Eric Mendelsohn, Daniel Mendelsohn, and Jennifer Mendelsohn

Highlights from The Fray:


Don't the Mendelsohns remind you of J.D.Salinger's Glass family of precocious children?

--Patti

(To reply, click here.)

[Eagle80 was of the opinion that the Mendelsohns were in fact The Sopranos of the literati. Stacy Grover asked How did so much cleverness end up in one family? and this brought the Missing Mendelsohn brothers to The Fray: Andrew said I often wonder that myself. And you haven't even heard from the rest of us yet!
And Matthew responded:]
I have to agree with my brother Andrew. I've been feeling like Zeppo Marx all week. I think Slate should host a Breakfast Table with the forgotten Mendelsohn brothers. Jennifer, Eric and Daniel can host a discussion about gay culture while Andrew and myself discuss biotech stocks. You'll learn more with them but you'll make more with us.

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Thursday's entry: As for Jennifer and marriage, I believe she is the star of an upcoming Fox special called, Who wants to Marry A Mendelsohn? Should be good.

--Bill Watrous

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[If you want to read the marriage proposal for Jennifer (and her response) click here. Yet another member of the Mendelsohn family, Jay, entered The Fray here. Marriage proposal for Dan is here. Sorry, Eric, no proposal, but lots of Fraygrants did like your film and one of them liked your photo.

But there were also Fray readers who wanted to discuss serious issues, or at least give a short, thrilling history of religion down the ages:]

Typical drivel from the pseudo-intellectual phenoms. Here's some of my drivel. Let's see: there were 12 tribes waiting for the Messiah, He comes, they kill kill him because he wanted to give Caesar what was Caesar's, they wanted power, all he wanted was your faith and devotion to a Greater Good. The various churches spring up, (no-one mentions the Orthodox Churches and the atrocities they committed), Popes are killed, moved to France, etc., they offer forgiveness of sins for money, and kill, all for power using the popular religion of the time. Then we have Protestantism, (no one mentions the 2.5 million Catholics Cromwell killed and the killing that has gone on since then in Ireland) Let's leave for the New World, Puritan brothers, so that we the church leaders can have the power over every bit of your life (Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Al Sharpton, Pat Buchanan, et al) Oh yeah, you're a witch, die! (You also had a piece of land I wanted...)I am going to skip a century or two now... lets see Joseph Smith, ex-con, sees an angel called Baloney, no Maloney, no, Moroni... yeah that's the one. Yeah, Yeah, that's my wife...Morgan Fairchild...all 11 of them...God told me I could, I swear!

Well enough of this. People are the problem, not God, not Jesus, no matter what religion, faith, creed.

--St Pat

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Is it possible that the pope's "doctrinal rigidity" and "gestures of expansive humanity" [Monday's entry] are of a piece? As I understand John Paul II's thinking, the humanity Mendelsohn admires arises almost entirely from the pope's dogmatic beliefs about God, man's nature, and the consequent requirements for living a good life. Liberals (and I don't intend that as a lazy epithet) should consider the possibility that the "humanity" they praise must rest either on certain irreducible truths or on a collection of insubstantial, albeit attractive, sentiments.

--Michael Pollard

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Many have decried the pope's apology as a political ploy. I doubt it, if only for the reason that if it were, he would have vaguely referred to the Crusades and Inquisition as "youthful indiscretions" of a church that is now much more mature and therefore knows better as a result of the important lessons it has learned.

G Wiz

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1. Gays (yawn). How over. How '90s.
2. Catholics. "Anti-Catholicism is the anti-Semitism of the intellectual."

--P.J.O'Connell

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To P.J.O'Connell: Let's jump back in time to 1960...
Negros (yawn). How over. How 50's.
2. Jews. "Just ignore them and they'll go away."
It ain't over by a long shot!

--Dave

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I'm glad Eric Mendelsohn cleared up the confusion over Beauty and the Beast. But I'm still not sure which Psycho he had in mind. Perkins or Vaughn? Or Christian Bale? I hope he clears this up before the Breakfast Table is wiped clear of bagel crumbs, the dishes go in the dishwasher, and he goes off to film The Magnificent Mendelsohns.

And, by the way, the poet Catullus [see Wednesday's entry] was really the Matt Drudge --or maybe Fray contributor--of his times. How low can you get?

--Eagle80

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[The Catulluses of the modern age also discussed dogs, names, the Oscars, The Sopranos and many other Breakfast Table topics in The Fray this week.]

(3/17)

• Ronald Kessler: Happy 100th Birthday, FBI!
• Binder & Evans: How to Teach Evolution
• Colbert I. King: More D.C. Incompetence