Straightaway, my apologies for yesterday’s Mail Chimp broadcast that misspelled the name of the first respondent cited on the 303 Creative case. It is Aubrey Elenis—plus nine other parties. (Respondents are adversaries of the petitioner.) In my hurry to post on the selfsame day of oral arguments before the Court, I wrote Ellis instead of […]

Two Flags; Two Wars; Two poets

Maureen Mullarkey

November 20, 2022

My town hall boasts two flag poles. One flies the requisite Stars and Stripes. But it is the companion pole standing next to it that stirs the local blood. This one flaunts the colors dearest to a well-appointed community that congratulates itself on its civilized progressivism. Ukraine’s bicolor tops the second pole. It is paired […]

Veterans Day, November 11

Maureen Mullarkey

November 11, 2022

Veterans Day has lost its sting. The seismic shock of World War I reverberated through American art and culture in ways forgotten now. Yet every generation needs to stare into the chasm between the cataclysm’s ambition—”the War to end all wars”—and its harrowing reality. Forgetful people embrace the illusion that this time, this battlefield, this […]

Notes On Hell

Maureen Mullarkey

October 24, 2022

Dante, Hell’s topographer, imagined its location and architecture with such specificity that Botticelli could map it in painstaking detail two centuries later. By now, images that stirred Savonarola’s audience to fear of sin have dwindled to plot devices in pulp thrillers and horror movies. Of all impossible thoughts, Hell is the most unthinkable for us […]

Leonardo Boff’s Unseen Hand

Maureen Mullarkey

October 17, 2022

Leonardo Boff is Pope Francis’ unacknowledged point man on the environmental creed. His name and work were not mentioned anywhere in Laudato Sí, not even in the footnotes. The omission was no oversight. Boff works most effectively as the man behind the curtain. He is the wizard of liberation theology’s protective metamorphosis—chameleon-like—into climate justice. Forget […]

Thoughts This Yom Kippur

Maureen Mullarkey

October 4, 2022

Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, began Tuesday, October 4, just before sundown and will last until nightfall this evening. This Day of Atonement is marked by fasting for twenty five hours, extended synagogue services, and penitential liturgies. It is a day to afflict the soul with recognition of one’s sins, with […]