. ...

“I’d say half the House and half the Senate,” she said. “There’s a couple who, I used to say, their desks would qualify as a gun show.”

~  Best. Obituary. Ever.:

Harry Weathersby Stamps, ladies’ man, foodie, natty dresser, and accomplished traveler, died on Saturday, March 9, 2013.
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... the family asks that in honor of Harry that you write your Congressman and ask for the repeal of Day Light Saving Time. Harry wanted everyone to get back on the Lord’s Time. 

 (Everything in between is fabulous, too. I would have liked to have met this guy.)

~ From Pope Francis's first homily in the Sistine Chapel:

When we walk without the Cross, when we build without the Cross, and when we profess Christ without the Cross, we are not disciples of the Lord. We are worldly, we are bishops, priests, cardinals, Popes, but not disciples of the Lord.

I would like that all of us, after these days of grace, might have the courage – the courage – to walk in the presence of the Lord, with the Cross of the Lord: to build the Church on the Blood of the Lord, which is shed on the Cross, and to profess the one glory, Christ Crucified. In this way, the Church will go forward.