Category: Uncategorized

Of late the Vatican has been putting online these really cool virtual tours of different Vatican sites.  Here is the one for the Sistine Chapel.  You can click and drag around for a 360 view and zoom in and out.  Super cool.

Reminds me of a few remarks by Pope Benedict (back when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger):

“The only really effective apologia for Christianity comes down to two arguments, namely, the saints the Church has produced and the art which has grown in her womb.”

And also this remark on Bach:

“… For me an unforgettable experience was the Bach concert that Leonard Bernstein conducted in Munich after the sudden death of Karl Richter.  I was sitting next to the Lutheran Bishop Hanselmann. When the last note of one of the great Thomas-Kantor-Cantatas triumphantly faded away, we looked at each other spontaneously and right then we said: “Anyone who has heard this, knows that the faith is true”. The music had such an extraordinary force of reality that we realized, no longer by deduction, but by the impact on our hearts, that it could not have originated from nothingness, but could only have come to be through the power of the Truth that became real in the composer’s inspiration. “

A Newsweek story here on the death of liberal arts education.  Not really telling us anything new about education trends – particularly in a time of severe budget cuts.  But still good that the issue is getting some attention from mainstream media sources.

Here is an interesting short essay on the subject by Brian Leiter, with a good number of thoughtful, substantive replies.

Jonathan Dancy on the Late Late Show.

… is interviewed on the Late Late Show here. It’s pretty funny. And what’s more, her father-in-law, the philosopher Jonathan Dancy, apparently will be interviewed on the same show tonight, following Letterman. Don’t miss it!

[from Brian Leiter’s blog.]