"Typical observers of [Big Mountain Jesus] are more interested in giving it a high five or adorning it in ski gear than sitting before it in prayer."

Said the District Court, rejecting an Establishment Clause challenge by the Freedom From Religion Foundation, and prompting the First Things blog to say:

It’s unfortunate that current doctrine favors the trivialization of a religious symbol as evidence of its constitutionality, but that’s where we are. (Remember the candy canes and reindeer around the creche?)

Yeah, well, you know how to keep religious symbols from getting trivialized? Keep them away from the government. 

Roger Williams, “Mr. Cotton’s Letter Lately Printed, Examined and Answered” (dated 1644):

When they [the Church] have opened a gap in the hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world, God hath ever broke down the wall itself, removed the Candlestick, etc., and made His Garden a wilderness as it is this day. And that therefore if He will ever please to restore His garden and Paradise again, it must of necessity be walled in peculiarly unto Himself from the world, and all that be saved out of the world are to be transplanted out of the wilderness of the World.

But you may enjoy the wilderness, when you're out there skiing on Big Mountain and you encounter Jesus and give him a mitten or a high 5.

Purchase of the day.

Yesterday, February 7: Poulenc: Les Mamelles de Tiresias (Duval, Cluytens) / Bal Masque (Pretre) F. Poulenc (Artist) | Format: Audio CD (Earnings to the Althouse blog = $0.98) Poulenc Plaque. 

Honorable mentions: SSwix F4 Combi Brush felt/nylonby Swix (Earnings to Althouse blog = $0.98) 

Zeroll Original Ice Cream Scoop (Earnings to Althouse blog = $0.90)

13 purchases under the category "Camera" (Earnings to Althouse blog = $111.26)

And 61 other items.

Thanks for showing your appreciation for a blog called Althouse!

How I spent the winter break between semesters at the University of Wisconsin Law School.

I sat in my Freedom Chair or stood at my motorized desk in front of a wall of picture windows looking out over our snow-covered yard though which a dog occasionally bounded, and — once the blizzard came — went cross-country skiing nearly every day. I ate many delicious meals at home with my beloved husband, and watched some football games on TV. I blogged, read, graded some exams, worked on new syllabi, reorganized a couple closets, and — at long last — burned the rest of the CDs I still cared about into my iTunes.

But my colleague Nina, after going to Poland and back, went to Turkey, and here she is in Alacati attending a fish auction.

We cannot understand what they're saying or how they're bidding, but the very idea of a fish auction is, to me, unusual and therefore cool to watch. The people are keenly tuned to what's on the table.

She can't understand the Alacati fish auction, and I can't understand going to Turkey, let alone Alacati, let alone the fish auction in Alacati.

But that's the thing about the world. There are all kinds of people in it.

Skiing... today at Odana Hills...

Meade has a camera strapped to his head.

After the blizzard — a sunny Saturday.