The second edition of the game will feature all new art, as well as stunning new maps created by renowned cartographer Jared Blando. Players can choose from 11 Cultures and 6 Callings from across Middle-earth to create their Company and their journeys will see them play a crucial role in the events leading up to The War of the Ring. This edition also features a set of updated and streamlined rules, developed from years of players’ feedback and design development, and implemented by renowned designer Francesco Nepitello.

Those who have been with us since the beginning will be happy to learn that all previously released material for The One Ring will be usable with the second edition, with only minor adjustments.
— Read on www.cubicle7games.com/cubicle-7-announces-the-one-ring-second-edition/

Our standard textbooks, sadly, tell a false story. Not only do they claim “religious freedom” from the beginning of colonial settlement, but they also attempt to do so by identifying each colony as a place of refuge for a particular denomination. New England for the Puritans (Calvinists), Pennsylvania for the Quakers, Maryland for the Catholics, Virginia for the Anglicans, etc. What our textbooks fail to note, however, is that these colonies which might very well offer complete religious freedom to one denomination rarely do the same for competitor denominations. Virginia, for example, encouraged the members of the Church of England to the nth degree, but they persecuted Calvinists, Baptists, and any other dissenters. New England despised Catholics, but they hated the Baptists even more.
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/06/americas-uneven-legacy-religious-freedom-bradley-birzer.html

Two things in particular surprised me about this movie, striking me in different ways.  First, it is genuinely funny.  There were several times where I had to stop myself from laughing at the shenanigans in the film, especially when the Turtles find their way into the Batcave.  Some of the best gags from the comic make their way over to the movie (my personal favorite being Mikey’s wipe-board presentation on why Batman may and may not be a cool dude), and there are tons of little throwaway lines that have a great payoff.  Have you ever wondered why Gotham has so many blimps flying around?  Rest assured, the Turtles do too, and they find out their purpose in one of the movie’s best jokes.

Batman also has some fun in the movie, as he’s presented as terse and gruff, but not without a sense of humor.  It’s refreshing to see a Batman who isn’t a jerk and lets the sillier personalities of the Turtles win him over.  Sure, he’s not cracking wise alongside them, but he doesn’t treat them like they’re idiots for being goofballs either.  In fact, he shows each of his allies great respect in different ways, from Batgirl to Robin to each of the four Turtles.  Like I said, it’s nice to see Batman value and cherish the presence of others in his war on crime, and even more to see him relate to them on a personal level.
— Read on batman-news.com/2019/06/07/batman-vs-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-review/

THIS MONTH MOJO EMBARKS on a voyage of rediscovery among THE 50 GREATEST PINK FLOYD SONGS – a celebration of their works from Walk With Me Sydney to The Endless River and all points between. Meanwhile, we have an exclusive interview with Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets, the Floyd drummer’s unexpected live reincarnation of the Syd Barrett-era band.
— Read on www.mojo4music.com/articles/mojo-296-july-2018-pink-floyd-50

Not surprisingly, it’s beautifully written. But, more importantly, it anticipates almost every major contribution the Vatican II Council would offer with its understanding and doctrine of personalism. As such, it holds its own when compared to the works of Thomas Merton, Josef Pieper, Etienne Gilson, Jacques Maritain, Gabriel Marcel, Romano Guardini, and Max Picard, all of whom influenced Kirk mightily in the 1940s and 1950s.
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/06/russell-kirk-intelligent-citizens-guide-conservatism-bradley-birzer.html

Cicero never hid the fact that he wrote his own On the Republic in imitation of, and as a corrective of, Plato’s more famous Republic. Indeed, Cicero reveled in the idea. Yet, his own work is never slavish. In book four of Cicero’s version—of which, sadly, very little survives and much of it only in fragments quoted in other works—Cicero openly criticizes Plato for several things. Even in his criticisms, though, Cicero is playful, with the participants of the dialogue noting that Plato seems to be exempt from all wrong doing.

Not so, Cicero declares
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/06/cicero-no-slave-plato-bradley-birzer.html

Second, real law comes not from the mind of man but from the essence of creation itself. That is, man does not create law, he discovers it. It has always been there, though man has ignored, mocked, distorted, or forgotten it. And, as it is always there, it can never be destroyed, while it can always, critically, be remembered. A people might go two thousand years in ignorance (willful or not) of the true law, but the true law remains. If it fails in Troy, it can be remembered in Rome. If it fails there, it can be remembered in London. And, if it fails there, it can be remembered in Philadelphia. Truth, after all, is permanent and nothing man does can destroy it, no matter how vicious our intentions.
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/06/cicero-republic-true-law-right-reason-nature-bradley-birzer.html

As Cicero critically notes, during all of its history, Rome came about by trial and error, custom and habit, not by design. “Our commonwealth, in contrast, was not shaped by one man’s talent but by that of many; and not in one person’s lifetime, but over many generations.” Livy, later, argued the same point, but in Polybian fashion. Cicero notes that through On the Republic he hopes to “show you our commonwealth as it is born, grows up, and comes of age.” By implication, of course, Cicero anticipates the decay, corruption, middle-age, and eventual death of the republic. Unlike in the American experience, the Roman republicans could not appeal to its “founders” or its “founding” or its specific constitution. Instead, all things came into being over time and through incredibly difficult and painstaking work. America’s Republic might be a mighty fortress, but Rome’s was poetic. Only in the divine, Cicero claims, could one find an origin of Rome. The rest was, simply put, experience and tenacity.
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/05/natural-foreign-republics-rome-america-bradley-birzer.html

Tonsor adopted the fusionist project but ultimately transformed it into a civilizational mission that went far beyond American politics. He believed that the Roman and Anglo-Catholics who comprised the traditionalist wing of the post-World War II conservative movement in the U.S. represented the last hurrah of Catholic humanism in the West to that point. In previous ages, Catholic humanists had risen up to help the Church prevail against the Roman Empire, Germanic invasions, Protestant Reformation, and Modern Age. Beginning in the 1960s, as late modernity began transitioning to postmodernity, Catholic humanists were called on, once again, to fight a culture war – this time in a battle of the books that drew in positivists, Marxists, nihilists, statists, and postmodernists. When Tonsor and other Catholic humanists confronted modern and postmodern movements, they did not just reject them outright. Rather, the task was to sift and weigh and test contemporary thought for what was wheat and what was chaff. Whatever was true, good, and beautiful in modern-postmodern thought could be – should be – baptized and redeemed. 
— Read on theimaginativeconservative.org/2019/05/fusionist-mind-stephen-tonsor-gleaves-whitney.html