A Report from ChesterCon

Not here, but over at The Unknown Poet's blog.

It sounds hot there again this year. I hope the first-timers found the fans kept hidden in the basement last night.

Let's all turn off our A/C in an act of solidarity. Heh.

--

Anger Online

Matthew Anger, editor of the recently published Belloc anthology The Eyewitness, has been blogging for a year and a half at Glendalough: Books, Philosophy and Culture.



--

Man Night

My friend, Marcel, is a proponent of what he calls "Man Night". On these nights we can gather, with no gurlz alowd, in a backyard or a bowling alley. We can get a bit loud and need not pay excessive attention to manners. Throughout the night, with beverages and games for a framework, there is plenty of conversation.

Chesterton wrote about the Man Night in What's Wrong with the World, though he referred to it as comradeship: "No one has even begun to understand comradeship who does not accept with it a certain hearty eagerness in eating, drinking, or smoking, an uproarious materialism which to many women appears only hoggish. You may call the thing an orgy or a sacrament; it is certainly an essential."

And again, in response to a woman asking why should not there be this comradeship between the sexes, G.K. wrote: "Because if I were to treat you for two minutes like a comrade you would turn me out of the house."

--

Marcel is burdened with a Masters degree in theology, and he is a director of campus ministry at St Mary's next to Texas A&M University. He writes a high-quality blog called Aggie Catholics. After a few more Man Nights I'm sure we'll be seeing him quote Chesterton and Belloc over there.

--

Patrick Deneen: What I Saw in America

Here is another blog named after a book by G.K. Chesterton: Patrick Deneen's What I Saw in America. Deneen is an associate professor of government at Georgetown University. At this time when the blogosphere offers so much crud to sift through, Patrick Deneen's writing is high quality.

--

What's Wrong With Jeff Culbreath?

Blogger and back-to-the-lander Jeff Culbreath's recent post, What's Wrong With G.K. Chesterton, caught my attention. "Gout" says one, "high cholesterol" says another, "his life was too short" says a third. These we might agree upon; Jeff takes issue not with these, but with G.K.'s defense of the common man and democracy. The Regular Joes of Chesterton's time probably had a bit more common sense than those of today. But if I were to ask the first ten RJs for their honest to God opinions, then I firmly believe that the bulk of those opinions would be in conformity with the democracy of the dead. The problem today is not a rule by the people, but the sensitivity that so many feel: that Truth should be quieted so as not to offend any person.

On another note, I noticed a link on Culbreath's page to something called What's Wrong with the World (www.whatswrongwiththeworld.net). This new spot on the web is a group blog edited by Paul J. Cella.

--