Category Archives: Philosophy

a call for help, a plea for sanity

I need a word. Perhaps I’ll call on the verbivores to help, but you, gentle reader, might know of one already. Here’s the definition: “To become what one ostensibly opposes, often in the course of that opposition.” It may sound like hypocrisy, a la “if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s intolerance,” but this new thing needs an element of menace, of tactics employed to win the battle. Think of Serenity‘s Operative, who hunted down sinners by commiting every sin he ascribed to them.
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brother astronomer

What do you call a Jesuit brother who was trained at MIT, splits his time between Italy and the (oxymoronically named) Vatican Observatory in Arizona, and wrote a well-received amateur astronomy book?  You call him Guy Consolmagno, apparently, or Brother Guy.  I just heard a fascinating interview with him on CBC’s Quirks and Quarks podcast, and his views on science and religion are well worth hearing.  I just wish we could hear even-handed ideas like his from the Vatican more often.