At Hambone’s recommendation I watched “Yours, Mine, and Ours” (1968) with Lucille Ball. He recommended it after I shared Wood’s article with him, whose title I stole for thi…| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
Traveling this weekend, so regrettably didn’t attend a TLM, but I am looking forward to going back next weekend. However, I am grateful for the week-over-week contrast between the hope-to-make-my-home TLM and my home-away-from-home NO. The analogy came to mind about a forest. When a forest has a fire, or is cleared, and you let … Continue reading DLVII – Mass Appeal| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
A law that capped interest at 100% (even 200%) of principle would so radically alter the economy and lead to human flourishing that it could be forgiven for still being usurious. If I lent you $10, and the most I could ever expect back from you was $20 (or even $30), how much peace would … Continue reading (h) – Imagine, If You Will| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
I had two new experiences this week. I’m going to talk about them in reverse order because one matters more than the other. I used ChatGPT for the first time this week. I have a new laptop since my old one broke, and by ‘new’ I mean a refurbished old one. It’s a Mac, and … Continue reading DLVI – Reflecting On Two New Experiences| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
Life is worth living. Life is for seasons. Each season casts the previous in a new light. Each season makes us long for the next. Every season has it’s place in life. And the dynamic dance of…| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
I was thinking about a phrase from a talk, which I wrote about recently. “Hope, which does not obtain“. It’s interesting that hope does not obtain. It’s a dissatisfaction economy of spiritual gifts. The gifts of the holy spirit? or maybe theological virtues? are Faith, Hope, and Charity (love). And I realized these all fail … Continue reading DLIV – Unobtanium| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
I introduced an idea in my previous post which I haven’t been able to stop thinking about. It’s the idea that holiness is not a ‘skill’ that can be strengthened, but a state…| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
Economics is complicated because we are dealing with multiple variables measured by dollars. The Island of Yap uses giant stone toruses (Rai Stones) as currency. They are so big they can’t be…| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
There’s a fallacy I may have described here which I call the “Dow fifty-thousand” fallacy, so named for a book written in the late 90’s predicting that the Dow Jones Industr…| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
6 posts published by Scoot during December 2020| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
I think intellectualism is a great danger in our modern era. It’s a natural reflex–holiness is hard to understand, so we want to do something, and a fairly easy thing to do is read and by reading and knowing a great many things about the Church we consider ourselves holy. But sinners and saints both … Continue reading DLII – Contra Intellectualism| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
“But Scoot,” he says, “if you’re going to complain about the discourse on substack why don’t you just participate in the discourse on substack? You’re not NOT participating, you’re just leaving the room and being an imperious nag here instead of there.” I do have my reasons. Allow me to list them. My one caveat–the … Continue reading (g) – The Accuser| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
Substack discourse feeds my wordpress again, sorry everyone. Today the discourse I am noticing is about parish hospitality. I have seen a couple appeals from folks saying “SAY HI! we sit next to people for YEARS and don’t know their names!” There’s three things I would like to say about this. AMDG| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
Authority is probably the single biggest hangup most protestants have about the Catholic Church. This post is basically me thinking out loud about how to confront that argument. It’s prima fa…| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
This post was originally going to focus on teachings of Hell and damnation, inspired by the many confused and rightly terrified commenters on Ed Feser’s article on his blog and Kristor’…| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
10 posts published by Scoot during April 2020| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
(h/t to Wood) When I was in highschool I read the book “world war z” which is a faux documentary about the zombie apocalypse. It was a gripping, riveting, real book. I remember it describing the ve…| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
I have a copy of TAN books’ “Manual for Men” which is based on/repackaging Bishop Olmstead’s apostolic exhortation “Into the Breach”. I picked it up because I fi…| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
We’re continuing mixing ideas until my head gets on straight. God of Good Days and of Bad Days It’s been brought home to me that the point of prayer is not to ask for only good days. An…| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
Part of the problem of being plugged into the Catholic Community of Substack is that I see a lot of things that annoy me. And because I am a sinful man, I indulge these annoyances at my peril. This…| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
Why do I write? I grew up around people who didn’t really care what I think. There are some people I have never convinced of anything. If I told them the sky was blue, they’d ask for so…| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
2 posts published by Scoot during September 2025| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
There is no unifying thread. Sometimes I feel the desire to be more unapologetic. I just don’t feel like there’s a lot I can be unapologetic about. It’s a question of choosing wha…| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
I already published this but accidentally took it offline when futzing about on the mobile app. if you’ve received this a second time, I apologize. I had some fun on Substack the other day im…| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
10 posts published by Scoot during August 2025| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
Listening to a talk shared with me by a dear friend. “Hope, which does not obtain.” That is to say, Hope is a perpetual reaching and never grasping. Well–no, that’s not quit…| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
At some point, governing terminates in an act of authority which makes no apology for itself. We can dress up the song and dance all we want with procedure, tradition, bureaucracy. But eventually, …| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
AD MAIOREM DEI GLORIAM| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
10 posts published by Scoot during May 2025| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
So in my previous musings on the stock market and my subsequent addendum, I walked through a scenario where Rai Stones were used as “Equity” and Fish were used as currency. This helped …| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
What follows is a lightly edited version of a comment I made on my previous article (here), in response to commenter Sally Eggman. First: Hat-tip to Sally for going toe-to-toe with me on these theo…| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
I have gotten into no less than three apologetical discussions with or about protestants recently, with a focus on Scripture. Because I am not able to articulate my thoughts fully in those conversa…| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
Protestantism and Nominalism go together because they call themselves Christian and aren’t. (I think protestantism =\= christian is a new but not unreasonable red line. What is christianity but God…| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
God bless Pope Leo XIV! We have a Pope! The flurry of activity surrounding his ascension has been so beautifully Catholic. Hambone and I were trying to figure him out in the hours after the announc…| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
There’s been a lot on my mind lately, and I’ve opened wordpress to write something, and the words wouldn’t come. So today instead of writing a lot about a few topics, I’m go…| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
There’s a point I arrived at in my previous article which I would like to expand upon. This is the comparative utility of money and resources. In that article, I talked about how the corporat…| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth
There’s an interesting mix of things happening in my brain but it all converged on this moment. I’ll tell you the moment, and then backtrack. A friend texted me concerned about the news…| Times-Dispatch of Vichy Earth