Tom Faranda's Folly

Author: Tom Faranda

  • Unfortunate news about Pavarotti

    —

    by

    Tom Faranda
    in

    Luciano Pavarotti, perhaps the world’s most famous opera singer, has had surgery for pancreatic cancer. Pavarotti Battling Pancreatic Cancer The five year survival rate for this type of cancer is low. "Fortunately, the mass was able to be completely removed at surgery," the singer’s manager, Terri Robson, said in a statement from her London office.…

  • Latest Read: Modern Physics and Ancient Faith

    —

    by

    Tom Faranda
    in

    This book was published in 2003. The author is Stephen Barr, a physicist at the University of Delaware, who has written widely on the confluence of religious belief with modern scientific insights, especially from quantum mechanics and relativity theory. I finished reading this book on the fourth of July, and Barr is very good. It…

  • Evangelical magazine interviews Catholic intellectual

    —

    by

    Tom Faranda
    in

    Here is a really interesting interview with Professor Robert George of Princeton University, published in the leading evangelical magazine, Christianity Today.The Phone Book Test – Christianity Today Magazine What’s your reading of our culture right now?I’ve argued in my book The Clash of Orthodoxies that the contemporary moment is marked by profound cultural division. We…

  • The fourth of July

    —

    by

    Tom Faranda
    in

    My father spent WW II in New Guinea and the Philippines, while my uncle (at 18 years old) served on an aircraft carrier. As a bonus my Dad also got re-called for the Korean War, spending 18 months there. He didn’t see me until I was over a year old. The following was posted on…

  • Annual summer jaunt to the northern Faranda compound!

    —

    by

    Tom Faranda
    in

    At the beginning of the summer my Uncle Bud (real name Anthony, but everyone calls him Bud or Buddy) and Aunt Ardis, along with my cousin Dorothy (Dorie) and her husband Keith, throw a big bash on their property in Gaylordsville, CT. Gaylordsville is about 35 minutes north of Danbury, just off Rte 7. This…

  • Embryonic stem cell research as a dead end?

    —

    by

    Tom Faranda
    in

    Full disclosure: I am the recipient of adult stem cell therapy – having had my own stem cells returned to me after high dose chemotherapy to kill lymphma cancer cells. Tom Faranda’s Folly: Transplant went well  In fact, my disease and treatment are the prime topic of this weblog. Here’s an extremely interesting interview with…

  • Blonde joke

    —

    by

    Tom Faranda
    in

    My friend Ellen Mullin forwarded this to me: Joe  walked into a sports bar around 9:58 PM. He sat down next to a blonde, Beth, at the bar and stared up at the TV. The 10:00 PM news was coming on. The news crew was covering a story of a man on a ledge of…

  • Health update

    —

    by

    Tom Faranda
    in

    Actually gym update. I am feeling better and better in the gym. I think my cardiovascular is getting better, based on the readouts from the cardio machines (bike and ellyptical). And my arms and chest are developing really big, thick bulging muscles. Hahahahaha. The above line of course is a joke. But I am improving…

  • Joe and Tim off and running

    —

    by

    Tom Faranda
    in

    The boys started their summer programs today. Joe is in a five week program at Fordham Prep called the HAP, or High Achievement Program. I went down for the orientation this morning with him and it looks pretty interesting. In the morning they’re doing reading, math and language arts, and in the afternoon a variety…

  • 27th anniversary

    —

    by

    Tom Faranda
    in

    Brigid and I were married 27 years ago yesterday, in the town of Mandeville, Jamaica, where we both were working as teachers. By coincidence, our best man, Mick Paine (see joke just below), called yesterday just to catch up. Our whole wedding, honeymoon thing was pretty funny.  I asked Brigid to marry me right after…