(1) Catholic Information Center is hosting Yuval Levin from 6 PM onwards tonight as part of its monthly CIC Young Professionals Happy Hour. The name of Levin’s speech is “Beyond the Welfare State,” and CIC has issued an open invitation to “Gather the Jews,” a the Jewish counterpart to CIC Young Professionals, and is offering kosher plates to try and encourage a solid Catholic and Jewish turnout. These events are always packed to the gills, although most people don’t get there until closer to 7 (when the talk actually begins). Levin is Jewish, but his wife and kids (if I’m not mistaken) are Catholic, and he’s one of the authors thanked in the front of Robbie George’s Embryo: A Defense of Human Life. It sounds like a pretty fascinating event, and CIC’s previous happy hours have been outstanding: Fr. Paul Scalia, Hadley Arkes, etc.
(2) If you can’t make it to that, perhaps you’d rather watch Jeopardy! My friend Matt DeTura has been on the show this week. He’s won three days in a row, tonight being his fourth. He taped the episodes two months ago, but has given absolutely no indication how well he’s done (if anything, his non-chalance made it seem like he would have lost by now). He’s Georgetown’s Ken Jenning. On a personal note, he tried for a while to get a friend of mine and I to do Monday night trivia at a local bar, but we couldn’t because of class. You can bet I’m kicking myself on that one. As a new lawyer, I’m sure Matt has some compunctions about the whole notion of Double Jeopardy!, but once he discovers he can get rid of student loan debt by knowing which bill or coin has a president’s estate on the back of it, I’m sure he’ll get past it. (The answer is the nickel, which features Monticello, and knowing this won him Game 1).
(3) Let it be known that Cardinal Burke is the only St. Louis Cardinal I will ever support.